the Echo soundard thread

[jens]

O.k. - this thread is for the eXT users who have an Echo soundcard.

I. as well as others, have big problems when using eXT and an Echo soundcard together.
I assume it must be the Echo's driver's fault, as eXT otherwise works flawlessly.

Thus I am going to ask the Echo-people for support.
But in order to provide them with as much info as possible I started this thread.


So if you are using an Echo soundcard please answer in this thread the following questions:




1. Which Echo soundcard do you have?

2.Which driver version are you using?

3. What OS(es) are you running?

4. What are your system specs?

5. Do you encounter any problems when using your Echo soundcard with eXT?
- If 'yes' please specify your problems.

6. Do you encounter similar problems with other sequencers?

7. Do you have any other soundcards?
- If 'yes' which one?
- if 'yes' do you have similar problems with these other soundcards?

8. How does your Echo soundcard work when using the generic asio4all-driver instead of the original Echo driver within eXT?

9. Does it make any significant difference when you change the output(s) you use to Purewave?




b.t.w.: are there any important questions I haven't mentioned? - if so I still could add them.

[nutsadamus]

No problem here with the Echo Mia (non midi version)
Win XP Sp 1, latest echo drivers, 512 buffer.
P4 1.8 Oc'ed to 2.4, 1 gig pc2700, 32 meg agp Nvidia MX,DirectX 9, WD Caviar 120gig, the typical Win XP tweaks.

What issues are you having? I havn't used the audio side of things much in Ext, mostly sequencing soft synths and the Mia's been fine.

[sluggo]

1. echo mia
2. latest driver (6.08?)
3. winxp
4. P4, 1gb ram, nvidia geforce video
5. zipper noises and stutters when moving windows and sometimes a beeping noise (demo beep that shouldn't be there?)
6. no
7. no
8. haven't tried it yet

[ik_ik_ik]

Lucky me, I have two systems with Echo cards and problems. Here's 1 of 2...

1. Echo Mia.

2. 6.08.

3. Win2K (all updates and service packs). Problems previously on same system with Win98SE.

4. PIII 1GHz 512Mb Asus CUSL2 Mainboard. Mia on high-priority PCI Slot with dedicated IRQ. Matrox G400 on AGP. Win2K HAL installed as Standard PC. Well optimised system.

5. Yes, glitching and stuttering when moving/opening windows, in particular dragging, resizing or scrolling operations. Similar issues when using other functions or applications simultaneously e.g. Explorer windows to locate sample files, browser to read documentation. This is at any latency/buffer size (generally I work at a reasonable 512Kb buffer size).

6. As a rule, no - Logic 5.5.1, Console 1.2, etc.

7. Echo Indigo - same problems to be detailed in next posting. Laptop internal Crystal soundcard - no similar problems via ASIO4ALL.

8. Far better. Latency down to 256Kb with far less problems. Can go down to 128Kb but less stable.

Cheers,

Inigo

[ik_ik_ik]

Here's 2 of 2...

1. Echo Indigo.

2. 6.10.

3. WinXP (all updates and service packs).

4. Samsung X10 1600II (1.6Ghz) Centrino laptop - 512Mb, Nvidia GeForce 440Go 64Mb (dedicated), Ricoh PCMCIA chipset. Well optimised system. Generally system is foced to maximum performance via Speedswitch XP.

5. Yes, severe glitching and stuttering when moving/opening windows, in particular dragging, resizing or scrolling operations. Similar issues when using other functions or applications simultaneously e.g. Explorer windows to locate sample files, browser to read documentation. This is at any latency/buffer size (generally I work at a reasonable 512Kb buffer size).

6. As a rule, no - Logic 5.5.1, Console 1.2, etc.

7. Echo Mia - same problems, as detailed in previous posting. Laptop internal Crystal/AC97 soundcard - no similar problems via ASIO4ALL.

8. Far better. Latency down to 256Kb with much less problems. Can go down to 128Kb or even 64Kb but less stable.

Have a well documented history regards this system on these threads...

http://www.kvr-vst.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=41532

http://www.kvr-vst.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=37735

Cheers,

Inigo

[jens]

thanks for your help, guys

as a bump I now give my own answers:


1. Echo Mia

2. 6.08

3. WinXP (with all updates)

4. AMD XP2600 (Barton), MSI KT3V mobo, 768mb ram,
two 7200rpm harddisks, Geforce FX5200

5. Yes, severe glitching and stuttering when moving/opening windows, in particular dragging, resizing or scrolling operations. Similar issues when using other functions or applications simultaneously e.g. Explorer windows to locate sample files, browser to read documentation. This is at any latency/buffer size though it gets slightly better when using higher buffer sizes (generally I work at a reasonable 512Kb buffer size). As soon as some background activities are running (mail-program etc.) it gets even worse although there are enough CPU resources left.
Sometimes when the sequencer is running and I am tweaking a vst/vsti the playback stops as soon as I am moving a knob/fader - With some vsts it is much worse than with others. (e.g. with Nonlinear it is terrible.)

