thanks Noel. I did switch to MME. It appears.. I'm guessing a bit that some sort of error is being caused by my samson go mic. which has a stereo output.. even though I have the output set to my realtec speakers.

I now get a message saying that ASIO drivers are in use by another program even though.. all other programs are closed. perhaps I need to change realband to mme as well. these programs often just shut off and I get the annoying messages telling me they have stopped.. thanks for your response.

Kirby