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Anyone using ASIO4ALL without an audio interface?
#1
Hi all,

I am trying to help a JK friend shave some ms off their audio gear latency. 

Here are some details about their current setup:

   * on Windows
   * default WDM driver
   * they have no external audio interface
   * Framesize setting 10ms (I think this is the default for WDM)
   * Audio gear latency 20.0ms.

Does anyone have experience using the the ASIO4ALL driver without an external audio interface?  It would be especially helpful to hear from you.
Does it help at all to reduce latency?

Any tips suggestions for improving latency on Windows other than purchasing an audio interface?

Thank you
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#2
In some cases ASIO4ALL is better than WDM.

In other cases not.

ASIO4ALL is not really a ASIO driver. It is an advanced WDM driver, so to speak
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#3
(07-19-2020, 02:59 PM)lcmac Wrote: Hi all,

I am trying to help a JK friend shave some ms off their audio gear latency. 

Here are some details about their current setup:

   * on Windows
   * default WDM driver
   * they have no external audio interface
   * Framesize setting 10ms (I think this is the default for WDM)
   * Audio gear latency 20.0ms.

Does anyone have experience using the the ASIO4ALL driver without an external audio interface?  It would be especially helpful to hear from you.
Does it help at all to reduce latency?

Any tips suggestions for improving latency on Windows other than purchasing an audio interface?

Thank you
I used ASIO4ALL to connect an AKG Lyra USB mic. It works but is very finicky. It is very important to not run any other software that MIGHT use a microphone. For example, I had WebEx Teams running in the background and my mic would not work. I just posted the steps I have found to work, but I will post them here in case you find it helpful:

Download the latest version of ASIO4ALL


Before installing ASIO4ALL:


Remove “Exclusive mode”: Go to Control Panel/ Hardware and Sound/ Sound. Then, doubleclick on Speakers/ Advanced. In this box, uncheck exclusive mode. If you have several devices listed, you will need to do this for each of them. If ASIO4ALL detects that another device or application is using the microphone or speaker, it will not let you use it with JamKazam.


Disable Windows GS wavetable: Right click on Start and select Device Manager.
Click on View menu and click on Show hidden devices.Expand Software devices.
Right click on Microsoft GS Wavetable Synth and select Disable device and click Yes to confirm the action. Reboot the computer. The GS wavetable shares the same port as ASIO4ALL and may conflict with it and prevent it from running correctly.


Before adding the device to JamKazam:


Stop running any other app using audio: Launch the windows task manager (ctrl + alt + delete), and look for apps that use audio or video which still are running in the background, including metro apps like for example "Video" or "Music". Select and terminate them. Best practice is to close all apps except JamKazam.
Robert "Lee" Vanarsdall
University of Maryland, College Park
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#4
(07-19-2020, 10:47 PM)Hans Peter Augustesen Wrote: In some cases ASIO4ALL is better than WDM.

In other cases not.

ASIO4ALL is not really a ASIO driver. It is an advanced WDM driver, so to speak

Summary: ASIO4ALL rocks and is a huge improvement over WDM drivers, in terms of latency.  It should definitely make built-in sound work for JK, whereas WDM has no chance of being able to participate.

Gory details

I have been using ASIO4ALL since about 2003, on about 8 different laptops, and have always found it to deliver low latency using built-in hardware, with a wide variety of hardware.  I used it for playing keyboard softsynths live (using Hermann Seib's VSTHost or Cantabile) as well as home recording (with nTrack and Reaper)*.  In the early years, the biggest issue was needing relatively large buffers due to relatively slow CPUs and higher PCI bus latency.  As time went on, with big improvements in both those areas, the buffer size came down dramatically.  No doubt there's additional latency over and above the buffering, but not enough to notice when playing.

With WDM drivers, latency is terrible and way too bad to play softsynths live, and WAY too bad to use for audio loopback (e.g., electric guitar with software amp/cab sim).

I haven't measured WDM latency (why bother) but I'd guess it's at least 100 ms one way (so, 200 ms round-trip which is what we need to worry about with JK.)  With ASIO4ALL, I measured it long ago and don't remember the details but guess it was around 10ms one way.  That's a huge improvement, and hopefully these days we can use much smaller buffers and reduce that dramatically, to get the round-trip latency well under 20 ms.

I'm tempted to measure its latency on my current Lenova Yoga, or the Dell XPS 9500 I use for work and not audio.

In any case, I plan to jam with a buddy who doesn't have an audio interface and plan to set him up using ASIO4ALL.  There's no other option, without adding hardware.  I'll post back with results.

*Why would I use it for recording?  Sometimes my MOTU 828 was working; sometimes it wasn't.

(07-20-2020, 11:54 AM)LVanarsdall Wrote: * uncheck exclusive mode. If you have several devices listed, you will need to do this for each of them.
* Right click on Microsoft GS Wavetable Synth and select Disable device and click Yes to confirm the action. Reboot the computer. The GS wavetable shares the same port as ASIO4ALL and may conflict with it and prevent it from running correctly.
I never had to do that. But I did have to close any apps using audio. These days who knows how many audio-grabbing gremlins live under the covers!

BTW I did use ASIO recently, on the Lenovo Yoga, before I got a Focusrite Scarlett. I had lost all my gear in one of the CA fires.
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#5
Update: JK is finicky and refuses to pass my audio setup using ASIO, either with my Focusrite or the built-ins. I may try it on another computer as well.

Too bad. I've found ASIO to be rock solid in practice, yet JK gets wildly different readings each time I try the test. I think the measurement method has issues.
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#6
Thanks everyone!  'Hoping some of the suggestions here will help.
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#7
What I've found is that JK doesn't play well with ASIO4ALL on my system. However, JK uses the built-in audio with relatively low latency (presumably using the same API that ASIO4ALL does.) So, when using JK, there's no need to use ASIO4ALL for built-in audio. This is a good thing; kudos to the JK team.
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#8
Can someone please clarify the use of ASIO4ALL driver in place of the WDM?
- my laptop is set up with external mice as audio input using WDM driver
- on WIN7 the driver shown for external mic is 'IDT High Defenition Audio CODEC'
- I have ASIO4ALL installed but not sure how to use it instead of the Windows default
- does one uninstall Windows driver before ASIO4ALL can take control of the audio?
- or is there another setup trick within J-K?

Also, 3 months ago with earlier version of J-K this simple setup (external mic/headphones) worked quite well - hardly any latency issues.
However, the current J-K makes a real mess with latency, distortion and hangups way too often.
Wondering if this is a shared experience...?
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