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Is it possible to mix without audio interface but from laptop headphones?


Marcello

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7 minutes ago, John Vere said:

On my tests WASAPI EXCLUSIVE was only 13ms RTL on a Real Tech card on 3 different machines. I mostly use Shard for the reasons you stated, but Shared is more like 21ms RTL. 

Mine says 85.3 msec with WASAPI Shared and it sounds very late to me. And the Exclusive one is not working at all. Again I say, I have never get trouble with FL Studio ASIO. It is ASIO but ASIO with no problem 😄

 

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Generic ASIO "drivers", FL Studio included are not true drivers, they are wrappers for WDM drivers.

Generic ASIO drivers have been known to interfere with manufacturer supplied ASIO drivers. This make them a poor choice when swapping between  interfaces where some have factory supplied ASIO drivers and some don't.

When using the internal sound chip and running Win10 the WASAPI modes are preferred, otherwise WDM is the best choice. 

Regardless, during playback, latency is not the issue it is when recording and monitoring through the DAW.

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5 minutes ago, scook said:

When using the internal sound chip and running Win10 the WASAPI modes are preferred, otherwise WDM is the best choice. 

Definitely. After this talk I checked it again. The long latency only happens on the external sound card. Now I am trying it on the onboard Audio Device,

It says the same latency, but the latency is not the same. It is very short.

image.png.a37241555ec0258254d5c9baf0013b20.png

 

Edit: 

I changed and rechanged the driver mode. Now I see the real latency.

image.png.56984afc658ac2732e583900186ddc03.png

 

Edited by murat k.
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There's a big difference when using WASAPI modes with on board and using them with an ASIO interface. The performance is surprisingly real good with on board sound but terrible if you try and use them with a proper audio interface, This is the heart of why I made the 2 videos. During my tests for making this video, I stumbled across the performance difference and investigated it further. A lot of new people to Cakewalk don't have audio interfaces but have trouble just getting sound from On Board. 

 

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There are instances where interface manufacturers don't bother with optimizing performance with anything other than the ASIO driver they supply.

The built-in sound chip is an exception. The ASIO driver for it is not very good but a lot of work has gone into getting decent playback with the Windows driver.

And a lot of work has gone in to CbB to support more than just ASIO.

 

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This is weird as obviously Windows sound can change it's mind. I had tested on this machine a few times and the results were always the same, Now I'm getting this even lower RTL with WASAPI shared. I work on this machine a lot, it is my office computer and in a nice sunny room compared to the dudgeon my studio is in. I test new VST downloads and software on it as well as dig though old projects to see what I have. I also do all my video editing here. I used to have my Focusrite 6i6 hooked up but now I just use the on Board because it works great. This works very well as a Studio B and the only thing that actually cost any money in the $200 Mackie powered monitors. 

1551189732_Screenshot(63).png.71855ef3b6982699d1f3a61e7ff7ceb4.png 

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2 hours ago, Marcello said:

I have some powerful marshall headphones paid 100 euros, I also have the audio interface of course but sometimes I don't want to bring it around and I would like to work on my mix (already recorded) directly with headphones.

The queestion isn't related to how powerful your headphones are.

Many "better" quality headphones are a higher Ohm and need more juice than a phone/computer pre-amp is going to supply.  Thus the need for an external pre-amp to drive the headphones to make them sound like they were designed to.  If your headphones are over 32 Ohms you would benefit from a headphone amp.  Even 32 can usually benefit from them.

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By the way I thought I should share this, after this all talk we did, I decided to use WASAPI Shared from now on. I changed the setup on my computer. But my god that 10ms is not short enough. Because I remembered that I use FL Studio ASIO with 5ms latency all the time. And if you got used to 5ms latency, 10ms feels very long. So, still I say FL Studio ASIO works best with the Cakewalk. There are great ASIO drivers out there, but it's power is you can play audio from any application when the Cakewalk is running. Also you can change the Audio device easily as well when you choose Default Audio Device from the ASIO settings.

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WASAPI shared latency is set by the OS.

WASAPI exclusive and WDM have adjust latency settings.

Generic ASIO drivers exist because some programs do not support Windows native drivers. Sometimes they work OK other times not.

Because they work with anything that has a WDM driver they compete with manufacturer supplied ASIO. This is a problem. 

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18 minutes ago, scook said:

WASAPI shared latency is set by the OS.

WASAPI exclusive and WDM have adjust latency settings.

Generic ASIO drivers exist because some programs do not support Windows native drivers. Sometimes they work OK other times not.

Because they work with anything that has a WDM driver they compete with manufacturer supplied ASIO. This is a problem. 

Right but WASAPI Exclusive mode is Exclusive, you cannot play audio from different sources when the Cakewalk is running. But if I had a sound card with multi input, I'd connect a different sound device and hear the audio from all sources with WASAPI Exclusive mode with the Cakewalk. With my device setup, I mean no multi input, that FL Studio ASIO way works much better.

Edited by murat k.
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The subject of this thread is "Is it possible to mix without audio interface but from laptop headphones?"

Generally mixing does not involve playing audio from different sources. The audio is already recorded in the DAW and the DAW is the only thing being used during mixing.

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Like I said, now a 2 page thread that only needed one answer "yes"  But once again it brings up a topic that many are still confused by.  

And as I also said RTL doesn't come into play unless your recording overdubs and using real time effects like a Guitar Sim. So therefor one should not even be hearing latency if all they are doing is editing.

If you are recording with on board audio, you need to perform a loopback test and adjust your timing offset. 

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For years in the early 2000s i recorded on a tascam device them mixed the wave files with cakewalk. It worked well.

At one point i got a usb line 6 single channel interface and that helped.

But the question was can you mix without an interface. The answer is yes.

The switch to recording with cakewalk was actually very hard for me. Drop outs are upsetting.

Once i got that sorted out, recording with the computer has made life nicer.

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