Subject:Acid 4.0 and kX ASIO drivers?

Posted by: Neil_Palfreyman

Date:9/2/2002 6:17:29 AM

...anybody here using kX ASIO drivers on their SB Live! with Acid 4.0? If so do they work, are they stable, and what kind of latency are you getting?

Do the SoFo people have a view on kX? Was it tested with V4.0?

...just trying to get some more info on kX before I ditch Creative's drivers.

Subject:RE: Acid 4.0 and kX ASIO drivers?

Reply by: nlamartina

Date:9/2/2002 1:19:05 PM

Neil,

I've been using kX ASIO drivers on Acid 4 extensively. They were also tested with the beta versions on at least one or two machines, so don't worry too much about compatibility issues. On my 1 GHz, 256 MB RAM machine running Win2k, I operate at no less that 20.33 ms. Any lower and I get static, but they work beautifully. The nice part is that it also supports multiple outs, so surround mixing isn't a problem at all. Combine that with that awesome router, support for soundfonts, and the fact that it'll decode AC-3, and you've got a really powerful setup. I'm surprised more people don't use them. The kX VSTi module is still in alpha, so it's not working with Acid yet, but it still sounds like a great concept (if you’re not familiar with it, it’ll allow VSTi automation of DSP effects on the card).

So yeah, they work, they're perfectly stable, to my knowledge SoFo doesn't have a problem with them, and yes they were tested with v4.0. Dump the Creative drivers. You'll be doing yourself a favor.

Hope this helps,
Nick LaMartina

Subject:RE: Acid 4.0 and kX ASIO drivers?

Reply by: Neil_Palfreyman

Date:9/2/2002 3:30:12 PM

Nick,

thanks for the info. Always good to know someone else has been there, done that!

I'm running Windows XP on an Athlon XP 1700+ and SBLive running standard Creative drivers plus the Cubase DirectX Full Duplex drivers for ASIO. ASIO works great under Fruity Loops, but Acid 4.0 doesn't seem to recognise the Cubase ASIO drivers, and I couldn't really ask for support from SoFo for them ;) ...Softsynth latency in Acid 4.0 under the standard drivers is aweful.

20ms (or lower if I'm lucky) sounds pretty good to me, so it looks like I have a project for the weekend!

Subject:RE: Acid 4.0 and kX ASIO drivers?

Reply by: ATP

Date:9/2/2002 4:09:17 PM

hey, do you happen to have a link where i can get those drivers? i'd like to give them a try as well. :)

Subject:RE: Acid 4.0 and kX ASIO drivers?

Reply by: nlamartina

Date:9/2/2002 4:58:32 PM

Sure ATP. Click here to go directly to the site. Don't forget to download the MFC and MSVCRT libraries as well. You'll see links for both the drivers and the libraries at downloads page. Also, if either one of you needs help, reply back here on the forum. I'd love to see kX get a little more public attention.

- Nick

Subject:RE: Acid 4.0 and kX ASIO drivers?

Reply by: waynegee

Date:9/2/2002 7:55:29 PM

Ok, Nick...here's your chance...I tried the kX drivers about 4 months ago and they seemed ok ...except I COULD NOT record the incoming audio WITHOUT recording the existing audio as well. Meaning I always wound up with my backing tracks recorded along with my vocals or my guitar or horn or piano solo or whatever. And not on purpose, mind you. I wrote to Eugene over at kX, he gave some prattle about how all other users could do it so he didn't know what the problem was. He told me to make sure I wasn't using the "What U Hear" (obviously) and this should solve the problem. Well, it didn't. So I uninstalled those babies post haste. Based on this experience and the loss of being able to RECORD, I can't recommend them. Any suggestions, Nick?

Subject:RE: Acid 4.0 and kX ASIO drivers?

