New install driver question

[kurt]

My setup is the Bandcamp Cakewalk on Win 10 , I was happy to get rid of X2 and I hope this product thrives, it looks great.   My interface is an old Focusrite Saffire USB 6 which is only USB 1.1 but it works.   

That said I usually record at 24-bit 44100K and can do so with the WDM driver.  If I try to use the ASIO driver I get an error and must bump up from 41 to 48K.

Both sound fine  but I am wondering why I need to record at 48K when using  ASIO and why I would use ASIO anyway.

 

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[CJ Jacobson]

21 hours ago, kurt said:

Both sound fine  but I am wondering why I need to record at 48K when using  ASIO and why I would use ASIO anyway.

Correct, there are no sound quality differences between ASIO and WDM driver modes. You just use the one that gives you better performance, ass far as your PC and DAW goes.

The only reason i can think of is because ASIO driver that was written was not coded for 44.1kHz maybe. Or maybe you have share drivers with others selected and it needs to be set at 48kHz so other programs can use it as well.

CJ

[John Vere]

If your planning on doing any serious audio recording ASIO is the only stable and time corrected mode to use. All other driver modes do not compensate correctly for sync.  You will need to perform a loopback test , see how far out of sync your overdubbed tracks are and use Manual offset to correct the timing. ASIO is the only driver that reports round trip latency correctly and accurately to Cakewalk.

Your audio interface is long overdue for an update if it is not supported by your OS.  The audio interface is the most important piece of hardware in a DAW set up.

Here's a list I made of things to think about when shopping for one.

http://www.cactusmusic.ca/Recording.htm#AI Shopping List  

 

[Bill Ruys]

On 3/28/2019 at 2:00 PM, kurt said:

Both sound fine  but I am wondering why I need to record at 48K when using  ASIO and why I would use ASIO anyway.

My guess is that you are using your Focusrite as your default Windows audio playback device.  I suspect that Windows has set the sample rate to 48K via the WDM driver and therefore, when Sonar tries to change the sample rate to via the ASIO driver 44.1, it can't, as Windows has exclusive access via WDM.

The work-around might be to use your computer's onboard audio as the Windows default audio device, then the Focusright will not be set to 48K by Windows.  It sounds like Windows and Sonar are fighting over the sample rate.

[CJ Jacobson]

8 hours ago, Bill Ruys said:

Both sound fine  but I am wondering why I need to record at 48K when using  ASIO and why I would use ASIO anyway.

You do not need to record at any sample rate. You can and should chose any sample rate you like, as long as your sound card supports it.

You use any driver mode that works best for your specific PC and DAW.  All driver modes (ASIO/WDM)are written differently, depending on the sound card's manufacturer.

So you try ALL driver modes supported (except MME, that just for on board sound chips) and see what works best for you and your PC. What works best for me, will no be best for you.

[John Vere]

Any driver mode will work for playback and for the first pass of a live recording, but as I said, only ASIO will sync overdubs correctly. Overdubbing audio requires the audio driver to calculate the offset needed to put the track in time with the original material.

[razor7music]

Hmm, 'Bandcamp'. Kind of like that.

[John Vere]

https://bandcamp.com/

Bandcamp is a music site sort of like Sound Cloud. Easy to get confused.