Using onboard SPDIF in/out with E-MU 0404 USB

[nIGhT-SoN]

Everybody knows that E-MU has one of the worst drivers and I was thinking, since I have 4 digital connections (2in/2out Optical/Coaxial) on my interface and 2 digital connections on my motherboard (1 optical, 1 coaxial), I was thinking if it's possible to use my on board audio driver and patch to my E-MU through digital connection.

Now, my motherboard is Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3R rev1.1, it's an older PC and I've tested with ASIO4ALL and get better performance with the on-board sound chip than with the actual E-MU (with ASIO4ALL and it's own ASIO driver). On gigabyte site it says my motherboard has digital In/Out, which is perfect, but I think it's combo, meaning those connections will either be an input or an output.

I've seen there is a 3pin connection on the motherboard, as you look at the picture on the top left, red one, with SPDIF_I so it might be possible to have a separate input so I can record using E-MU's preamps. Problem is my motherboard didn't came with such bracket and couldn't find one on the internet (ebay/aliexpress).

I wonder if this will work and if it's a good idea. I haven't worked with digital connections until now so I'm a little unsure.

[planetearth]

Why do you say E-MU has the worst drivers? I haven't seen anyone else say that, and I've had no serious problems with my 0404 (PCI version).

You will have latency issues if your on-board soundcard is enabled in the BIOS (and you'd have to have it enabled for your idea of using the S/PDIF to work).

I'd suggest starting with making sure you're using the latest/final version of PatchMix and the E-MU drivers. If that doesn't help, maybe you could tell us what specific problems you're having with the interface, and we can resolve them.

Also, don't use ASIO4All; use the ASIO driver that came with your E-MU interface. ASIO4All is a wrapper--it's not true ASIO, and it's not made to be "better" than ASIO. It's really only for use if you're using an on-board soundcard (which, again, no one should be doing for multi-track digital audio on a computer).

Steve

[BertKoor]

Just read your manual, especially page 29. On the back there's only S/PDIF outputs in both optical and coax forms, but on the mobo itself there's connections available for both S/PDIF input & output. These are simply coax and the mobo pins have a standard format. Any electronics DIY store should have this type of connectors. Or get hold of an old PC and cannibalise it for two wires with at least 2 pin connectors. These are used all over for connecting anything and everything.

Connect the coax shielding to GND pin and coax core to the signal. Should work, but don't hold me accountable for frying your mobo

BTW: if you never used a solder iron, this may be a bad idea...

[nIGhT-SoN]

Why do you say E-MU has the worst drivers? I haven't seen anyone else say that, and I've had no serious problems with my 0404 (PCI version).

You will have latency issues if your on-board soundcard is enabled in the BIOS (and you'd have to have it enabled for your idea of using the S/PDIF to work).

I'd suggest starting with making sure you're using the latest/final version of PatchMix and the E-MU drivers. If that doesn't help, maybe you could tell us what specific problems you're having with the interface, and we can resolve them.

Also, don't use ASIO4All; use the ASIO driver that came with your E-MU interface. ASIO4All is a wrapper--it's not true ASIO, and it's not made to be "better" than ASIO. It's really only for use if you're using an on-board soundcard (which, again, no one should be doing for multi-track digital audio on a computer).

Steve

I'm using the latest driver, which is a beta one. But even when I was on XP (now I'm on Windows 10) I had problems with latency, you can't really set low ones on this sound interface. Mine it's the USB version, hardware wise, I was, and still am pleased with it, but since it's drivers aren't that great I'm trying to fix it somehow.

As I said, I've tried with it's own ASIO driver, I still use this one right now. Then I've tried my onboard realtek interface with ASIO4ALL and managed to get lower latency with the same cpu usage as with e-mu's own asio driver and that's how this idea came to mind.

E-MU/Creative never got their drivers right for this piece of gear. For better or worse I am happy it still works on Windows 10, but it would be sad when the time comes and these drivers won't work anymore. Hardware that actually works to stop working just because of some software, so this way I will be able to save it and still put it to good use.

For an interface with specs similar to this one you'd have to pay more than 200euros today.


@BertKoor, thanks for the tip. I'll look around.

[planetearth]

Interesting.

Well, I'm able to use ASIO on my i5-based Windows 7 (x64) with the E-MU's latency set as low as 4 milliseconds (which is 192 samples) when recording 24-bit/48 kHz. I usually don't have to raise it unless I add several synths. I can go as low as 2 mSec/96 samples if I'm just driving my hardware synths via MIDI.

How low are you able to set yours before you start having problems?

Steve

[nIGhT-SoN]

Well, for best stability I use it at 10/12/14ms and I can finish songs with this latency. If I set the latency to 4ms, with two instances of sylenth1 I get like 18-23% cpu usage. One arp with 15 voices and another one with 96voices.

[planetearth]

Well, for best stability I use it at 10/12/14ms and I can finish songs with this latency. If I set the latency to 4ms, with two instances of sylenth1 I get like 18-23% cpu usage. One arp with 15 voices and another one with 96voices.

Which CPU and how much RAM do you have?

Steve

[nIGhT-SoN]

Q6600 @ 2.4Ghz, 8GB Ram.

[planetearth]

Q6600 @ 2.4Ghz, 8GB Ram.

Then something is wrong with your setup, I think. You shouldn't have to have your ASIO set quite so high.

The Q6600 isn't Intel's latest offering, but as a quad-core processor with 8MB of Level 2 cache (and 8 GB of system RAM), you should at least get a few instances of your VST instruments and effects before you have to bump your ASIO settings.

