ASIO4ALL driver unstable with Reason 6...

[SawCeeJack]

After eliminating all other variables, I finally realized that it was ASIO4ALL making Reason 6 heavily distorted every other time I ignited the software. ASIO4ALL is a universal driver meant for people running more than one audio interface simultaneously, all in the same box, as long as their sample rates are multiples of each other... for example, you can't run one interface at 48kh and at the same time, run another at 88.2kh... which brings me to my own question: why is it always ok to run one interface at 44.1kh and another at 96kh? I read about it a long time ago, but I forgot. I also forgot if I was using 48kh with 96kh sometime during the tinkering, as it would seem that these two would work well together, but I vaguely remember that I can't use these two together even though they are perfect integers of each other.

Anyway, I was happy to finally be a guinea pig for a beta driver and share it with other Reason 6.5 users. The goal of the experiment was to send one dry signal to my other PC for it to be processed.

 

[bandcoach]

I am positing a basis for why this is so - if the higher of the two sampling rates is smaller than double the lower, then you run into aliasing artefacts caused by the beating between the two sample rates as things are played back - this beating will fold back into the audio realm and generate several kinds of problems including perceived distortion.

It is based on the same idea that says the sampling frequency needs to be more than double the highest frequency (the Nyquist frequency) you are trying to capture - if the sample rate is lower and you don't pre-treat your input with a low pass filter set at below the half-the-sample-rate, then you will hear distortions introduced as low freq beating as the sampled sound interacts at the boundaries of the sample rate.

Using 48 and 96 would seem reasonable.

ASIO4All may not be your solution for this problem as it is meant to allow you to access your built-in audio card with ASIO drivers. You would be better off if you are using standalone, add-on cards, to use their respective ASIO drivers and be done with it......