Reply by: nlamartina

Date:9/2/2002 8:57:18 PM

Wayne,

Well, I suppose I could prattle about how I'm not having the same problem, but that wouldn't be very helpful would it? =) I had the same problem before, and it's because the source selection on the kX mixer works a lot differently than the standard Creative mixer, and I misunderstood this. There's no selecting sources, only setting record levels. Analogously speaking, "What U Hear" is always active. Go to the recording level page first. Drag all sliders to the bottom except the master and the wave (since all inputs are bussed to these points). Now only turn up the slider that belongs to the input you want to record. That's it. Whatever input isn't muted gets recorded. Keep in mind that it's even possible to multitrack using this driver, but that involves a good understanding of the router, something I'm still working on. But give this a try and let me know how it works.

Regards,
Nick LaMartina

Subject:RE: Acid 4.0 and kX ASIO drivers?

Reply by: thenoizzbox

Date:9/2/2002 11:20:53 PM

Hello Nick,

I just discovered trhe existence of the kX alternate drivers a couple of days ago myself and the only thing that has prevented me from installing them is that, in the known issues, it says that "stereo sample support not yet implemented". The thing is, I depend on Soundfonts quite a bit, especially for drum sounds (SonicImplants stuff mostly) I was wondering if you use SoundFonts yourself and how you find the support for them in the kX drivers. The same entry on the issues page states that "more common hard-panned dual mono SoundFonts can be used without difficulty". Does it mean that stereo samples are uncommon?

I'm just starting to get into computer based music more seriously. I've been working with computers for a few years (I'm also a Web designer) but I've been a musician (guitar) and played in bands for quite a number of years before. I'm now on my own trying to create music on my machine. My two main apps are Sonar 2 and now Acid Pro 4.0 (I also own SoundForge 5.0). I'm really not very well versed in the MIDI stuff but I've been able to get the DSL softsynth working as well as VSampler 2.74 but the latency is horrible in ACID. I was able to make it acceptable in Sonar but when playing sofsynths sounds live in ACID with my MIDI controller keyboard, I get easily half to a whole second of latency which makes it unusable.

I really can't afford a better sound card than the SBLive! Platinum 5.1 for now and I'm stuck with Win98SE for the foreseeable future. I was then wondering if the kX drivers really work better than the Creative ones and especially wondering how the SoundFonts support was. Thanks in advance for your input!

Stéphane Bergeron

Subject:RE: Acid 4.0 and kX ASIO drivers?

Reply by: waynegee

Date:9/3/2002 12:44:36 AM

Hey Nick,
Thanks for replying so fast! Umm, I think I might've tried that (not sure, tho) but it seems that that's exactly the problem (for me, anyway): the "master" AND the "input" were being recorded together. If you turn the master down, then you can't hear the backing track. If you CAN hear it while you're recording, then you WILL hear it AGAIN when you listen to the playback (in my experience only, of course). Is this correct or are you giving me a solution that I'm missing (sorry, a little dense lately...)

Subject:RE: Acid 4.0 and kX ASIO drivers?

Reply by: ATP

Date:9/3/2002 2:37:01 AM

thx for the link, Nick. i'll try them out when i get back home from work. :)

Subject:RE: Acid 4.0 and kX ASIO drivers?

Reply by: nlamartina

Date:9/3/2002 2:48:09 AM

Stéphane,

Well, if you're on a budget, but also wanting to get serious, then the kX-Project will fit your needs perfectly. At the very least, it will help train you for the use of a pro-end card sometime in the future.

The kX driver will allow you to operate VSTi's in Acid with a respectable latency, between 10 and 20 milliseconds, which isn’t fabulous, but it’s good enough for recording and performance. The mixer is not terribly confusing to operate once you understand what it's doing. The DSP router can be a bit intimidating, but it comes with time. I’m still learning myself, but as I stated before, I’d be glad to help you or anyone else get a beginner’s understanding of the interface.

As for SoundFonts, I can't say much about the support since I don’t use them anymore. I've got loads on my hard disk, so I suppose I could slap a few in the mixer and see how things operate. It may take me a couple weeks to remember everything and orient myself with the new interface, but I believe it's worth a shot. I'll take a look at that for you and reply back here when I get and idea of its feasibility.

Regards,
Nick

Subject:RE: Acid 4.0 and kX ASIO drivers?

