PG Music Home Forums PG Music Product Forums Band-in-a-Box for Windows ASIO4All Glitches?

I'm experiencing unpredictable results from my audio drivers and need some advice. PG tech service has gotten me this far but they predicted problems. I think I'm puzzled by the fundamentals of this topic and am hindered by a simplistic view of digital audio. I do want to understand what is happening as much as I want it to work. I'm an electrician and am familiar with wire run lists and schematics but everything about this topic seems to be explained with pages of text. An animated .gif loop would probably explain it better to me.
I have this USB soundbar connected to a usb hub. The sound quality is an improvement over the laptop's speakers but it has no 1/8'' plug. The hub's power save settings have been disabled and the whole laptop is optimized for performance. I have a usb midi controller M-audio 49 keystudio connected to the hub also. This setup has allowed me to enter melody notes with the midi keyboard but with irregular success.
One of the unpredictable symptoms is all the WDM devices will be unavailable sometimes when I reopen BB. Closing all other applications doesn't fix this but restarting BB will sometimes fix it. OR if they are available they will be idle. Or they are available but they will be off. But I haven't made any settings changes. Then the midi keyboard will not send data until I play a song. Then the midi keyboard will play the thru patch sound but I haven't changed any settings. And notice that 2 ASIO4all buttons are in the lower bar. Only one will open...and even though the soundbar is checked unavailable it will sometimes still play sound but the keyboard still won't send data.



A recommendation might be to purchase an audio interface but I'm not recording any audio so why would I need such an interface? I've taken the usb soundbar out of the picture and still experienced the same problems with the laptop speakers. I'm only entering midi data with the controller and the ASIO4All was a latency solution. I already have this little usb micro audio interface that came with the keyboard but it's only a 1/8'' instrument jack and a headphone jack...neither being used so I don't have that plugged in although the driver is installed. I see myself buying a Focusrite audio interface and then leaving it disconnected since I'm not recording audio and having the same problem. Notice that I downloaded the driver for a Focusrite product to see if I could use it as an ASIO alternative. That didn't work because it needs to find the input and output channels...which I would not be using even if I owned the product.

Questions:

1) How is my audio output and usb midi controller related to a third party audio interface for XLR and 1/4'' cables with an exclusive ASIO driver?
2) Do I have to have a Focusrite product plugged in even if I'm not using it to record audio?
3) Does the audio output port have to be exclusive to the product that supplied the ASIO driver?

I would first examine your power settings in the Windows Device Manager, and make sure each USB port is Always On.

See over in your ASIO Audoe Drivers window where it says,

"ASIO Always On" ?


Try UNchecking that so that other programs you may have open can use the ASIO too.


--Mac

OK.... so....

(This is my opinion, and it has worked wonderfully for me)

You want to ditch the ASIO4ALL and stop trying to use a factory sound card (built in) if you are really serious about making music.

You really should not use a USB hub for any of the music connections to the various devices. Put your printers and mouse and other things on the hub but allow your music stuff to have dedicated USB ports. Using a hub is forcing all the devices on it to share the bandwidth of one USB port, and while that may work ok for office devices, it doesn't work well for musical interfaces and things that need the full attention of that port and it's total bandwidth to operate fully.

Look around and select a dedicated musical interface which uses USB as it's connection to the computer, and be sure it has real ASIO drivers, and of course the number of inputs and outputs you need.... most have a minimum of 2 channels in and at least stereo out. More is better but the cost goes up accordingly. Also, having phantom power and nice audio preamps such as my Focusrite Saffire has is important.... very important too if you will be using decent condenser mics.

Yes, you will want to have the interface connected all the time when you are working on music in BB, RB, and especially if you are using 3rd party DAWs such as Sonar or some other brand. I say that and it's generally true but I have often worked on my Dell lappy using it's internal soundcard and MME driver while composing and writing songs in BB. I never use the factory card for my Sonar software because it doesn't work well. I still have and use the lappy but I also have a custom built DAW which only uses the focusrite for all sound.

The interface will have it's own software control panel and will use ASIO drivers and all your connections, inputs for 1/4" guitar inputs and XLR cables will be on the interface. The interface will generally have one or two headphone outs and line level outputs which can be connected to self powered studio reference speakers or some other sort of amp/speaker combo for monitoring and recording.

I think I answered all of the questions you posed.

Buying an interface is one of the best things you can do for your music.

I did uncheck that "ASIO always on" box without much success. And the USB ports/hubs are always on and the keyboard and bb are plugged directly to the laptop. All the audio and data drops and program crashes were unpredictable and I kept going in circles to fix the problem. Just now I tried to open it and none of the WDM devices were on so there was no audio. I rebooted the program and they still weren't on. I went to the audio drivers and no output ports were available. I clicked on ASIO4All until my laptop speakers (not the soundbar) showed up. I chose them and tried to apply the change and the program crashed.

Yes, a usb interface is in my future. I'm looking at a focusrite 2i2 scarlett as a start as My aspirations are modest. I figured I would learn the limitations of my current set up and I've learned them. I didn't think this MIDI controller would complicate things so much but it's equipped for easy implementation with pro tools...not BB. When is PGMusic going to start offering proprietary midi keyboards?

