ASIO for all SBs!! (was does it has to be supported by hardware?)

[Trev]

ASIO is a low latency (i.e. say goodbye to crackle and stutter), software interface similar to AHI and DirectSound. ASIO drivers allow ASIO clients (e.g. Steinberg Cubase) to interact with sound hardware. Check out http://www.steinberg.net for more information. If both your hardware and software support ASIO, then you'll probably get better results and a move advanced feature set (i.e. more than two channels) using ASIO instead of the operating system's default interface.

However, don't expect steller performance out of a consumer-level sound card. Products from DigiDesign, MOTU, Aardvark, Echo, and so on will give you the best results. But if you're using a PC and don't want to spend $1000 on a sound card, then get yourself a Sound Blaster Audigy 2 and a copy of Cubasis VST (or whatever your favorite multichannel recording software happens to be). It also pays to get a nice set of monitors. I like (and use) the Mackie HR824. I'd stay away from monitors that share an amp and must be sold as a matched pair.

Trev

[Trev]

Oops. Did I answer your question? I don't think I did. :-) The hardware is independent of the ASIO driver, but your hardware vendor (or some creative individual) needs to write the ASIO driver.

Trev

[Trev]

So that support for ASIO2.0 at 24b 96khz on Audigy Platinum Ex, or the new Platinum Pro ONLY is just software related?

ASIO is just a software interface. While ASIO may support 96 KHz 24-bit sampling, the underlying hardware may not. Here are the layers:

1. Hardware
2a. Driver
2b. Operating System
3. Application Programming Interface
4. Application

A Sound Blaster Live! card will do 48 KHz 16-bit sampling at best. However, it's possible that the sound data will be upsampled somewhere along the line. Here's an example using the layers above:

1. 48 KHz 16-bit
2. 48 KHz 16-bit
3. 48 KHz 16-bit
4. 96 KHz 24-bit

In this example, the sound data is upsampled by the application. On playback, the sound data will be downsampled to a format supported by the hardware. A higher bit-depth should provide an increase in accuracy while editing a sample, and moving from a low bit-depth to a high bit-depth doesn't change the quality of the sample. Resampling the data at a different rate (in either direction) or moving to a lower bit-depth will usually result in distortion or loss of quality.

I don't know if this really making any sense. :-) Anyhow, before a sound card's ASIO driver can support a feature, the underlying hardware must support that feature. In some cases, an application can compensate for missing features by downsampling, downmixing, etc.

Trev

[Trev]

So in the above example you gave the layers would be Hardware > ASIO > Driver > Host software

Well, maybe. Some operating systems (like Windows NT/2000/XP) won't let you go directly from an API to hardware. There's usually something in between, which in most cases is the driver. It would really look more like this:

1. Hardware
2. Driver
3. ASIO
4. Application

. . . which is why I used 2a and 2b for the driver and the operating system.

Don't get too excited about using a Sound Blaster for multichannel recording and playback. With my Sound Blaster Live!, I have five usable inputs (line in 1, line in 2, and mic in), but the first two are bonded stereo channels--the left and right channels can't be controlled independently. The same goes for the outputs (front left/right and rear left/right). The newer cards may be a bit more flexible, but you're still going to have to deal with the Sound Blaster's crappy audio. Don't be fooled by the THX logo. :-) But if you're a musician on a budget, it's a great deal. And let's face it, a great musician can make just about anything sound good.

So, with ASIO, you're bypassing the operating system's audio interface and talking directly to the hardware driver. Now, I'm not an ASIO guru, so in operating systems like Windows NT/2000/XP, there may be an ASIO driver that sits below the OS layer and talks to the hardware using a pluggable driver interface. That makes sense for performance. . . . I guess it's time to read the manual. :-P

Trev