Reply by: thenoizzbox

Date:9/3/2002 6:22:33 AM

Nick,

Thank you very much for your help now and for your offer to help later. I have only one more concern before diving in. Do you know if the kX drivers support the Live!Drive IR. I connect either a SM57 to it (1/4" jack) to record my guitar amplifier directly or the POD through the RCA Aux 2 jacks. I'd really hate having the Live!Drive stop working and I can't find any reference to it on the FAQ or Known Issues pages of the kX site but I see that it's mentioned in the Hardware Reference in the online help but I just took a quick peek. I'd just want to be sure it's supported and works for others.

Thanks again! Your help is very much appreciated.

Stéphane

Subject:RE: Acid 4.0 and kX ASIO drivers?

Reply by: Neil_Palfreyman

Date:9/3/2002 7:29:52 AM

...with regards to SoundFonts - do you use Fruity Loops at all? My intended solution to any kX limitations on use of SoundFonts is to use the Fruity SoundFont player, once its working as a VSTi within Acid.

I know its not as efficient as loading them into the card itself, but the friendlyness of the interface on the Fruiy player more than makes up for that imho.

Subject:RE: Acid 4.0 and kX ASIO drivers?

Reply by: thenoizzbox

Date:9/3/2002 7:57:02 AM

No, I haven't looked into Fruity Loops yet. I've played SoundFonts through the VSampler 2.74 VSTi in ACID but the latency was so bad when playing live with my MIDI controller that I couldn't record anything. I can play SoundFonts directly through VSampler with almost no audible latency even with the Creative drivers so things can only get better with the kX ones. I just didn't have much time to play with ACID much since I bought it the same day I got the email. I must say that, coming from Cakewalk/Sonar, the MIDI implementation is not very intuitive to me but I love ADID 4's interface in general. I'm also new to the whole VSTi things so I have a lot of learning to do. I'll try to work with what I have now before I dive into yet another piece of software.

I've heard great things about Fruity Loops but haven't tried it yet. In Sonar I like that I can load SoundFonts directly and that the application remembers what SoundFonts to load for each project between sessions. I would really like to see the same kind of thing in ACID.

Thank you for the advice!

Stéphane

Subject:RE: Acid 4.0 and kX ASIO drivers?

Reply by: ATP

Date:9/4/2002 1:26:00 PM

slight bump.

i just installed the kX 35.22 drivers, and when i try to play a VSTi in ACID 4.0 it says:

The ASIO device kX ASIO Driver does not support the current sample rate.

any way to set the sample rate and bit rate in ACID 4.0? apparently the kX ASIO driver will only work at 48.000 kHz. and it doesn't appear as if ACID supports that.

any info on this is appreciated. :)

Subject:RE: Acid 4.0 and kX ASIO drivers?

Reply by: pwppch

Date:9/4/2002 1:38:20 PM

Of course ACID supports 48 kHz.

You need to set your project settings. This can be done from the mixer view using tye Audio Properties toolbar button or the file menu "Properties". You can also type ALT-Enter to get to the project properties settings.


Peter

Subject:RE: Acid 4.0 and kX ASIO drivers?

Reply by: Neil_Palfreyman

Date:9/4/2002 2:30:19 PM

Nick,

well I took the plunge and installed kX today (after fun and games removing the creative viruses...errr, I mean drivers - persistant little buggers, aren't they?)

...I'm well impressed with ASIO performance in Fruity - rock solid at 2.66mS. But Acid 4.0 is a bit of a disappointment so far. It loads better than the old Creative driver, but I'm having to run at 42.66mS, which is noticable. Anything lower and I get Rice Crispies (snap, crackle...) whenever I move anything on screen. Given my system specs - Athlon XP1700+, 750Mb memory, no ACPI, well tuned for Audio etc etc I was expectng better :(

..anyway - my question to you is how usable is your 21.33? Do you get any artifacts or glitches at all? What about when dragging windows around screen, or re-sizing windows, zooming in/out, changing envelopes etc?