So I'll need the audio interface plugged in and that will mean some studio monitors or headphones. There is no way to reliably record even midi data without another usb interface connected because the audio output port is so important?

No doubt the ASIO4All is glitchy. Sometimes it works, sometimes I have to reboot. and sometimes rebooting shuts down the WDM. It eventually works but is not reliable on my particular equipment.

This M-Audio adapter came with the keyboard and I went ahead and connected it and it did make the audio output more reliable through the headphones. There are still some glitches with preview sound of the keyboard patches but the program doesn't crash now. It will have to work until I buy a more advanced audio interface.

Your last two posts describe a situation that leads me to suspect the Drivers in use for your current sound device.

There may be a driver update released for that device, worth hitting the mfr's support website to see, and if the drivers listed there for your OS are a different version than the ones you are currently running, worth a download and install to see if performance does improve. Driver update is reversible, so worth trying.

"Drivers, Drivers, Drivers..." (Bill Rule's rule, from somewhere around '98, still lives on.)


--Mac

I plenty of times just use the laptop internal sound card. HD audio is as good as I can hear.

Here's a little info, ASIO4ALL is a wrapper around WDM/KS. It presents to the audio application and ASIO device. It presents to the audio device WDM/KS. It can do this because it takes "Exclusive Control" of the WDM/KS device. Not sharing means it doesn't have to do as much work. Applications like BIAB only need to code to ASIO since ASIO4ALL exists.

Here's an example to understand MME. First go into BIAB and pick the MME driver. Make sure it's working with your standard HD sound card with the BIAB play button.

Now in BIAB -> Opt -> Preferences down by the OK key pick "Allow multiple instances of Band-in-a-Box to be running". Exit, then start BIAB. Now start another BAIB. You should have two up on the screen. Click the Play button in either or both and you'll hear either or both at the same time.

I actually have a use for this. One BIAB can be fading out while the next one starts. DJ mode"

MME can do this because it does lots of buffering. Terrible latency. And it will start glitching if you try to send to much to the MME driver from several applications.

Now go into one of those BIAB instances and set it to ASIO4ALL pointing to the same audio device. For example if the MME is pointing to HD Audio, set ASIO4ALL to point to the same HD Audio device.

Note you should only ever bring up the ASIO4ALL control panel from the "ASIO Driver's Control Panel" button inside BIAB. Same for any application using ASIO4ALL. For some reason ASIO4ALL let's you install a standalone control panel - but as the instructions say "It's worthless". The application, like BIAB, are going to control the ASIO part - and override anything you do in the standalone ASIO4ALL control panel. I only note this because you're screen shots show the ASIO4ALL control panel the the BIAB menus to navigate to it are not showing. I'd recommend re-installing ASIO4ALL and don't pick to install the standalone control panel.

Back to BIAB
Now you got one BIAB set to ASIO4ALL, and another set to MME. Start one BIAB it should have audio. Stop it, start the other and it too should have audio. Try to start both and Only one will play at a time. The reason is ASIO4ALL needs exclusive control of the WDM/KS device.

This is true for any ASIO device, even ones with their own drivers. Only one application at a time through the particular ASIO device.

The good thing is BIAB is good about only taking control of the ASIO only when it needs it. Like when you hit play. You can have to BIAB started, both pointing to the same ASIO, and as long as you play only one at a time it will behave well.

Other applications don't behave so well. When they grab the WDM/KS device they don't release it. Closing the application window may not close all parts of the app that started and it hangs onto the port. Other application may be coax to be nice by going to the control panel -> Sound -> Pick the device -> Properties -> Advanced and uncheck "Allow applications to tkae exclusive control of this device". Now the other apps may be nicer and disconnect from the device when they're not playing audio, but don't count on it. And as noted in the above with ASIO4ALL turned on, it itself is not going to run audio unless it get's exclusive control.

I can use this though to run an Ableton Live and BIAB at the same time using the same ASIO4ALL and audio device. BIAB only takes the ASIO when it's playing. And Ableton can be told to release the ASIO by clicking on the CPU Load Meter box, with the % on it. With Ableton audio engine off BIAB can play, with Ablton audio engine on, BIAB won't interfere unless I play a song.

Hint here, with MidiOx I can set the same Midi keyboard to "Y" it's connection to both.

I'll note I also have Sonar also and it has built in WDM/KS support. No ASIO is needed for low latency. Same problem though either Sonar or BAIB w/ASIO4ALL can have the WDM/KS. I have to stop the Sonar audio engine (the sinewave button) to use the same device with ASIO4ALL with BIAB.


If you have multiple AUDIO devices with WDM/KS you can run multiple ASIO4ALL from different apps, each sending to it's own device. In this case a small external mixer can be used to combine audio at a very simple level.

You can do the same with multiple interfaces that have ASIO.

One thing ASIO4ALL can do over regular ASIO drivers is combine all the WDM/KS into one big ASIO interface. If you have a 2 channel eternal audio interface, and want to record from it and your PC line in at the same time in the same DAW. ASIO4ALL can wrap the external WDM/KS device drivers, and the internal PC sound card into one big interface. Nice when/if you need it.

Hope this helps. I should go wire up some "220, 221, whatever it takes" to make my PC faster.