[thanks, ik_ik_ik - I only had to copy and paste your text ]


6. No

7. Yes - Emu APS: no problems when using the original (Creative) drivers, no problems when using the kx-drivers.

8. No similar problems.

9. No

Any further eXT users who own a soundcard of the Echo-range?

[Shane Sanders]

1. Which Echo soundcard do you have?

Echo Indigo i/o

2.Which driver version are you using?

6.10

3. What OS(es) are you running?

Win XP Home Edition

4. What are your system specs?

Sager laptop
Pentium 4
2.4 GHz
1 Gig RAM


5. Do you encounter any problems when using your Echo soundcard with eXT?
- If 'yes' please specify your problems.

Yes. Crackling and stuttering at all latency settings within FL Studio.

6. Do you encounter similar problems with other sequencers?

Less problems in Sonar; no apparent problems in Orion Platinum.

7. Do you have any other soundcards?
- If 'yes' which one?
- if 'yes' do you have similar problems with these other soundcards?

Currently, I have not tested on other soundcards.

8. How does your Echo soundcard work when using the generic asio4all-driver instead of the original Echo driver within eXT?

Same problems regardless of driver.

[wallyton]

1. Which Echo soundcard do you have?

Indigo

2.Which driver version are you using?

6.10

3. What OS(es) are you running?

XP Home, usual audio performance optimisations

4. What are your system specs?

Pentium Celeron 2.8G
512M Ram
40G HDD (4200)

5. Do you encounter any problems when using your Echo soundcard with eXT?
- If 'yes' please specify your problems.

Very spluttery & crackly even with only one or two loops loaded, even with 1024 + buffering

6. Do you encounter similar problems with other sequencers?

No, I'm a bit of a newbie, but have a few tracks in CMuzys, and latency and crackles are (usually) OK

7. Do you have any other soundcards?
- If 'yes' which one?
- if 'yes' do you have similar problems with these other soundcards?

Just the Default AC'97 card, haven't tested energyXT with it.

8. How does your Echo soundcard work when using the generic asio4all-driver instead of the original Echo driver within eXT?

I'm just starting to try and get to grips with energyXT, but at the moment, if I select ASIO4ALL it activates the AC'97, so to date have only tested the Indigo with it's own driver.

hope this helps...

Wally.

[japut_99]

I'm interested in this thread because I'm demoing ext and being the owner of mia. I've noticed most of you are xp/2000 users. In your echo console view what is your purewave buffer set for? I have alleviated some of my problems by playing with this buffer in the advanced section of the echo console(no it's not the asio buffer of the host). I hadn't realized that in NT you have two buffers to set independantly.

[jens]

I'm interested in this thread because I'm demoing ext and being the owner of mia. I've noticed most of you are xp/2000 users. In your echo console view what is your purewave buffer set for? I have alleviated some of my problems by playing with this buffer in the advanced section of the echo console(no it's not the asio buffer of the host). I hadn't realized that in NT you have two buffers to set independantly.

it's either Asio or Purewave - I tried both with no significant differences - anyway: let's add this new question:

9. Does it make any significant difference when you change the output(s) you use to Purewave?





b.t.w.:

Please let's only consider the standalone-version of
eXT for not complicating things to much.

Shane, could you please modify your answers?
(I hope I'm not asking too much)

[japut_99]

Jens purewave runs independantly(gd spelling) of asio. Don't think so...call them both up and change at will.

[jens]

Jens purewave runs independantly(gd spelling) of asio. Don't think so...call them both up and change at will.

one specific output (e.g. 1+2) is either asio or purewave - please refer to the driver's pdf for more information

[jens]

having thought about it for a second (and a third) time it seems above post of mine perhaps was a bit arrogant and lacking knowledge

Actually I thought 'WDM' means Asio for applications like eXT or kernel-streaming for e.g. Sonar and 'Pure Wave' means some sort of kernel-streaming which is provided by the driver itself mainly for applications which are neither asio-compatible nor providing kernel-streaming but maybe I am wrong

[japut_99]

I have almost the same system(msi kt6v, barton 2800, mia) and I get a little better performance if I adjust the purewave buffer per host. I kind of shut up after the last post because I had just started demoing ext last night...so what do I know? I'm sure I'm not using the same techniques so it's different for everyone but I do notice different performance depending on some vga settings (fast write, not needed) and pci latency settings. Just thought that this is a commonly not thought of aspect of the echo console. Try forcing the mia card from a pci latency of 192 to something more conservative like 128 or 64. You will need some third party utilily for this but they are found elsewhere. I'll see if I can get a link.

Edit Just checked and saw that we do in fact have different southbridges so most surely check that pci bus.....................

[KLG]

1. Echo Mia Midi
2. 6.08
3. WinXP
4. AMD, 1Gig ram
5. Glitching and stuttering when track count is higher than 2 or 3, even under high latency setting
6. No, the driver works fine in SONAR and FLS
7. No
8. All the problems solved after switching to ASIO4ALL
9. Changing to purewave doesn't help