Anyone else using kX what's your best "usable" ASIO latency? - ie no audio crap when using Acid with a reasonable sized projects, a couple of VSTis, doing lots of moving around on screen etc. ?

Subject:RE: Acid 4.0 and kX ASIO drivers?

Reply by: nlamartina

Date:9/4/2002 3:01:51 PM

Also, don't forget to check "Set this as the default properties" so you don't have to change the sample rate of every project.

- Nick

Subject:RE: Acid 4.0 and kX ASIO drivers?

Reply by: nlamartina

Date:9/4/2002 3:14:23 PM

Neil,

Considering your system specs, I'm surprised you have to be running it at 43ms. I have a 1 GHz Athlon with 256 MB of RAM, and I'm having flawless performance at 20.66 ms. Mind you now, if I start scrolling around the timeline like mad there's some static, but it's not persistent. Beside that, I can zoom in and out, edit, and toggle looping during playback with no crackle whatsoever, and that's with 30+ tracks and 6 VSTi's. Now I know ASIO bypasses the OS altogether, so I'm not sure what good tweaking the environment settings would do, but here are some things that might help:

1. If you're running Win2K, go into the system settings and tell it to optimize itself by giving background services priority instead of applications. I can't remember the exact name, but you might know what I'm talking about.

2. Make sure you don't have too many background services running.

3. Set your machine to use a lot of virtual memory, around 150% of your physical memory.

4. Make sure there are NO other sound drivers installed for your SBlaster beside the kX ones. After removing the Creative ones, Windows sometimes tries to force the old one back in since they "look compatible".

Try this and tell me how it goes,
Nick

Subject:RE: Acid 4.0 and kX ASIO drivers?

Reply by: thenoizzbox

Date:9/4/2002 3:18:02 PM

Neil,

I'll tackle the removal of the Creative viruses... errr drivers this weekend myself ;-) Any advice or gotchas you'd care to share with me and any other interested in making the same move? I'm pretty good dealing with system level stuff, removing or updating drivers or components and PC troubleshooting in general. I often had to get myself out of trouble by moving/copying/replacing files in DOS because my machine wouldn't boot Windows... ;-) I was just wondering if you ran into any particular problem.

Thanks in advance!

Stéphane

Subject:RE: Acid 4.0 and kX ASIO drivers?

Reply by: Neil_Palfreyman

Date:9/4/2002 3:45:00 PM

...well I didn't think I would have many (any) problems as I have never installed LiveWare since I installed XP (clean install) - I only ever installed the base Driver set. ...so I just removed the Creative drivers from Control Panel, System, devices, re-booted and before I could stop them the damn things were back in. Sometimes XP is just too good.

So I just followed the XP installation instructions on the kX site verbatim - delete the driver cache (and some other files - they say which on the site) re start in safe mode and do a change driver from control panel. It all worked fine.

...btw, just to be safe I took a Ghost image, and did a system restore snapshot before I installed. Haven't had to go back yet...

Subject:RE: Acid 4.0 and kX ASIO drivers?

Reply by: Neil_Palfreyman

Date:9/4/2002 4:17:19 PM

Nick,

thanks for the suggestions. My system is already well tuned for Audio, but I had forgotton about the optimise for background processes - thanks!

..but, sadly it didn't make any difference.

Can you do a test for me? Whilts you have a track playing grab one of the window re-size bars, say the one between the track list and track view and drag it quickly between both sides of the screen - I know this is a bit extreme, and something you would never do in real use, but I get more snap, crackle and pop when the graphics are very "active" and I'm interested to see if it stresses your set-up in the same way.

What Graphics card do you have btw?

...it may just be that I'm expecting too much - though my system is very well tuned, I do have a LAN, dual-head monitor set-up and a RAID-0 array and I suspect they all put extra load on the system.

Subject:RE: Acid 4.0 and kX ASIO drivers?

Reply by: ATP

Date:9/4/2002 4:48:03 PM

>>> Of course ACID supports 48 kHz.
You need to set your project settings. This can be done from the mixer view using tye Audio Properties toolbar button or the file menu "Properties". You can also type ALT-Enter to get to the project properties settings. <<<

thx Peter. that did the trick. rockin at a whoppin' 11 ms now. :)

Subject:RE: Acid 4.0 and kX ASIO drivers?

