Trying to find a soundcard that supports ASIO and is affordable - please help!

[ulrichburke]

Dear Anyone.

For starters, I don't know what I'm talking about - only what the problem IS! And please - if there's a low budget alternative, suggest it - am not rich here! Anyway.

I'm using a notation music program to write music called Dorico. And if it's up and running, I can't hear anything else - it takes over the sound system totally. Which means I can't follow the YouTube tutorials because I can't hear what they're saying! I've discovered a setting that lets you hear YouTube with Dorico minimised but that's not that helpful - you're having to pause YouTube, re-enlarge Dorico, try the little bit out, minimise Dorico..... You can't just keep Dorico on the screen and do what the YouTube guy's telling you about!

So for starters - is that to do with ASIO? I'm using ASIO4ALL and only get this prob. when that's running and it's only running when I'm using Dorico. If you THINK it's to do with ASIO, would a soundcard supporting ASIO solve the problem, as in make it so I can hear websites with Dorico on the screen at the same time? Is there a Windows 10 setting that would get around the problem?

I don't really understand ASIO, I know it stands for Audio Stream Input/Output and is proprietary to Steinberg but that's about it. If possible, I'm happy with the built-in High Definition Audio Codec on my motherboard - I just want to be able to hear YouTube as well as Dorico (or other sites as well as Dorico, you get the idea!)

So if there's a Win10 setting, that's awesome. If there's a cheap trick gadget that'll do, that's awesome too, I don't mind YouTube sounding tinny as long as Dorico sounds OK and I can hear them both at once. IF I have to buy an internal soundcard, that's fair enough, but am on a pretty tight budget here so reconditioned/lower end's fine as long as it's the same quality as Windows High Definition Audio Codec at least! I'd love to spend £3-400 on a soundcard that does everything - wish I had that kinda dosh! But I'm willing to spend up to about £100 or so TBH. Or save up to spend more if necessary, but if there's a way to keep things going and hear both windows and Dorico at once.... I know it's POSSIBLE because my old music software let me hear everything fine - it's just I had to replace it cos it was 32-bit. This either/or problem, is it just a 64-bit problem or a Steinberg problem?


Yours hopefully

Chris.

 

[maverickronin]

I think the cheapest solution is just to buy a super cheap USB thumbdrive size dac. Set it as your default sound device so YT will play over in through your browser, plug in some headphones, and listen to it one sided DJ style, while ASIO4ALL uses the internal card.

Next step up is probably USB audio interface that supports shared ASIO, but you might have to dig through reviews to make sure a given interface will behave the way you need it to.

 

[Blumlein 88]

Well the purpose of ASIO is to give a device control of sound and bypass some things in the Windows OS sound stack, and prevent other devices from interrupting. So you don't want to use ASIO for your purposes. You should be able to use other parts of the built in Windows Sound and let more than one device play sound. Windows MME or DirectSound should let more than one device play over your sound system.

Not being familiar with the Dorico I can't give more specific advice.


Oh, and welcome to ASR as it looks like your first post.

 

[Dunring]

On Creative labs site they have a refurbished section with a Sound blaster AE-5 for $79 with no tax and free shipping. It has an ASIO driver and it's a great sound card in direct mode for music. If you have a pci slot free, those can go in any of them, not just the short ones. They also come with a 90 day warranty since they've been certified.

 

[BeerBear]

So for starters - is that to do with ASIO? I'm using ASIO4ALL...

It's more to do with Asio4all. The vast majority of ASIO drivers, those provided by the manufacturer, don't have this problem.
Asio4all is not a real ASIO driver, it's WDM/KS pretending to be an ASIO driver.
Anyway... solutions:

1. If you don't need low latency, switch to some other audio output in Dorico, if possible (WASAPI shared, MME, DirectSound...). I'm not familiar with that software, so I don't know what it supports.
2. If you do need low latency, see if Dorico supports WASAPI Low Latency (aka Windows Audio Low Latency). It probably doesn't, but it's worth a try. (This is not to be confused with WASAPI Exclusive, which is a different mode and has the same problem as Asio4all.)
3. If you need low latency and/or an ASIO driver, you'll almost certainly just need to buy a dedicated sound card. For example the Behringer UMCxxxHD series come to mind and they have decent drivers (the UMC204HD is the best value, IMO). You can probably go cheaper, especially with something like a second hand internal Sound Blaster, but I can't guarantee that those drivers are good (I just don't know, honestly).
4. A Realtek ASIO driver exists and it would probably work with your current motherboard audio. But when I last tried it (years ago), it was junk. If you feel like experimenting, you can give it a try, but don't expect much.

