Are you sure you're using the latest drivers? You should have an input mixer screen that has a lot of red writing on it now. It looks quite a bit different than previous versions. If so, were you able to save output mixer configurations and then re-open them? I never have once; I always get a screen saying that the file can't be opened.
The routing scheme is just plain silly in my opinion. If you're just recording two audio tracks (stereo) than its no problem but if you want to overdub more tracks you have to route the output mixer through outputs 7&8 (is that at all logical?) and then set the input to the output mixer (yet another confusing thing to even describe) to record on tracks 1&2 and have them set to "direct to disk". For some reason after you do this the first thing you'll notice is that the input signal is now incredibly loud compared to the way it was when you recorded the first two tracks even though you haven't touched a thing on the input mixer. After you bring the input fader way down, the next thing you should notice (at least I did) is that the sound coming into your soundcard just isn't the same anymore. It's close but a little odd. Kinda like listening to an mp3 compared to a wave file, the way an mp3 has that swirly high-end thing going a little. Admittedly it's not horrible or even close to it but it sure isn't as good sounding as the original setting without using that "direct to disk" stuff. I have no idea why this deteriorates the sound but it does.
As to your comment about midi not having anything to do with latency I would quite beg to differ. In fact unless you have an old machine without much ram, you'll probably never have a latency problem with audio tracks staying in sync. It's only when you bring midi into the situation and especially when you combine midi tracks with audio tracks that you start having problems. It's even more pronounced if you try to adjust midi parameters on the fly while tracks are playing back. I used to belong to a CakeWalk users group mail list and this is probably the subject that came up the most and the people who had problems with this were using SB Live cards with the original drivers every time. Once they changed to the ASP Live drivers their latency problems went away. I would say that's the biggest reason people use those ASP drivers and not so much the ASIO stuff. But like I said, I don't use midi (and really don't know why anyone does in a multitrack recording environment unless they only have a few audio tracks or they're just incredibly bad musicians) so I don't need anything the ASP drivers have to offer. With a 500 mg Pen3 system and 128 ram I don't have any latency problems at all. It's the people with the older machines that do.
Since I don't know a lot about midi myself I looked in my CakeWalk Power book (a terrific book for anyone wanting to know the ins and outs of software music recording by the way IMHO) and looked under midi to see if he had any comments about midi and latency. He had plenty; here's one:
Optimize MIDI Playback
To get smooth and consistent playback of midi data, Pro Audio uses a buffer (a temporary storage area) to hold the data before it is sent out through the midi interface. This buffer keeps the data from getting backed up, which can cause erratic playback or even stop playback altogether. The buffer also helps to control playback latency. Whenever you change a parameter in Pro Audio while a project is playing, a slight delay always occurs from when you make the adjustment to when you hear the results. That's called latency.
Actually, SBLive makes the situation worse because it only records at a 4800 sample rate instead of 4100 and some music software such as CakeWalk Guitar Tracks will only allow you to record at 4100. Of course a lot of people would rather record at that rate anyway if they're going to make a wave file of the finished project but that's another debate altogether about recording at 4100 to begin with or recording at 4800 and then stepping down. I've heard good arguments both ways. The things is, that if you use an inexpensive product like Guitar Tracks then you
must record at 4100. In order to do this with an SB Live card the only thing that can be done is for CakeWalk to take the 4800 recording the SB does and resample it to 4100 on the fly. That takes up a lot of system resources and thus if you have an older machine and very little ram, your going to have problems keeping your audio tracks in sync. The ASP Drivers certainly seem to help the situation but I would have to recommend getting the 183 version of them myself.