Reply by: Neil_Palfreyman

Date:9/5/2002 2:28:01 PM

Stephane,

ignore what I said last night - I've just been back and re-tried the installation (I wasn't happy with all the problems I had last night - isn't system restore wonderful?)

My advice now is:

Copy the contents of the libs zip to your System32 directory, unzip the kxdrv3522 zip to a temporary folder and just run kxsetup. This worked fine for me - no need to de-install any Creative drivers first (though the kX project site recommend removing LiveWare if you have it installed - I didn't so didn't need to.)

I did have two "funnies" - the kxsetup asked me for the location of two files: ksuser.dll and ks.sys. Both were already on my system ksuser.dll was in the System32 directory, ks.sys was in system32\drivers. All I did was point the installation to them and bingo - it all worked first time.

Overall I'm very impressed with kX so far. Maybe not quite as good as I was hoping in ASIO, but I'm still working on that - I suspect its probably something to do with my VIA chipset motherboard, RAID array, graphics card or network adaptor.

However ASIO in Fruity Loops, and DXi in Sonar using WDM, as well as just WDM in Acid is loads better than before.

...and it unlocks a heap of DSP functionality in the 10k1 chip which I never knew was there (or at least have never used) Its criminal that Creative hide all this from us, and sacrifice the true musical potential of the EMU chips in the name of consumerism.

...anyway, enough "soapbox" - good luck with your install, and dont forget to take a backup first!

Subject:RE: Acid 4.0 and kX ASIO drivers?

Reply by: thenoizzbox

Date:9/5/2002 9:45:48 PM

Neil,

Thank you very much for your help and advice. Unfortunately I'm stuck on Win98SE for now until I can afford both the time and money to upgrade to XP Pro. I've already started uninstalling some extraneous stuff and I think I'll uninstall the Creative drivers before installing the kX ones. I don't foresee any problems and hopefully ACID's performance will improve.

Stéphane

Subject:kX driver version 3523 Alpha released

Reply by: nlamartina

Date:9/13/2002 2:35:06 PM

Okay, if you're feeling brave, the new version is out. You'll be glad to know that there's now an EXE installer instead of a zip file, so hopefully your installations will go smoother. It appears the only thing "alpha" about it is a few fixes, so the risk level appears low. I'll be installing them later today, so I'll reply back here to let you all know how it went.

Here are a few things you might find significant (from the kX site):
Added support for SysEx-controlled Synth volume
Fixed bug with multiple note_on events producing clicks (with 'sustain pedal' turned on)
Fixed UART/MPU-out buffering issues (alpha)
Fixed some significant issues and bugs with multilayered soundfont handling [Stéphane]
Fixed incorrect hold2 / softpedal handling
Minor kX Mixer speed-ups and optimizations

Oh, and have any of you tried the kX MIDI automation yet in Acid? It's really slick!

I'll reply back later all,
Nick

Subject:Kx drivers glitchy in Acid 4

Reply by: oofunk

Date:9/30/2002 7:31:29 AM

I have been using the Kx Asio drivers for sometime now and was very please when Acid 4 came out with the support for Asio. But it just doesnt work correctly.

In Reason 2 or Fruityloops i can get the latency down as low as 2.66ms !! but in Acid 4 i can only get it as low as approx 30ms.

The problem i get is that when a new event begins, say a line of single shots. Acid 4 glitches for a split second.

Any ideas?? My spec is K7 700, 256mb ram, sblive card using kx drivers.

Thanks

ooFunk

Subject:RE: Kx drivers glitchy in Acid 4

Reply by: Neil_Palfreyman

Date:9/30/2002 9:55:47 AM

Have you updated to 4.0a? I was only able to get 40mS with 4.0, but with 4.0a I get a rock solid 10mS on an Athlon XP1700+. For interest I can get 2mS in Fruity, so Acid obviously isn't as efficient using ASIO as Fruity is...

