Hey guys so i am kinda having an issue. When im in audio device driver type settings i have mme/direct x and then a setting called ASIO. When im in mme/directx i have a input delay when i record vocals or something over my track. My guitar input to the audio interface also has a delay when i try to play it live. Is there a fix for that? Oh and the only way i can record my drums is through ASIO. It picks up instant through ASIO but i cant hear any audio if i wanna listen to youtube or something. Any ideas any help appreciated thanks!
I assume Windows, as that is what ASIO uses.
Yes, what you describe is how it works. The standard Windows MME drivers are not designed for “pro-audio” use. In particular, they have poor latency, as you have discovered.
The ASIO drivers are the ones designed for audio production use, but they will (normally) only work with a single audio device at a time. So if you are using a different audio device for recording and monitoring then, because you can’t use them at the same time, you won’t be able to hear what you are recording.
And ASIO also takes exclusive use of your audio device.
There are ways around this. There are some ASIO drivers (I believe ASIO4ALL is one of them) that let you combine multiple audio devices into a single “virtual device”. But I’m not an expert on this so, hopefully, someone else will chime in with solutions.
The reason ASIO doesn’t let you more than one audio device, by the way, is that, unless the audio devices are hardware synced, they will run at slightly different sample rates and, every now and then, you will lose some samples from one or another track so that one track can catch up with another. For standard desktop use this normally doesn’t matter, but for audio production it’s generally considered to be a bad thing.
It doesn’t let you use multiple applications with the audio device because the software mixing of audio streams is what creates a lot of the latency, so the way to get low latency is only allow one application to use the audio device at a time.
Cheers,
Keith
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That is latency. I spent too much time trying to work through it on a PC with normal recording operations and a bunch of different DAWS. Others have either conquered it or just live with it. I went with a Mac and Garageband and never encountered it (at a noticeable level), and never looked back. I want recording to be straight forward, glitch free and choose to reserve any tweaking for my guitar tone and marginal playing. 
I don’t know about the specifics of your setup.
In my setup, everything is plugged into my audio interface (guitar + speakers). This way, the speakers work well with my DAW and with Youtube.
The configuration is :
- I use ASIO in my DAW (for low latency).
- I select my Focusrite audio interface in Windows speaker configuration (for Youtube).
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I don’t run Windows and have no practical experience with ASIO, but Ableton’s documentation suggests using a multi-client ASIO driver if you want multiple applications (e.g., youtube, et cetera) using the driver. See the following:
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Like what @math07 says, you have to use ASIO in Ableton, and have all your speakers/headphones/etc connected to your audio interface, and have windows audio set to your audio interface. Then all should work like you expect.
As others have said if you are not using an ASIO based driver on Windows you will get latency. So as suggested put all your audio inputs into one AI and declare that the DAWs audio input.
Although you can only declare one AI the input source using ASIO, you can still encounter issues with the single use issue, Keith described. I used to experience a tussle between Reaper and OBS. Which ever fired up first got sole use of my AI and the other application could not see it. Not ideal when trying to pass audio between the 2 apps !!
This can be avoided in the Windows Control Panel Hardware and Sounds. Go to the advance Playback and Recording setting, then Advance setting for your AI and ensure “Allow applications to take exclusive control devices” is unchecked as below.
This will avoid any application conflict.
However, as Windows is generally a PITA, every time it does an update, this option gets checked. After a few years you get used to this happening and you automatically uncheck the setting after an update. Windows the gift that keeps on giving.
Sweet thanks for the help guys ill have to give that a try!!!