ASIO - blah blah

[Clam Soup]

The other day my music went silent and I noticed a little red light that said, ASIO cache overload...

I asked about that in the recording forum, and was told it was a buffering issue....

Okay - what is buffering and why is it necessary to change it? If I do change it, what am I going to lose elsewhere?

 

[TetraFish]

A buffer pre loads a certain amount of data so that if there is an interruption in the stream feeding it, the buffer has enough data to keep a continuous stream.

The trade off is that the smaller the buffer is the faster your system needs to be but you get less latency, with a large buffer you increase latency but don't tax the system as much.

 

[jimmys69]

Just to state this in a form of direction; Use lowest buffer setting (low latency) that your computer will allow without pops/clicks, for recording. Use highest buffer setting for playback/mixdown with effects. The more plugins you have running will affect how low you can get the latency (buffer setting).

What you 'lose' with a high buffer setting, is ability to hear what you are playing 'in time'. You will get a delay when monitoring through your recording software (DAW).

What you 'lose' with a low buffer setting, is possible dropouts of audio (usually referred to as pops or clicks) that are determined by how fast your computers processor can handle the task of playing tracks and effects. How your computer is set up, can also have a great deal to do with it's performance as well. That is a whole other subject.......