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?

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Last edited by oggy; 10/26/13 11:40 AM.
Everything Pak 2013 for Windows. w/16-pak add ons.
Jazz Guitar Masterclass
Instruments: Guitar and Piano
B.A. music from HSU 2001
M-Audio Keystation 49 USB MIDI controller
Dell Latitude E6500 4GB RAM Windows 7 32bit
ASIO4ALL
Coyote WaveTable