KVR Audio

Giova84 · Post by **Giova84** » Thu Nov 05, 2015 11:33 pm

Hi,

I'm back, just for fun (and also for practicality), to enjoy VSTi instruments with an old laptop, a Sony Vaio from 2006 (HW specs: Celeron 370 M @ 1.50 Ghz - 1GB PC2700 DDR RAM - 60 GB HDD - Intel 915 graphic - Windows XP SP3 optimized - I got rid of graphic effects, superfluous services and so on).
The current (integrated) sound card is a simple Realtek HD, so I have to use ASIO4ALL to get an acceptable latency (7.2 ms - 288 samples), but often I get - very shorts and barely perceptible, however - audio stuttering (eg in a setup on Cubase SX 3, which consists in just two VSTi: a drum - Tromine GT -, and a guitar - RealLPC, some equalizers and an amp/cabinet VST - Freeamp 3.)

I can reduce the stuttering by increasing the dimension of the buffer in the ASIO4ALL control panel, but in this way I will also increase the latency, and I won't renounce to have a low latency.
So I was thinking to implement a better sound card, an Echo Indigo DJ (which should be the same as Echo Indigo IO, except for the extra output jack). Here: http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/apr04/a ... indigo.htm there is a review and I can read that this card was tested on a Laptop with the following specs:

Millennium Centrino laptop with Pentium-M 1.4GHz CPU, Intel 855PM 'Odem' chip set, 512MB PC266 SO-DIMM RAM, running Windows XP with Service Pack 1.

(my Laptop has a better hardware setup).

and then

the ASIO drivers performed right down to their lowest 3ms latency setting with no sign of audio glitching

I've found the Echo Indigo DJ for a good price: would be a good choice or is just a waste of money?

Kind regards.

BertKoor · Post by **BertKoor** » Fri Nov 06, 2015 8:29 am

You did your homework, it looks alright indeed...

Giova84 · Post by **Giova84** » Fri Nov 06, 2015 2:12 pm

So you mean that a better sound card would do a better job, particularly in terms of reducing the audio stuttering and glitches?

Kind regards.

ere2learn · Post by **ere2learn** » Fri Nov 06, 2015 2:16 pm

Would the audio glitching be more the cpu under pressure,more than an audio card

Giova84 · Post by **Giova84** » Fri Nov 06, 2015 4:07 pm

ere2learn wrote:Would the audio glitching be more the cpu under pressure,more than an audio card

Just for the record: I installed an external USB sound card (a Roland UA-100, this one http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/feb00/a ... dua100.htm)

Still using ASIO4ALL (frame buffer @ 144 samples, latency about 3 ms) the setup is more stable than before. Maybe a PCMCIA soundcard would more stable? (I guess that PCMCIA is more stable and fast compared to the USB connection.)

Kind regards.

Kaine · Post by **Kaine** » Fri Nov 06, 2015 4:22 pm

A soundcard with dedicated drivers will improve your performance over ASIO4ALL. I see the UA100 lost support before Win XP, but you "should" be able to force it to accept the "Win ME" drivers, if your lucky.

Otherwise you might just be hitting the CPU too hard, but I'm sure you can check for that in task manager with ease.

Giova84 · Post by **Giova84** » Fri Nov 06, 2015 5:00 pm

Currently, the last support for UA-100 is also available for XP - as you can see on the official website of Roland - but UA100's drivers works very poorly (and I can get a minimum latency of 13 ms.. Too much. And I can still hear glitches); all, instead, is almost fine using ASIO4ALL with UA-100, except for a pair of issues: when I move windows inside cubase I can hear scratches in the audio stream, and the MIDI is slightly recorded too early: i guess that is due the poor performance of the USB connection; so, would be a better choice the Echo Indigo, since is PCMCIA?

fluffy_little_something · Sat Nov 14, 2015 4:36 pm

I am thinking of building myself a new computer and am surprised to read here that your Realtek sound chip even worked with ASIO at all. Their latest chip, the ALC 1150, is said to be pretty good, on-board sound has come a long way. But it doesn't say anything about ASIO in the specs...

murnau · Post by **murnau** » Sat Nov 14, 2015 4:53 pm

fluffy_little_something wrote:I am thinking of building myself a new computer and am surprised to read here that your Realtek sound chip even worked with ASIO at all. Their latest chip, the ALC 1150, is said to be pretty good, on-board sound has come a long way. But it doesn't say anything about ASIO in the specs...

That's why he use ASIO4ALL..

I think for VST you don't need a new soundcard but a faster CPU or more RAM. If you would record audio that would be another thing but not for playing back a VST inside a box.

fluffy_little_something · Sat Nov 14, 2015 4:57 pm

Well, ASIO4ALL didn't even work well with my dedicated Asus sound card, when I tried to replace its buggy driver with ASIO4ALL. So it's interesting to see that it works with a mere Realtek chip

murnau · Post by **murnau** » Sat Nov 14, 2015 5:05 pm

fluffy_little_something wrote:Well, ASIO4ALL didn't even work well with my dedicated Asus sound card, when I tried to replace its buggy driver with ASIO4ALL. So it's interesting to see that it works with a mere Realtek chip

That isn't a surprise really since it was created for exactly that and not to replace buggy asio drivers like in your case.

Improve an old laptop for music with a better sound card