Subject:RE: Kx drivers glitchy in Acid 4

Reply by: oofunk

Date:10/1/2002 9:15:06 AM

Tried 4a and works better, i too can get 10ms if the track is simple, when testing with a track with approx 40 - 50 audio tracks and 3 - 4 dx plugins the results were not as pleasing.

The whole thing wouldnt be a problem, but i like to have acid/fruity. acid/reason sync via Midi Yoke, and if you are using different drivers with different latency they dont sync!! The other side is if you set the Kx Asio to 10ms for acid, you have to live with that in fruity and reason!! 10ms isnt so great compared to 2.66ms when playing keys!

Would this be better with a better soundcard?? ultimately i would like to run at 24bit as well as 48000hz.

Subject:RE: Kx drivers glitchy in Acid 4

Reply by: Neil_Palfreyman

Date:10/1/2002 1:10:43 PM

A better sound card may help, but your processor speed may also be a limiting factor. Im running an SBLive! on my Athlon XP1700+ and get a rock solid 10mS in Acid even with very complex projects.

...out of interest do you get *any* Audio glitches at all running Fruity stand alone at 2.66mS? I can run complex Fruity projects at 2.66mS with no break up, but if I play a simple pattern, say a 4 on the floor kick pattern I can hear a light crackling on just the right channel which goes away if I increase the buffer size. On complex projects the crackling is drowned, so I dont notice it. Very odd problem that I think may be SBLive/kX related.

Subject:RE: Kx drivers glitchy in Acid 4

Reply by: shaunn

Date:10/2/2002 9:15:09 AM

Just tried the KX drivers today on my creative live 5.1. Went into safe mode, installed the driver, XP recognize the drivers and the creative ones are history (removed all the software and drivers related to Live)
The sound comes out of the speakers ok but when I hit record on any sound related software, the PC shutdowns and reboot instantly withotu warning. Never experience this problem before on this PC...it was rock solid.

My specs:
XP 1700, windows XP home sp1, Via KT333 chipset Mobo with the latest 4 in 1 drivers, ATI radeon 7500, kingston 256 MB ram.

Anybody knows what might be the problem? and I won't accept "blame it on VIA "a an answer ;)

Thanks

Shaun

Subject:RE: Kx drivers glitchy in Acid 4

Reply by: shaunn

Date:10/2/2002 12:00:51 PM

Ok I just solved it after about 50 reboots. I found the solution when I tried to use the Asio drives in Fruityloops, a pop up menu warned me to change the sample rate higher then 44000.
After changing to 48000, I could push fruityloops with 2ms latency without pops and cracks!!! crystal clear with extremely low cpu usuage... to hear is to believe! with the creative drivers it was up to 50ms over. Didn't know my cheapo Creative live soundcard could perform so well :)
So I got the idea from that to change the recording preferences in Soundforge 6 to record at 48000...aaahhhhhh no more BSODs....KX ROCKS!!!

Subject:RE: Kx drivers glitchy in Acid 4

Reply by: oofunk

Date:10/3/2002 8:25:45 AM

Strange that problem, normally just comes up with an error (in Acid at least) about suppoeted sample rates.

Neil, i have never noticed the problem you quoted, in fruity everything is really stable at 2.66ms, the only problem i used to get is midi tracks not starting if the first note was on the very very start. but since getting latency down to 2.66ms that problem has resolved itself.

All that i know is that Reason 2, (which is a very intensive program) dosent glitch at all at 2.66ms on my setup. The Acid recommend specs are lower than what i have at present so it should fine. Sonic foundry definately need to get the efficiency of Acid 4 better.

Subject:RE: Kx drivers glitchy in Acid 4

Reply by: nlamartina

Date:10/3/2002 1:16:12 PM

Oofunk, you just confirmed a problem I was trying to hunt down. I too have experienced the initial notes not firing with MIDI tracks, and I couldn't tell if it was system specific or not. Your findings confirm that it's the kX ASIO driver that's the problem. I have enough information now that I can send off to several people to see if this can be resolved. I'll keep in touch with you.

- Nick