Does any Soundblaster Audigy 2 NX not lag??

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six

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Hi there

Does anyone use a Soundblaster Audigy 2 NX and have no lag issues? My problem is that my recorded tracks are always offset compared to the playbacked tracks, and the ugly thing is: the offset isn't always the same. So neither "auto-offset" nor manual / fixed offset works, because you never know by how much it will be offset.

I know, a soundblaster isn't the smartest choice for recording anyway, but I wouldn't need anything more at the moment if it wasn't for the sync-issue. (I once tried an m-audio usb thingie and I couldn't even get it to work)
 
try downloading the ASIO4ALL driver and try recording in ASIO mode and this should help with the latency to some extent....

What you really need is a proper recording Sound card that has "Direct Monitoring" which will give you very low latency when useing ASIO drivers....

You can get a 4 in 4 out Card for about $100 (EMU 0404 ??) that will do what you need and with Far superior audio quality to your Audigy .....

Cheers
 
Minion said:
try downloading the ASIO4ALL driver and try recording in ASIO mode and this should help with the latency to some extent....

What you really need is a proper recording Sound card that has "Direct Monitoring" which will give you very low latency when useing ASIO drivers....

You can get a 4 in 4 out Card for about $100 (EMU 0404 ??) that will do what you need and with Far superior audio quality to your Audigy .....

Cheers
Click to expand...


thanks for the answer. heard about asio4all and will give it a try. a friend of mine just recommended me an EMU 0202 - even that will be more than 100$ here, but as I'm going to the US in december, I might get a 0404 or a cheaper 0202 there.


Edit (35min later): heeey... ASIO4ALL seems to be a very nice tool. I'm not sure if my problem is cured now for good, but it looks/sounds good so far. I wonder however what the sample-frequency and bitrate _really_ are. I mean: there's a trick somewhere, isn't there? I know my Audigy can handle 24bit/96kHzh and I've always recorded at 24/48000 using WDM. it could handle ASIO at 24/44100 anyway, so if ASIO4ALL only 'pretends' to record at my 24/48000 setting I might as well use the "real" asio driver.
 
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six said:
thanks for the answer. heard about asio4all and will give it a try. a friend of mine just recommended me an EMU 0202 - even that will be more than 100$ here, but as I'm going to the US in december, I might get a 0404 or a cheaper 0202 there.


Edit (35min later): heeey... ASIO4ALL seems to be a very nice tool. I'm not sure if my problem is cured now for good, but it looks/sounds good so far. I wonder however what the sample-frequency and bitrate _really_ are. I mean: there's a trick somewhere, isn't there? I know my Audigy can handle 24bit/96kHzh and I've always recorded at 24/48000 using WDM. it could handle ASIO at 24/44100 anyway, so if ASIO4ALL only 'pretends' to record at my 24/48000 setting I might as well use the "real" asio driver.
Click to expand...

Actually, the opposite is true, the Audigy pretends to be 24/96, the actual converters are fixed and 24/48 and everything else in converted on the fly so any real driver will only see the actual hardware. It's why you are having latency problems, its the "realtime" conversion the card does. Try using the audigy driver at 24/48 and compare that performance with 16/44.1, I'll bet it actually does better at 24/48
 
I've always used 24/48000. only the soundquality of anything less was worse, not the latency-issues.

But as I said: the lag problem seems to be gone now that I use asio4all, I just wonder if the asio4all 24/48k gives me the same quality as the stock-drivers at 24/48k.
 
six said:
Hi there

Does anyone use a Soundblaster Audigy 2 NX and have no lag issues? My problem is that my recorded tracks are always offset compared to the playbacked tracks, and the ugly thing is: the offset isn't always the same. So neither "auto-offset" nor manual / fixed offset works, because you never know by how much it will be offset.

I know, a soundblaster isn't the smartest choice for recording anyway, but I wouldn't need anything more at the moment if it wasn't for the sync-issue. (I once tried an m-audio usb thingie and I couldn't even get it to work)
Click to expand...

They are fekin terrible.
Download ASIO4ALL. Its really good IMO. MY lag went from 113ms to 6ms. I decreased the buffer.

