ASIO question for Mixcraft 3.0

EL34 · Post by **EL34** » Tue May 09, 2006 8:49 am

I'm not a real techie on what ASIO is or isn't so bear with me.

I have some Guitar Emulation software that I use called Guitar rig.

The guitar is plugged into an external pre amp then fed into my soundcard line in. Guitar rig routes that line in signal and uses that signal to create the emulation sounds.

Guitar rig uses ASIO drivers and I get about 2ms latency using ASIO.

I route guitar rig out to wav output to be able to amplify it and hear it through my soundcard line out/amplifier/speakers/headphones.

When I record/overdub guitar rig in mixcraft I also hear the backing track because mixcraft is not able to grab the guitar rig signal direct through ASIO? The GR signal and mixcraft playback signals are all mixed together on the sound card wav out mixer channel even though overdub is checked.

The way I get around this is two sound cards. I route the playback through one card and Guitar rig is played through the other sound card. This solves the problem of re-recording the backing track, but I have two amps and two external speaker sets to be able to do this.
I like to record//overdub/listen to the playback on a speaker system way better than listening to the mix on headphones.

In mixcraft 3 I should be able to record guitar rig direct through ASIO, correct? Mixcraft will play back the mix on my soundcard wav out channel and grab the Guitar rig signal via ASIO direct? Is this correct?

Post by **Acoustica Greg** » Tue May 09, 2006 1:18 pm

Hi EL34,

I talked it over with Acoustica's resident ASIO expert and his conclusion was that ASIO will not save you. You may need a hardware solution. ASIO doesn't allow two programs to use the same device at the same time. Basically, what ASIO gives you is that nice low latency.

You could get a hardware mixer so that you could mix the outputs of the two soundcards and have them come out the same speakers. Those Behringer Euroracks are pretty inexpensive.

Otherwise, you could drop a big chunk of change and get a soundcard with multiple inputs and outputs, like PreSonus Firepod, an M-Audio device, or any number of professional multitrack devices that are on the market.

Greg

EL34 · Post by **EL34** » Tue May 09, 2006 3:12 pm

Well alrighty then.

Anyway, I still like you guys.

Post by **Acoustica Greg** » Tue May 09, 2006 6:43 pm

Low latency is your friend.

EL34 · Post by **EL34** » Wed May 10, 2006 9:45 am

Yes it is.

Like I said above, I get 2ms latency when choosing the Creative ASIO driver in Guitar rig.

I also have a M-audio firewire solo external card with ASIO drivers. Guitar rig does not sound as good when I choose the M-audio ASIO driver in GR.

Not sure how your ASIO use is going to work, trying to figure it all out at this point. ASIO drivers usually come with a piece of hardware but I did find a generic ASIO driver on the web called ASIOForAll when I was testing the free version of Guitar Rig. Then I went and bought a better soundcard that had ASIO capabilities once I purchased GR.

Since you guys are going to ASIO, will there be a Acoustica ASIO driver?

Post by **Acoustica Greg** » Wed May 10, 2006 1:20 pm

No, we'll just be using the ASIO drivers that your sound device installs.

So... if there are no ASIO drivers installed on the computer, no ASIO.

EL34 · Post by **EL34** » Wed May 10, 2006 2:08 pm

Got cha,
I have three sets of ASIO drivers to choose from on my rig.
1 x Creative Analog and 2 x M-Audio, Analog and SPDIF

Post by **Acoustica Greg** » Wed May 10, 2006 2:24 pm

Oooh, so we should have a way to pick your fave ASIO drivers, shouldn't we.

EL34 · Post by **EL34** » Wed May 10, 2006 5:54 pm

Yes, I have a choice in Guitar rig, a drop down menu lets me pick which of the 3 ASIO drivers I want to use.

So you will need to have the same thing.