Well the purpose of ASIO is to give a device control of sound and bypass some things in the Windows OS sound stack, and prevent other devices from interrupting.

Again, no. That's an Asio4all limitation and it's not typical of ASIO drivers in general.
A typical ASIO driver has no problem playing other Windows sounds at the same time, but usually the sample rate (in Windows sound settings) needs to be the same.

 

[KSTR]

ASIO drivers for soundcards are often capable of supporting multi clients (programs) and just sum up the output from all streams playing. But everything must happen at the same sample rate.

For tasks like you have in mind I simply use the on-board laptop speakers for general Windows sound output (including browser watching youtube) while my audio interface (with ASIO) exclusively receives the stream of my main application (DAW, mixing/editing programs, etc). Even when the ASIO driver will not handle multiple clients you still can do so and keep everything running.

A cheap interface with ASIO sure would be the way for either way, e.g. from Topping (their driver is multi-client).

 

[bennetng]

Being the first ASR member to mention "multiclient ASIO", I have to emphasize that a fully multiclient implementation means the ability to record and playback in more than one software running in ASIO, in a manufacturer-provided kernel mode driver.

Search results for query: multiclient asio

www.audiosciencereview.com

What is fully multiclient:

Audio Interfaces with fully multi-client drivers - Gearspace.com

As part of a software project I need to compile a list of audio interfaces that have multi-client drivers, i.e. that can simultaneously accept audio fr

gearspace.com

The meaning of kernel mode and user mode:

ASIO, WASAPI, Direct Sound... is there any difference in sound quality?

I registered just to weigh in on this one.. ASIO (using ASIO4All) sounds completely different than WASAPI and DirectSound. In my experience this is regardless of what hardware you’re using, and it’s easy to test for yourself. Don’t even bother trying to find ASIO drivers, just use ASIO4All as it...

www.audiosciencereview.com

Official info from Steinberg, they never claim ASIO is exclusive:

foobar playback interrupted by system sound

Uh oh. I can believe that a misconfiguration or other driver incompatibilities can cause audible issues. ASIO4ALL is after all a third party utility that is useful but has various issues.

www.audiosciencereview.com

This is important as the audiophile crowd invaded the studio equipment market and attempted to remove an important ASIO feature for their peace of mind about "unadulterated" playback.

 

[digitallysane]

I don't really understand ASIO, I know it stands for Audio Stream Input/Output and is proprietary to Steinberg but that's about it. If possible, I'm happy with the built-in High Definition Audio Codec on my motherboard - I just want to be able to hear YouTube as well as Dorico (or other sites as well as Dorico, you get the idea!)

So if there's a Win10 setting, that's awesome. If there's a cheap trick gadget that'll do, that's awesome too, I don't mind YouTube sounding tinny as long as Dorico sounds OK and I can hear them both at once. IF I have to buy an internal soundcard, that's fair enough, but am on a pretty tight budget here so reconditioned/lower end's fine as long as it's the same quality as Windows High Definition Audio Codec at least!

You can get good USB audio cards with ASIO drivers for under 100. One of those is actually made by Steinberg themselves (the Steinberg UR12).

 

[BeerBear]

But everything must happen at the same sample rate.

That's required almost always, yes. But I'm pretty sure RME also lets you use different sample rates. They're an exception, though.

One of those is actually made by Steinberg themselves (the Steinberg UR12).

I don't recommend the Steinbergs, because (according to that GearSpace thread above), they're not ASIO multi-client. So you can use them to play ASIO along with Youtube in a browser, but you can't play from two apps that use ASIO at the same time. The Behringer that I mentioned lets you do that, meaning that it's fully ASIO multi-client. Like many others in the similar category, it uses the Thesycon driver, which enables that. (Even Topping uses Thesycon, I think.)

 

[Zoomer]

Have you tried the Dorico forum and/or Steinberg support?
I'd be very surprised if you need extra hardware to achieve what you're trying to do, sounds like a pretty straightforward usage case.

Can't "Allow ASIO host application to take exclusive control of selected port configuration"

I’ve built a new PC that uses the on-board sound chip (Realtek HD Audio), just like my old PC. However, when I try to allow the Generic Low Latency driver to share the sound chip so other apps can play sound while Dorico is running, the following happens: Most of the time, other apps will...

forums.steinberg.net

 

[ZolaIII]

What are you feeding the signal to (unbalanced, balanced, optical, HDMI and how much of these you would like)?
Doesn't that software what you are using have the exclusive use switch (to turn it off)?
If you can plug the HDMI to TV and switch system to that device (it will be enough for Youtube tutorials where you need mostly only to hear vocals even with dreadful speakers). You probably can also stream them to a TV from the mob.
Creative ASIO driver's are catastrophic regarding reproduction but work properly regarding capture (it whose always like that).
You need to get your self together and figure out what you really need (otherwise no one can help you).