Eckj
 
six said:
thanks for the answer. heard about asio4all and will give it a try. a friend of mine just recommended me an EMU 0202 - even that will be more than 100$ here, but as I'm going to the US in december, I might get a 0404 or a cheaper 0202 there.


Edit (35min later): heeey... ASIO4ALL seems to be a very nice tool. I'm not sure if my problem is cured now for good, but it looks/sounds good so far. I wonder however what the sample-frequency and bitrate _really_ are. I mean: there's a trick somewhere, isn't there? I know my Audigy can handle 24bit/96kHzh and I've always recorded at 24/48000 using WDM. it could handle ASIO at 24/44100 anyway, so if ASIO4ALL only 'pretends' to record at my 24/48000 setting I might as well use the "real" asio driver.
Click to expand...

Ive heard that Soundblasters don't record at 24bit 96k they can output at 24bit 96k. They only record at 16 bit 44.1k I heard.
Even though you can set your DAW and ASIO driver to record at 24bit its pointless if the input is only 16bit!

Eck
 
dude, you DO read sometimes, don't you? :D

I HAVE asio4all.
And if I know something for sure, then it's that any soundblaster live! until audigy used to record at and playback at 48000. don't know bout the bits though. I can only say that there's quite a difference between recordings with a sb live! at 16bit/44.1k or even 16bit/48k and audigy 24bit/48k.
 
ecktronic said:
Ive heard that Soundblasters don't record at 24bit 96k they can output at 24bit 96k. They only record at 16 bit 44.1k I heard.
Even though you can set your DAW and ASIO driver to record at 24bit its pointless if the input is only 16bit!

Eck
Click to expand...

From what I've heard, the AD/DA conversion in soundblasters is done with software rather than the hardware.
 
No such thing as a software A/D converter. :p

As altitude said, this is a sample rate issue. It's called "drift". SoundBlaster cards are locked in at 48KHz sampling rate. If you do any other rate, it will up/downsample on-the-fly and cause drift/sync issues. I had the same problem.

Record all tracks at 48KHz. I have no idea if the converters are actually 24-bit or not but I doubt it. I would record at 48KHz/16-bit. That is what had solved my problems.

Latency is also another separate issue with SoundBlaster cards due to their lack of ASIO drivers (or very poor ASIO drivers if they come with it). ASIO4ALL can help, but even then you can still experience latency when doing live monitoring with effects applied.

The solution to all these problems is a simple recording sound card like the M-Audio Audiophile 24/96 or the EMU1212M or something like that. I have the 24/96 and it took care of all these problems.
 
danny.guitar said:
No such thing as a software A/D converter. :p
Click to expand...

Yeah. Stupid comment on my part when I think about it. Maybe its the up/downsampling that is done with software.

Either way you can get a better card for audio for near on a third of the price. Although to be fair, I was stuck with one for a while and managed. But getting my Delta 44 made me rerecord everything.
 
legionserial said:
Yeah. Stupid comment on my part when I think about it. Maybe its the up/downsampling that is done with software.

Either way you can get a better card for audio for near on a third of the price. Although to be fair, I was stuck with one for a while and managed. But getting my Delta 44 made me rerecord everything.
Click to expand...

Agreed. I switched not so much for quality (although to my ears there is less noise and more clarity) but for performance. My CPU is far from top-of-the-line but I can do live input monitoring with a lot of FX on there with no noticeable latency. This wasn't true with the SoundBlaster.

So if for nothing else, upgrade for performance. I used a SoundBlaster Live! 24-bit for a couple years and managed to get good quality recordings. But it was a pain in the ass!

SoundCard drivers can make more of a difference in some situations than CPU.
 
six said:
dude, you DO read sometimes, don't you? :D

I HAVE asio4all.
And if I know something for sure, then it's that any soundblaster live! until audigy used to record at and playback at 48000. don't know bout the bits though. I can only say that there's quite a difference between recordings with a sb live! at 16bit/44.1k or even 16bit/48k and audigy 24bit/48k.
Click to expand...

I post before reading usually. oopsy!

Eck
 
The NX is a true POS product.

Bought one a few years back and promptly returned it after wasting hours with it trying to do anything it claims to do. Got constant dropouts using it as a soundcard for watching DVDs and sending a DD 5.1 signal to my receiver. It was totally useless as a DAW interface as well.
 
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