PG Music Home Forums General Discussion Woodshedding - Learning to Play! Pro tools audiophile 2496

I tried to install this sound card to use with pro audio and it wouldn't work . At the time i had windows xp .Now i have installed windows 7 and have band in the box 2014 .Did anybody else here have problems with this sound card and if you did can you tell me if you ever got the sound card to work with band in the box .Your advice and help would be greatly appreciated

Rob !

I used an Audiophile card with Band in a Box, Powertracks, RealBand and Protools lite for years on an XP machine. No problems when installed properly with correct drivers.

Plenty of other users of that card and also the multitrack M-Audio cards as well with these programs, using the Delta Control Panel and Drivers.

What's your exact problem?


A step-by-step as to what you've tried, where it stops or otherwise doesn't work, might help solve it for you.


--Mac

FWIW, here is the driver page for the whole M-Audio Delta series, which includes the Audiophile 2496: http://www.m-audio.com/index.php?do=support.drivers&f=1225

I assume the OP has tried this driver, but perhaps not, hence the link.

I have a couple of different sound cards installed in my computer, including the 2496 Audiophile, and they were wonderfully with all the PG Music programs I have installed. They work just fine, so let's review possible solutions.

1. Shut down your computer, unplug everything, open the computer up, remove the card, and reseat it, and then screw it in.

2. Open the control panel and remove any and all drivers for M-Audio Audiophile. They probably will be listed as M-Audio Delta something or other.

3. This particular driver that Scott listed is the latest driver, 6.0.8.exe It doesn't seem to care if you have a 32 bit or 64 bit system, so after removing the old driver, and restarting your computer (restart the computer to clear out any stuff that is still resident in memory) install the new driver. Restart the computer.

4. Connect the break out cable to the card, and plug in your audio inputs and audio outputs. If you are using digital ins and outs, use the two black cables on the breakout cable, one for the S/PDIF IN and one for S/PDIF Out. If you are using Analog, use the four connectors on the card to send in your audio and send out the audio.

5. At the bottom right of your screen, click on the little arrow that shows the Hidden Icons, and then click the M-Audio icon, the red circle with the right white arrow. This brings up the Control Panel for the 2496.

6. Click on the Hardware Tab. Under Sample Rate, set the sample rate to 44100Hz and the ASIO/WDM buffer to 256. These should be the default settings. Verify that the Sync Source is Internal if you are using Analog Inputs, or External if you are using a Digital to Analog Converter and sending data via S/PDIF. Either way, the Green Locked light should show. Leave the S/PDIF Settings and Other Settings alone, they should default.

7. Click on the Mixer tab. Check the Master faders are all the way up, if you are using Analog inputs, check that the 1/2 In are all the way up. If you are using S/PDIF, make sure the S/PDIF sliders are all the way. Make sure the SW1/2 Rtn sliders are all the way, and leave the S/PDIF Return sliders all the way down.

8. Close the Delta Control Panel.

9. At the bottom right hand of your screen, there is the speaker icon. RIGHT CLICK this and select Recording Devices. You should see Line 1/2. Highlight that and make sure it has a check mark for the Default recording device. If not, press the Set Default Button.

10. At the top of the Sound box, click the Playback tab.

11. Select the Line 1/2 and like the Line 1/2 for recording, make sure that it's set as the default device.

12 Close the sound box, and open Band In A Box.

13. Click on the Opt. button, and select MIDI/Audio Driver Setup.

14. At the bottom of that box on the right side, press the Audio Settings button. That opens the Audio Settings dialog box.

15. At the top right, it says Audio Driver type. In the first drop down underneath that heading, select ASIO. The ASIO Audio drivers setting dialog opens. At the top, there will be a box that says Select One ASIO driver. Select the M-Audio Delta ASIO

16. Below that, there will be two boxes, one says Input Port, the other sayd Output Port. If you are using Analog, Select the Analog In and Analog Out under head heading. If you are using S/PDIF, select the S/PDIF IN and S/PDIF OUT under each heading.

17. Press OK to get out of all the boxes. (Total 3 OKs to press)

18 You should now be able to test and see that everything functions correctly.

PLEASE FOLLOW ALL of the steps outlined here. My personal opinion is that your card isn't seated properly, and you've having trouble because of that, but this way, we go through everything and see what happens.

Gary

Hey man thanks ! I will be changing the card today and will tell you all about it . So nice you took the time to answer Rob !

I will be out and about for most of the day, but expect to be home by five-ish PDT, so I'll look then to see what, if any progress you've made and we can go from there.