 

[digitallysane]

but you can't play from two apps that use ASIO at the same time

YouTube doesn't use ASIO.

 

[BeerBear]

But one day OP might want to use something else, which does use ASIO. It's not unrealistic to imagine that, seeing how he's already using music making software. So it's better to have that ability than not.

 

[Audiofire]

So for starters - is that to do with ASIO? I'm using ASIO4ALL and only get this prob. when that's running and it's only running when I'm using Dorico.

It is likely because the ASIO driver used does not support Windows sound. RME is known for having some of the best ASIO drivers in the music industry. The manual for RME Babyface Pro FS says the following.

"RME audio interfaces support multi-client operation. Several programs can be used at the same time. The formats ASIO and WDM can even be used on the same playback channels simultaneously. As WDM uses a real-time sample rate conversion (ASIO does not), all active ASIO software has to use the same sample rate."

If you really care about sound quality and even recording music sometimes, I would say that can be achieved with RME Digiface USB or RME Babyface Pro FS (different I/O options for different purposes). Creative Sound Blaster Z SE also has an ASIO driver, but I haven't tried that one.

 

[Vincent Kars]

I'm using ASIO4ALL

Why?
Dorico= Steinberg and they invented ASIO. Not to be mistaken for ASIO4ALL, a wrapper doing kernel streaming.
ASIO4ALL (like ASIO) most of the time locks a device exclusively hence no other sources will play.
Check if you can select another driver in Dorico.

 

[robob3ar]

Dear Anyone.

For starters, I don't know what I'm talking about - only what the problem IS! And please - if there's a low budget alternative, suggest it - am not rich here! Anyway.

I'm using a notation music program to write music called Dorico. And if it's up and running, I can't hear anything else - it takes over the sound system totally. Which means I can't follow the YouTube tutorials because I can't hear what they're saying! I've discovered a setting that lets you hear YouTube with Dorico minimised but that's not that helpful - you're having to pause YouTube, re-enlarge Dorico, try the little bit out, minimise Dorico..... You can't just keep Dorico on the screen and do what the YouTube guy's telling you about!

So for starters - is that to do with ASIO? I'm using ASIO4ALL and only get this prob. when that's running and it's only running when I'm using Dorico. If you THINK it's to do with ASIO, would a soundcard supporting ASIO solve the problem, as in make it so I can hear websites with Dorico on the screen at the same time? Is there a Windows 10 setting that would get around the problem?

I don't really understand ASIO, I know it stands for Audio Stream Input/Output and is proprietary to Steinberg but that's about it. If possible, I'm happy with the built-in High Definition Audio Codec on my motherboard - I just want to be able to hear YouTube as well as Dorico (or other sites as well as Dorico, you get the idea!)

So if there's a Win10 setting, that's awesome. If there's a cheap trick gadget that'll do, that's awesome too, I don't mind YouTube sounding tinny as long as Dorico sounds OK and I can hear them both at once. IF I have to buy an internal soundcard, that's fair enough, but am on a pretty tight budget here so reconditioned/lower end's fine as long as it's the same quality as Windows High Definition Audio Codec at least! I'd love to spend £3-400 on a soundcard that does everything - wish I had that kinda dosh! But I'm willing to spend up to about £100 or so TBH. Or save up to spend more if necessary, but if there's a way to keep things going and hear both windows and Dorico at once.... I know it's POSSIBLE because my old music software let me hear everything fine - it's just I had to replace it cos it was 32-bit. This either/or problem, is it just a 64-bit problem or a Steinberg problem?


Yours hopefully

Chris.

this seems to be pretty common issue, what I found is that asio runs at 41000 hz and windows at 48000, go into sound settings and change to 41000 or 48000

..go to control panel (windows button type control pane), hardware and sound, sound / find the device that's making the default, click go advanced and change to either of the values ..
Why they do this all the time, don't know.. this happens on every other software, the input is either 41000 or 48000 .. yeah, just adds to the confusion, and I actually never read any explanations, just figured out accidentaly..

 

[Graham849]

Stop.
Not sure if you solved your problem. Think outside the box.
But why not watch the YouTubes on a phone or tablet?