Anybody using SB Live and Delta cards with SONAR/Windows XP?

[AlChuck]

Hi again, all...

For three years I ran my SB Live and M Audio Delta 66 cards together in a 700 MHz Pentium III machine with 256 MB of PC100 RAM. They worked together like a top.

Now circumstances have forced me to upgrade the computer with a new motherboard, RAM (512 MB DDR), and CPU (2.4 GHz Pentium IV). When the existing Windows 98 SE OS refused to boot properly despite all my messing around, I decided to move to Windows XP Professional rather than re-install Win 98.

Now everything is together and most of my apps are re-installed, and I find that if I use the SB Live for MIDI and the Delta for audio, the audio stutters wildly.

So my question is: for those using this combination or something like it, how do you have it set up?

My drivers are the WDM SB Live ones that were on the XP CD and the latest Delta WDM drivers from the M Audio website.

One additional question: do I have to install Creative's AudioHQ to be able to adjust the size of the Sound Font cache?

 

[James Argo]

I was...

Yes... they worked like a charm together, until Delta was broken due to power supply failure It's been several month's ago. Back then, my setup was :

PIII 866, ASUS CUV4X-D mobo, 256MB SDRAM, 4.3 GB (OS & apps) & 20Gb (audio).
Realtek PCI LAN card, Motorola PCI modem.
AGP nVidia 32MB, SB Live! DE 5.1 and Delta 66.
Windows XP Home Edition, SP1 installed.
SONAR 2.2 XL

I don't remember quitely how they worked together, but I remember I had to find the right PCI configuration. Placing order counts here... If I'm not mistaken, the order goes :

-XGA card <-- AGP slot
-Modem <-- PCI
-LAN <-- PCI
-SB Live! <-- PCI
-Delta 66 <-- PCI

No ISA slot on the mobo. I think I had to disable the modem at some point, but not exactly remember why. If you have any problem, you may try to move the card across your available PCI slot, but I found the best way is to put any soundcard as far from the AGP as you can. Hope it helps, Chuck


Jaymz

 

[James Argo]

...ugh, last minute addition:

I don't think ASIO was available in SONAR back then, I must have been using WDM driver for both card, so it was SONAR 2.0 (or 2.1) XL

Yes, you need to install AudioHQ to tweak the soundfont cache memory


Jaymz

 

[wfaraoni]

do you get the stuttering if you are only outputting to one card. set the same for all tracks. If I remember when i did that the problem went away. In other words you can run them both but NOT simutaineously (sp)
yes; you must use audio hq to adjust sounfont sizes

Peace
Bill

 

[Fab4ever]

I have the Delta 66/Soundblaster Live Value/Win XP Home combo, and it works fine. However, I have disabled the AUDIO of the sounblaster and use only the Delta audio drivers (wdm drivers now). I ONLY use the soundblaster for soundfonts. I mix the output of the creative into the audio output of the Delta via M-Audio's Omni mixer thingy.

If I can make that work with my limited computer skill, anyone can.

Fab

 

[James Argo]

In other words you can run them both but NOT simutaineously (sp)

Not for Audio as far as I remember, but you can play soundfonts & use the MIDI out port of SB Live!, and use the Delta for Audio / wave playback Use the Omni Mixer to route them


Jaymz

 

[wfaraoni]

Not for Audio as far as I remember, but you can play soundfonts & use the MIDI out port of SB Live!, and use the Delta for Audio / wave playback Use the Omni Mixer to route them


Jaymz

Yes, I believe your correct Jaymz, You cant set 2 different tracks to a different audio card out but you can use the midi on the creative and the audio from the maudio.

Actually Ive stopped using my Maudio for recording because I input "ALL" my audio (not midi) through my Roland MMp-2 mic modeler preamp where It gets converted to digital using its high quality A/D converter and then into the creative cards spdif input which I have easily accesible on the drive bay I bought for it.

It is Absolutely the cleanest signal I've achieved to date. I highly reccomend the Roland MMP for the $.

It does much more than just act as a mic modeler.

Its a great preamp (many options)
Its a Compressor (many options and models)
Its an expander ''
Its a de-esser
Its an input equalizer
Its an A/d converter
and it can change many characteristics of mic input
Including PROximity (This is a very cool feature)
everything is adjustable to taste
AND
best of all!!

Its selling on Ebay for
as little as $139.00
Brand spanking New!!
I paid about $350 for my first one within the last year!!

But No one listens to Me


Peace
Bill

 

[Bulls Hit]

Alchuck, make sure your cards aren't now sharing interrupts after the rebuild

 

[TamaSabian]

It seems that you could setup both SBLive and Delta to work together. Mine is Delta1010lt, SBLive and XP combo. I´ve posted into the Computer Recording and Soundcards forum, asking for something related to this issue.
I need to play a click track through my Delta 1010lt as I used to do with my SBLive (with soundfonts of course). How do I route the SBLive into the Delta in order to hear soundfonts click tracks??. Is that possible??.

 

[AlChuck]

wfaraoni,

I'm attempting to use the SoundBlaster's MIDI synth ONLY along with the Delta's audio and that's when it stutters.

Fab4ever,

I suppose I could disable the audio, but at the moment I'm not using it, just the synths, and it stutters. Besides, I want to be able to use the SB's own audio device to render the MIDI files to audio at the end; I don't want to have to mess around with routing the SB's output to the Delta's input to do that.