Gary

How are you Gary i want to thank you man for your instructions on installing the card . Very help indeed ! I will be installing the card tomorrow. I will be asking your lots of questions if it doesn't work lol but i think i will . again thanks Rob !

No problems sir, that's what I'm here for, once again.

Gary

How are you Gary. Well the card is onboard and working well . It didn;t crash yet but it when well before but this time i am hopeful all is well .I followed your instructions to the letter so that is why it is successful . Gary before i installed the card i could go on youtube and play a karaoke version of a song and record with real band and get myself playing behind the karaoke version . Now i just get me playing the guitar on real band and it doesn't pick up the audio from youtube . Is there a setting i need to adjust to pick my guitar and the youtube audio .like it did before with the old card ! Hoping to hear from you and Gary thanks man for you help so far .(I KNOW A LITTLE ) rOB !

Rob,
Let me guess, before you had some sort of Creative Labs card? You were probably recording with the 'What You Hear' setting. The M-Audio 2496 does not have this feature, but that doesn't mean you can't do it, it just takes a little bit more gear.

There are a couple of different ways to do this.

1. You can rip the audio from YouTube, save it as a wave file, and then insert it into RealBand, and play along, and record with it that way. Technically, that's a violation of a copyright, so I'm not going to tell you HOW to rip the audio, but Google might have a solution, if you search.

2. Secondly, do you have a mixer? If not, then how do you get your guitar playing into the M-Audio? I recommend using a mixer. My favorite recommendation is the Behringer UB802 mixer, as shown here. I've had one of these for years, and while I have a Yamaha mixer in my setup now, the Behringer does duty at work for me, and it soldiers on very nicely.
Now, providing your you're using the analog input and outputs of the M-Audio 2496, I'll show you how to set this up with your card, and what else you can do with it.

A. Set the mixer up and turn everything down. If you're using a DI box for your guitar, or out of an effects unit like a Pod 6, connect the outputs of whatever device you're using to Input 3, and if it's stereo, inputs 3 and 4. You want to leave Inputs 1 and 2 open for microphones, if you do vocals. If, for some reason, you're going directly out of the guitar into the mixer, use Input 1 or 2, but while it may work, I don't recommend it.

B. I assume that you have a PC computer running Windows 7. I will also assume that your computer has a built in soundcard, in addition to the M-Audio. We'll use that card for system sounds and the YouTube output. You will need a 3.5mm to two 1/4" TS Mono Y-Cable, like this one. If you did have, and still have, a Creative Labs card, AND if you have the slot to install it, I would use that over the built in audio chip. In fact, in addition to my 2496, I also have an Asus Xonar installed in my computer, and that feeds a stereo 7.1 surround sound receiver, and that's what I use for my system sounds. But, it's a $200 audio card, and I don't recommend it for this application.

C. Plug the 'Y-Cable' into the Speaker Output of your ON-BOARD audio output, or if you have connected another audio card, from the output of that, and then plug it into Inputs 5 and 6 on the mixer.

D. Now, using good interconnects, something that's built well connect the INPUT of the M-Audio 2496 to the Tape OUT of the mixer. Using another set of the same kind of interconnects, connect the OUTPUT of the M-Aduio 2496 to the Tape IN of the mixer.

This is your basic connection scheme.

In Windows, and again, I'm assuming Windows 7. I do no have the experience with Windows 8 or 8.1 to tell you how to set the internal audio mixer up. At the bottom right hand corner of your screen, there is a speaker icon to control the Windows Audio Mixer. RIGHT CLICK that and select Playback Devices. Select your ON BOARD Audio device as your DEFAULT playback device. If you have a Creative Card that you've installed, select that instead. Now, all of your Windows sounds, Browser audio (i.e., YouTube) and such will go out the On-Board device, and into Inputs 5/6 of the Behringer. Turn up the Level on the Behringer to '0', or about half way up. I don't know about the new ones, I think there's a small detent there to tell you when you've gotten to zero.

Okay, now, here's the next thing. What kind of speakers do you have for recording and monitoring with? What were you listening before with your old card with? For my setup, I use the KRK Rokit RP-5s. I have a Generation 1 set, and a Generation 2 set. This is the Generation 3 speaker. They are $150 a piece, you'll need two, if you don't have anything else, but they are well worth the money, and they sound GREAT!. Now, of course, if you already have a set of studio monitors, you won't need them, but if you don't, I really recommend you get a set of something. If those are too expensive for you, you might try a less expensive solution.