When I was running a dual-core Athlon X2, I usually ran my ASIO at 8, 10 or 12, depending upon what I was doing. So while I can see where you might have some performance issues, I'd suggest a few things first:

• Turn off the on-board soundcard (and network interface) in the BIOS. Don't do this in Device Manager, since that doesn't release the resources those devices have already taken by the time you boot. Just try your machine with those off, as a test.

• Completely turn off/un-install anti-virus. You don't need it on a DAW, anyway, and it gets in the way of all .DLL file access.

• Turn off or disable any unnecessary Windows Services and start-up items. There are various tips scattered around the Interwebs for this. If you can't find one, let me know, and I'll send you a few.

You should really do these things anyway, regardless of which soundcard you use. But I bet if you tweak your system a bit, you'll get more out of your chip. Because from what you're telling me, your on-board soundcard won't be any faster, even if you try what you had planned. Your CPU simply isn't up to it, but we can squeeze a bit more out of it and keep you from having to deal with S/PDIF connections.

Steve

[nIGhT-SoN]

Thank you for trying to help, but drivers of this interface aren't that great, it doesn't have to do with my system. It's well known that, especially by users that own USB audio interfaces from E-MU. As I said, I've also made a comparison: E-MU interface with it's own ASIO driver and on-board sound card with ASIO4ALL (since it has no ASIO driver). The result was: with on-board sound card I get a lower cpu usage, from 5 to 10%. It's not much but seeing that I though I can use it with E-MU.

Also, E-MU 0404 USB's driver tend to get locked to the kernel when DAW crashes. For example if I use any daw, if it crashes it will remain as process in task manager until I get a blue screen. It can't be ended. My cure for that is to turn the interface off and back on. The process still remains but when system ends the process by itself I won't get a blue screen.

Anyway, it's good that it has direct monitoring so I don't have to deal with latency, only when I play keyboard and it doesn't feel that bad. Right now I'm on 6ms for better stability and I'll increase it over time when needed.

[BertKoor]

driver tend to get locked to the kernel when DAW crashes.

Sorry, but your DAW should not crash. There should be no excuse for that. Maybe some plugins are unstable. Sort that mess out and avoid using plugins that are proven to be unstable in your DAW. If it's not the plugins but the DAW itself that is unstable (which DAW is yours? ) seriously, do yourself a favour and look for another DAW. I hear nothing but good news about Reaper regarding it's stability.

[nIGhT-SoN]

Right now it doesn't crash, and usually is because of some plugins. I was just telling what happens when it crashes cause that can happen from time to time. Sometimes I test/try plugins inside Savihost and with some plugins that one crashes, until that happens I can't know so I get the same result.

[planetearth]

Thank you for trying to help, but drivers of this interface aren't that great, it doesn't have to do with my system. It's well known that, especially by users that own USB audio interfaces from E-MU. As I said, I've also made a comparison: E-MU interface with it's own ASIO driver and on-board sound card with ASIO4ALL (since it has no ASIO driver). The result was: with on-board sound card I get a lower cpu usage, from 5 to 10%. It's not much but seeing that I though I can use it with E-MU.

Also, E-MU 0404 USB's driver tend to get locked to the kernel when DAW crashes. For example if I use any daw, if it crashes it will remain as process in task manager until I get a blue screen. It can't be ended. My cure for that is to turn the interface off and back on. The process still remains but when system ends the process by itself I won't get a blue screen.

Anyway, it's good that it has direct monitoring so I don't have to deal with latency, only when I play keyboard and it doesn't feel that bad. Right now I'm on 6ms for better stability and I'll increase it over time when needed.

I appreciate what you're saying here, but all of it suggests that in fact, there are problems with your system. ASIO4All and your on-board soundcard should not be better/faster/more stable than ASIO with any USB-based soundard (under almost any circumstance), your DAW shouldn't crash too often, the USB driver shouldn't get "locked"...etc. (For reference, you can ask the ASIO users on here if they've ever had an instance where ASIO4All was better a better, permanent solution than their ASIO driver. Some people will use it for troubleshooting, but it's not meant to be a "solution".)

I would still suggest making sure the system is clean (as I've suggested above), and that you have E-MU's latest drivers. Yes, they're still "beta", and yes they're a few years old, but they did update them about 2 years ago. They're still "beta" (since E-MU will never finish them), but the drivers and PatchMix have a different date and file size from the other "beta" ones that have been on the site for a few years.

We can offer tips on how to "clean up" your system (including free utilities such as CCleaner, Glary Utilities, Revo Uninstaller, etc.) and how to fix errors in Windows that may be causing the problems you're seeing. There are many E-MU audio interface users, and most of us don't have these problems--at least, not to this degree, it seems.

Steve

[nIGhT-SoN]

Believe me, I have this interface for like 8-9 years. I've discussed this on other forums and there was a forum dedicated to this card and everyone had the same issue. This card doesn't have a Patch Mix, it has different drivers than the 0404 PCI one. Clean OS, IRQ checking to not conflict with other devices, disabling onboard sound card and everything that's not needed (serial, parallel, firewire ports), all that has been already tried. Believe me I tried everything and checked every post/thread about this card and also checked with people that have the same interface and they have the same issues.

I've learned to accept and embrace it, I've did music with it, I'm not complaining anymore about it cause can't be fixed by me. It's not an issue that only me has it, everyone with this interface has it. Maybe there are people here that have it and will confirm, also a little search on google for E-MU 0404 USB latency.

[BertKoor]

I'd advice to run both these utilities to check there aren't any issues with your system:

http://www.thesycon.de/eng/latency_check.shtml
http://www.resplendence.com/latencymon

I have this interface for like 8-9 years.

If you had put aside one dollar / euro each month since, you now would have saved enough to buy a brand new simular interface.