Bulls Hit,

They appear not to be. Live's using IRQ 21, the Delta, 23.But the Live is sharing IRQ 21 with my network card (damned thing shouldn't even be there, the motherboard has a NIC chip but it's not working.) Maybe I'll set up a hardware profile that has the NIC card disabled and see if the problem goes away... (I used to have a recording profile set up thatr way because it would occasionally drop out if the NIC was enabled... but it didi work pretty well under the normal profile too, so I'm not too hopeful,

I need to play a click track through my Delta 1010lt as I used to do with my SBLive (with soundfonts of course). How do I route the SBLive into the Delta in order to hear soundfonts click tracks?? Is that possible??

You could route the SB Live's Line output into a pair of the Delta's Line Ins, but an alternate approach is to use a mixer to combine the outputs of both soundcards before sending them to your speakers. Then you don't tie up two inputs on your Delta.

 

[wfaraoni]

You should Disable that network card if your not using it to get rid of the conflict. control panel> system> hardware>devices manager> network card> properties... set it to disable

 

[AlChuck]

You should Disable that network card if your not using it...

But I am using it... I could, though, create a Hardware Profile with it disabled and boot into that profile to record... except that I don't think that is the problem.

I actually experimented a little last night after my last post in this thread. First I downloaded and installed the kX Project drivers for the SB Live. That didn't seem to help. Then I started wondering about all the devices I could choose from for the Delta cards as the input timing master. Since installing the WDM drivres (I used the MME ones under 98SE), I wondered what all those extra devices labeled "Multitrack" were. That is,

Left M-Audio Delta 66 Multichannel 1/2
Right M-Audio Delta 66 Multichannel 1/2
Stereo M-Audio Delta 66 Multichannel 1/2
Left M-Audio Delta 66 Multichannel 3/4
Right M-Audio Delta 66 Multichannel 3/4
Stereo M-Audio Delta 66 Multichannel 3/4
...

and so on up to

Left M-Audio Delta 66 Multichannel 7/8
Right M-Audio Delta 66 Multichannel 7/8
Stereo M-Audio Delta 66 Multichannel 7/8

(Huh??? 5/6 and 7/8 on a Delta 66?)

Then come the familar input names I remember

Left M-Audio Delta 66 1/2
Right M-Audio Delta 66 1/2
Stereo M-Audio Delta 66 1/2
Left M-Audio Delta 66 3/4
Right M-Audio Delta 66 3/4
Stereo M-Audio Delta 66 3/4
Left M-Audio Delta 66 S/PDIF
Right M-Audio Delta 66 S/PDIF
Stereo M-Audio Delta 66 S/PDIF

I had somehow selected one of the ones labeled "Multichannel" as the timing master. When I changed it to one of the ones not so labeled, everything now seems to work (though I haven't tried to record an audio track yet along with MIDI tracks).

The M Audio website seems to have no mention of all these Multichannel settings and what they mean. The mixer app shows only the actual hardware channels and there seems to be nothing in the readme files, at least that I noticed in my quick cursory look.

Does anyone know about these things?

 

[moskus]

Does anyone know about these things?

I think it was mentioned here earlier that M-Audio had a description of these new drivers Multichannel. It's the new drivers, right?

 

[James Argo]

...Live's using IRQ 21, the Delta, 23.But the Live is sharing IRQ 21 with my network card (damned thing shouldn't even be there, the motherboard has a NIC chip but it's not working.) Maybe I'll set up a hardware profile that has the NIC card disabled and see if the problem goes away... (I used to have a recording profile set up thatr way because it would occasionally drop out if the NIC was enabled... but it didi work pretty well under the normal profile too, so I'm not too hopeful...

Believe me mate, you're not going anywhere with setting up the profile. I've been there before, and the only way to cure your pain is to replace those card's position (PCI order). I knew it means you have to do the dirty work, but as I remember, it's worth. Altering the Windows profile / Control Panel wont help you much solving the problem. I'm not PC expert (yet!), but it worked for me And better yet, make sure you tune the WinXP as described in

www.musicxp.net

it's worth to try Hope it helps, brutha


Jaymz

 

[AlChuck]

Well, I've done a few more tests, and while I'm still a bit wary of saying this categorically, it looks like it's working just fine.

I was having some troubles with old projects -- this time I would occasionally get random blasts of MIDI notes here and there -- but I was not being extra careful about setting all the tracks to the right inputs and outputs. When my old files open the WAV tracks automatically get set to the Live WAV stream, and MIDI files get set to the MIDISport (oh, by the way, my MIDISport is just fine -- some of you might recall a couple of months ago it simply stopped working one day on my Windows 98 system, as if it were broken somehow. I tried to uninstall and reinstall it but it still wouldn't work, so I reverted to the Live's cards MIDI ports. When I rebuilt the computer around the new mobo I tried the MIDISport again and it works just fine). If I'm careless about setting them all to the right ports (I was neglecting to bother looking at any muted tracks) I get either stuttering of the WAV stuff or clusters of false MIDI messages triggering notes.

I did a fresh new recording by building a three-track MIDI accompaniment with Band In A Box and opened it in SONAR, then recorded three guitar tracks, then three tracks of vocals, and it never hiccuped or spit unwamted notes out or anything.

So I guess I'm ready to move on and hopefully it will continue to behave as well as it was during this latest test.

Thanks again to all for the advice and suggestions.