Just a quick question: This new Microsoft driver that I've been reading so much about, that's available for use in BiaB 2018 -- WAS -- does Win7 use this driver, or is it something that comes with Win10? I'm still happily cruising along with Win7, but when I upgrade to 2018, I'll probably want to use that driver.

Hi
I think you will find these windows drivers have been around for a while .
Some of my windows 7 applications can use them, it depends more if the app can support them.
They are known better as WASAPI and are low latency.
You do not have to use them even in windows 10 you can still use mime (or asio if they are up to date for W10) I think you will find.
Mike
PS
Having said that I have not had any success using WAS from BIAB in my W7 build
But that I think this is down to my AKAI audio interface preferring its dedicated ASIO driver.

I can use WAS on my Win7 computer as long as I use the onboard sound card; if I try to use the USB external M-Audio FastTrack Pro, it doesn't work, and I have to use ASIO instead. So it really depends on the audio device you are using, but it does work on Windows 7, 8, and 10. I don't think Windows 7 originally had it, but as long as you are up to date with the latest patches, it should be there.

WASAPI goes all the way back to Windows Vista.

WASAPI in the form of the BIAB WAS driver comes for the first time with BIAB 2018. If you have good performance with MME or ASIO, you really don't need to use WAS. I recommend you try all three and see how it performs.

When I’m playing piano using midi, I still find ASIO with jBridge to work best.....although I sure wish Windows would develop something like Core Audio/midi to take the guesswork out of the equation. The lowest latency I’ve ever seen is 3ms round trip using RME interfaces, even Thunderbolt interfaces don’t do that well....USB2 provides plenty of bandwidth, but if you’re using a garden variety consumer interface (Roland/M Audio Focusrite, etc) you won’t get great performance.....I’ve had them all, even apogee, and RME is just stellar.....

Thanks for all the responses, guys. It's good news that, when I update to BiaB 2018 I can use WAS if I choose.

Right now the only external MIDI device I'm using is my Casio digital piano. But I have others that I just haven't found which boxes they're in yet. I have a Roland JV1010 synth and a Roland GR-33 guitar synthesizer, plus I also have an Alesis audio interface and a Scarlett 2i4 interface. I got the Alesis, and then the Scarlett because I think it's a better unit, mostly for my iPad and my laptop. As for my DAW, I probably won't be using either of the latter two interfaces with it. But the two Rolands and the Casio, you bet. So if WAS will be problematic with them, I guess I won't have much use for it.

Recently I've been running my DAW using the MME driver. I'm not sure why, but I'm getting lots of Rice Crispies (you know -- snap, crackle, pop) when I use ASIO. I find this frustrating and once I get my setup set up so I can run my guitar into the mix, I'm gonna have to get to the bottom of this problem, because I'm gonna need the ultra low latency I get with ASIO and my Delta 66 card. I think that, with MME active, my latency is running right at 100ms at the moment. That kind of latency is not just a pain when trying to play along, it's also a pain when doing stuff like editing a track. When I move or change a note, I have to wait around for what seems like an age for the sound to make it out of the mix. It's worth noting that I'm getting Rice Crispies only with BiaB. Not a problem with Sonar or Studio One. Frustrating.

So hopefully WAS will be a viable solution -- when I finally upgrade to BiaB 2018.

I was wondering about my external soundcard, which is a fairly old SoundBlaster Model SB1240. I used this because the onboard Toshiba Satellite Pro laptop soundcard did not have a good enough sound several years back.

I am using Windows 10 these days and thought to use WAS but so far have been unsuccessful. Am I correct in thinking my external soundcard will not allow this?

Rice Krispie noises? Check yoursoundcard speed see thread -
http://www.pgmusic.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Main=65882&Number=444035#Post444035

My old soundcard Creative Audigy doesn't work well with WASAPI so personally I'll continue to use MME.

Cheers and Happy New Year.
Ian

For rice crispie noises, check sample rates. Also try the free utility DPC Latency Checker. While your DAW sounds OK, your DAW likely does not stress the CPU like BIAB does.

I've been down this "cure for Rice Crispies" road before with BiaB. But it seems like the problem doesn't stay fixed. Originally upping my buffers to 1024 took care of it. That's what I'm running now. I suspect that being forced to run my sound card at 44.1k instead of 96k might have something to do with it. I know it affects latency.

I've also found that booting Windows Task Manager and removing everything that isn't needed for the task at hand helps. BiaB doesn't have a resource monitor the way RB, Sonar, Studio One, and others have, so I can't really say how much it's eating up of my CPU's resources. Oh. Wait. I can use Windows Task Manager. Yeah. That'll be interesting to watch when I'm poking around in BiaB.

I'm in the process of doing mixdowns for some songs I wrote, so it isn't a big issue yet. But when it comes time to save my songs as WAV files, well, that's when I'll need to take care of this problem.