Anyway, plug the Monitors into the Control Room Outputs (so that you can control the volume of them). If you don't have the monitors, but a halfway decent set of computer speakers, you can plug them into the headphone output until you can afford the monitors. You can also use a good set of headphones, as well.

Of course, all of this is presumption, since I don't know what you have, and if you list what you do have, I'll give you pointers on that, too.

Okay, now, recording with the set up I've given you so far.

1. In RealBank, and I assume that you know how to set RealBand up to use the 2496, and select the input device for each track and stuff, select a track and arm it for recording.
2. Set the Main Mix Out on the Behringer to give you a comfortable level to RealBand. In other words, we don't want the highest sound blasting the VU Meters into the red! The absolute loudest passage should go about halfway into the red. In fact, on the new Real Band VU meter, I would say that you shouldn't go into the red at all, since the red begins at -3dBFS.
As part of setting this, you may also need to set the mixer in Windows itself, since you will be using that to control the audio output volume of your browser's audio. You'll also need to open the M-Audio Delta control panel and make sure that the 1/2 Input levels are turned all the way up.
3. Now, set the Channel 3/4 Input gain to a level that is comfortable for your guitar playing, and matches the level of the browser output. You may need to adjust the 5/6 input levels to help match.
4. When you get all the levels set, go ahead and start your Real Band recording, and then begin the playback of your YouTube video. At this point, you should be recording the YouTube and your guitar.

Personally, I would do it this way, though.

I would turn down the Input 3/4 to the lowest setting, infinity, and record the YouTube audio track to a stereo track in RealBand. Record the whole song.
Then, close your browser. Turn Input 5/6 to the lowest setting, infinity, and turn Inputs 3/4 back up.
Now, push the button that says Tape In to Control Room.
Arm another, different track, in RealBand.
Press the Record button in RealBand. The recorded audio from your browser will begin to play back, and you will hear it through either your headphones, studio monitors, or computer speakers connected to the Behringer mixer.
Begin playing your guitar.
You will now record a second track that is JUST guitar. You will have two stereo tracks, one for the audio from the browser, one for the guitar. You can mix them down to a single track and have both together.
This is the way that most people will record in a two track setup, which is what this is. They record one stereo track at a time. The nice feature about this is that not only can your record ONE guitar track, you can record MULTIPLE guitar tracks, so if you want to play harmony with yourself, you can.

In fact, with Band In A Box 2014, you won't need to record from YouTube because you will use BIAB to lay down all of your backing tracks, and import them into Real Band. From there, you'll be able to record, one, two, or even five guitar tracks of your own playing.

James Morrison has one of them most visual examples of this ability. A 17 piece band, played by one man . . . and a drummer. James Morrison and Jeff Hamilton, and Mr. Morrison plays EVERY instrument except the drums.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpiCEVHtHXM

This is one of the absolute best examples of 'multi-tracking' I've ever seen. Now, aside from the cute video effects, like sitting there, and looking at a blank space next to you, and smiling at yourself even though you aren't there, which IS pretty good, this shows you what you can do with one guitar and Band in a Box. Plus, if you have multiple guitars, you can play each one of them on your own track.

Points to look out for.
You will have multiple mixers and volume controls you need to adjust.
The Windows mixer. It controls the Windows Sounds, which you should shut down the system sounds, as well as the output of the browser.
The Delta Control Panel Mixer.
YouTube Volume Control.
Behringer Mixer Volume Controls
Real Band Volume Controls.

Everything needs to be set properly.

If you don't have a mixer, and buy the Behringer, make sure the connections are correct, and the Tape In to Control Room IS pushed, but the Tape In to MIX is NOT pushed.

If you have, or purchase studio monitors, and then plan on recording with Microphones, turn OFF the monitors, or disconnect them from the Mixer, since they will echo through the mic. Use headphones instead.

If you have multiple hard drives, and I mean PHYSICAL hard drives, not a single hard drive that is partitioned into two drive letters, use the NON-SYSTEM drive for audio storage. It makes it easier and less susceptible to audio drop outs.

Turn off the Windows System Sounds.

Okay, this is the BASIC setup. If you'll give me more information on the gear that you have, I'll do the research on that, and tell you how to set that stuff up.

If you have any questions, let me know, and I'll answer them to the best of my ability.

Gary

O

Did I scare you?

G

No man you sure know your stuff indeed . I have printed all your suggestions and will have to take time to absord them lol . The card still works get and i will let you know how it goes okay Gary Thanks man ( i know a little ) ROB !