New improved laptop, ASIO not working after Cakewalk update

[Jill Pape]

I had Cakewalk working using ASIO drivers with the integrated Realtek soundcard on my old Dell inspiron laptop. I think it was also working with ASIO on my new Dell inspiron laptop, also with integrated Realtek soundcard, before the latest update, but I can't be sure because I didn't do any recording on this laptop before the update came out. After the update, first it told me there were no audio devices available when I'd open it, until I downloaded ASIO drivers directly from the Dell website. Then the devices were available but when I tried to record audio, the mouse icon continually showed as loading and nothing would record. Per someone elses issue I found on the forum, switching to WASAPI mode fixed that problem. So I have three questions:

1. Since the ASIO drivers are installed and show up as available, why are they not working when they used to work on a much poorer performing laptop with the same type of sound card and the previous Cakewalk version? Is this more likely an issue with the new update and my hardware, or settings on my new laptop I haven't figured out how to fix yet?

2. Does anyone know a way to fix this if it's my laptop? I already installed latest updates, removed smartbyte, installed latest Realtek drivers, etc.

3.  How important is getting ASIO mode to work vs sticking with WASAPI? I've read that ASIO is better but I'm not producing music professionally so will this matter to me?

Thanks for any insights!

-Jill

[reginaldStjohn]

I don't know why your ASIO driver would not work on your laptop.  I am actually surprised that there is a ASIO driver for the built in realtek chipset. Usually those just use the built in windows drivers.

As for #3. For a laptop without a dedicated external audio interface I would say that you are just fine use WASAPI.

[chuckebaby]

I read this yesterday but couldn't think of a reasonable response to add. I wasn't even sure Dell had ASIO drivers till I did some research. It appears to be for their soundblaster soundcards and/or dedicated soundcards.

Personally I would stick with WASAPI. Don't fix what isn't broken, if its working use it. ASIO will give low reported latency's but ive seen WASAPI making huge leaps in the past 2 years. Especially within Cakewalk.

The only other suggestion I can give is...Buy a dedicated USB Interface/soundcard. They are far more reliable and universal than an onboard soundcard. It would help if we knew what you were trying to record (Audio, Midi, Both )?

You can buy a new or used Focusrite interface for around 100 bucks. Considering what you probably paid for this laptop, that's a pee in a pot (nothing). Ive always been baffled by someone buying an expensive PC to use for digital audio but forget the most important part... The soundcard. Its like having a body with no arms. Not to say this is you, im just making comparisons like I typically do.

[Jill Pape]

Thank you! Maybe the ASIO setting working on the old laptop was a fluke, it was definitely not a high end laptop and neither is this one. I'm basically just experimenting, trying to record some of compositions from my Ensoniq TS12 keyboard via audio and MIDI because I found out about Cakewalk being free and got a cheap midi-usb cable.  Maybe I'll try recording some live instruments or playing with some soft synths too, but the primary purpose for any of it is my own entertainment. If I ever need to do anything more than playing around I'll definitely look into better hardware. Just thought the change in performance of the program was odd and curious if there was an obvious fix I was missing, it doesn't sound worth my time to fiddle around any more. I appreciate the feedback!

-Jill

[abacab]

I would say that audio playback should work fine with Cakewalk using the on-board RealTek audio. WASAPI should be fine for this, especially if you are running Windows 10.

Alternatively,  there is "asio4all". I use it for soft synth and audio playback with RealTek audio on my laptop, just for playing around, with no issues whatsoever. Disclaimer: I would not use asio4all if I had any other ASIO drivers or pro audio interfaces installed on my machine, as it has been known to conflict with them. http://www.asio4all.org/

So if you are only recording MIDI from the external keyboard, that should be fine as well, as that only uses MIDI drivers, not audio drivers, if you are not actually recording audio via an external input.

But if you actually intend to record audio via the laptop line/mic input, you might have issues recording audio from an instrument, and I would have to agree with Chuck E.

 

[l00stick]

Hello

On my side i use a behringer UCA202 (cheap external USB soundcard) and ASIO4ALL drivers (v2.14).

Note that with UCA202 came with free softwares... interesting for the price (about 23€), download them from Behringer website. 

When using Cakewalk i have issues with may Realtek that was taking the ASIO, so i decided that when using Cakewalk with ASIO i deactivate the Realtek so that ASIO drivers has the only choice of UCA202 and this works well and it is stable.

[abacab]

2 hours ago, l00stick said:

Hello

On my side i use a behringer UCA202 (cheap external USB soundcard) and ASIO4ALL drivers (v2.14).

Note that with UCA202 came with free softwares... interesting for the price (about 23€), download them from Behringer website. 

When using Cakewalk i have issues with may Realtek that was taking the ASIO, so i decided that when using Cakewalk with ASIO i deactivate the Realtek so that ASIO drivers has the only choice of UCA202 and this works well and it is stable.

I never understood why Behringer referred customers to ASIO4ALL for some of their devices, rather than releasing dedicated ASIO drivers for them. Because it is not really ASIO, just a wrapper around the Windows audio drivers. I guess it's a price point thingy, but still...

[mettelus]

Realtek has released an ASIO driver, but I have never seen it function, so would recommend ignoring that one. The Realtek is adequate for audio playback, but not audio recording. I am pretty sure that is still 16-bit only, so you could also be seeing bit depth/bit rate issues trying to record with it (the options it has internally via Windows are pretty limited).

After updates, Windows could potentially assign the default sound device to something that doesn't actually work (like an HDMI monitor), so start with Windows sound settings (in 1903 there is an extra step getting into that via a link in the upper right of the sound page).