asio setup

Hi,

I wasn't entirely certain - I might have missed it - if you want to have Band-in-a-Box play through your Ensoniq synth, or if you want to play Band-in-a-Box through an internal synth on your computer.

Let's assume that you simply want to use your keyboard for input to play into Band-in-a-Box, but you want to hear everything (including what you play on your keyboard) played by an internal synth. By internal synth, I mean something like a MIDI synth built into your sound card (which you don't have; M-audio cards generally just have a MIDI interface to allow you to connect external device, they don't have a built-in MIDI synth), the Microsoft GS Wavetable (included with Windows) or the Roland VSC-DXi (the General MIDI compatible DXi synth included with Band-in-a-Box).

On your system, your options for "internal" MIDI output are the GS Wavetable or the Roland VSC-DXi. The Roland VSC3 used to be popular with Band-in-a-Box, and it acts like a "regular" MIDI Output driver, however it has become less compatible with newer computers, and it is much better and easier to use the Roland VSC-DXi instead. So the VSC-DXi is installed with Band-in-a-Box, while the VSC3 isn't. It is available if you want to install it, in the \bb\vsc\VSC_installs folder. But most people wouldn't want to install it.

Your best option is the Roland VSC-DXi - so select the "Use DXi Synth" checkbox.

There is a piece of information that you may be missing, which might be useful for you...

When you play your external MIDI keyboard, you hear the sound played by (it is routed to) either the MIDI output driver or DXi synth. That is, even if you have a DXi synth selected, when you play your keyboard, it might be routed to your MIDI output driver depending on some settings and whether song playback is happening. Here are the settings:

--
--if you are using "MME" audio drivers:

-If you have the "Route MIDI thru to MIDI driver" box checked, then it (live playing) will be routed to the MIDI driver (e.g. GS Wavetable) all the time.
-If you have the "Route MIDI thru to MIDI driver" box UNCHECKED, then it will be routed to the DXi synth while the song is playing, and to the MIDI driver (e.g. GS Wavetable) while there is no song playing.

--if you are using "ASIO" audio drivers:

-If you have the "ASIO Always On" box checked (in the ASIO Audio Drivers dialog), it is routed to the DXi (or VSTi) synth all the time whether the song is stopped or playing.

-If you have the "ASIO Always On" box unchecked, it is routed to the DXi synth while the song is playing, and through the MIDI Output Driver when the song is stopped.
--

So if you had been using MME driver, playing your keyboard and trying to determine the effect of the route MIDI thru... checkbox, you would have always been hearing it play through the GS Wavetable unless you happened to have a song playing while you were testing.

There are reasons for the way it works... the "DXi synth" usually has much more latency than the "MIDI output driver", and with that much latency it doesn't make sense to use it as your output for live playing. In your case, the GS Wavetable has alot of latency and happens to be your only available internal "MID driver".. This is common with many newer computers, but wasn't always the case. The GS Wavetable had far less latency on Windows 98 than XP, and has far less latency on XP than it does on Vista. In addition, many people have soundcards like the SoundBlaster series which have built-in MIDI synths with no latency. Other people have external synths like you do, but they're using them for output in addition to input, and that has no latency.

The latency problem of soft synths is generally solved with the use of ASIO drivers, although it is often more difficult to get ASIO drivers set up on specific computers. "ASIO4ALL" is an excellent solution and works great on most people's computers. One problem is that on some systems it can conflict with the GS Wavetable. The solution is to make sure that the GS Wavetable isn't selected anywhere in your setup.

Note that it is possible to inadvertently "select" the GS Wavetable by choosing the "MIDI Mapper" or "No MIDI Output". In general, you should ignore the MIDI Mapper, which was useful on Windows 95/98/ME, but is no longer useful/functional on newer versions of Windows, as far as I know.

Here is what I think should work for you...

1. Install ASIO4ALL

2. Reboot your computer to make sure there are no problems.

3. Run Band-in-a-Box. Select the M-Audio device for input, and ALSO select the M-Audio device for your output. The purpose of this is to just make sure that something other than the GS Wavetable is selected for output.

Note: the synth/soundcard setting is mainly useful for non-GM compatible synths and specific purposes. But you can select the VSC from that list, or just select "General MIDI Instrument Misc."

4. Check the Use DXi/VSTi synth box. If already selected, click the DXi synth Settings button. Either way, this will open the DirectX/VST Window. You should have the VSC-DXi selected in the top slot (synth plugins). Don't worry about the bottom three slots, which are for audio plugins, although you may wish to select the PG Peak Limiter plugin in one of them if your volume is low. Close the DX window.

5. Click on the Audio Settings button (or Opt.-Preferences-Audio) to open the Audio Settings window. Select ASIO, or if already selected press the Audio Drivers button. This will open the ASIO Audio Drivers window. Select ASIO4ALL. For the input and output ports, normally you can leave the top ones highlighted. This would normally be your computer's built-in audio device. If that one isn't working you may need to experiment, as it isn't necessarily obvious what all the different ports are for.

6. Check the ASIO Always On box.

Note: The ASIO Driver Control panel button will open the ASIO4ALL settings. The main purpose is normally to adjust the latency ("buffer size"). Leave this at default, or around 512, until you get it working. When you have sound etc. then you can try reducing the buffer size if you're finding that there is still some latency between when you hit a key on your keyboard and when you hear it play. How low you can set the latency depends on your computer (processor, etc.).

Note: While other dialogs in BB display latency, when you are using ASIO drivers the ASIO control panel is the only dialog that you can use to change the latency.

7. Ok to exit all the dialogs. Press Play once (if you haven't yet since you started BB), just to make sure ASIO is initialized. You can stop playback now if you wish, ASIO will remain on for the rest of your session.

Now try playing your keyboard and playing a song, and see if it works. If it does, you may want to close Band-in-a-Box, open your bb folder and make a backup of the file "intrface.bbw" Then you can restore your settings at a later date if you need to (BB2009 has an option to do this under the Opt. menu).

If that doesn't work for you, describe what happens and what doesn't work about it, and hopefully there is a solution... 

--------------------
Andrew 
PG Music Inc.