USB Pre-Amp + Rode NT1-A + Cubase SX = LAG FROM HELL!

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oALTAIRAo

Active member
So i'm new to the entire home recording scene but am not new to producing. Just had to get that out of the way before you guys thought I was an entire newb at making music.

...So I went to Sweetwater and got me a...

Tascam US-122 USB Audio/Midi Interface ($180)
Rode NT1-A Large Diaghram Diaphragm Condenser Microphone ($160)
$20 XLR Cable (lol i know)

Well I actually have two problems..

First of all, I don't understand how I can get my music to play through my computer sound card (Sound Blaster Digital 5.1) and have the sound come in through my USB Pre-Amp. I can get it to work with the "ASIO Direct Sound Full Duplex" setup in the ASIO driver list...

That's the only way I can record anything and hear my background music at the same time, and after a few seconds of recording the background music starts making clicks and lags and eventually I get a "ASIO Came out of sync" or something like that error...

I've messed with buffers and such and can't figure it out, any help would be great. Thanks.

P.S. I'm going to post a sound clip of what this mic and pre-amp can do so people will know you don't have to spend more than $500 for a basically "perfect" sound (i'm sure lots will argue, but it's definitely perfect for me).

-Donovan
 
asio4all should solve the problem with the sound blaster
http://www.asio4all.com

the tascam shouldve come with it's own asio drivers. if you havent installed those, do so, it will help. also windows doesnt do too well with 2 sound cards, at least not with a usb one and a pci one both running at the same time. try just using the tascam and disabling your sound blaster in windows. i have an external sound blaster for my laptop and my friend has one thats one step up from mine and weve both had problems when both the onboard sound and the sound blaster were enabled. this way everthing will be connected to one device and theres no need to waste some of your cpu on sending a signal to both cards.
 
..wow.. your lil talk about the "2 sound cards" made me remember/realize that my usb pre-amp is basically a sound card. i hooked my headphones upto the headphone jack on the pre-amp and i can hear myself, and the music, perfectly, without any lag. i just opened it up and ran with it and it worked. now i have some random stutters that i have to workout, idk what the deal is with that one. so i guess my soundblaster just doesn't have to be part of the deal at all then...

i see that the pre-amp has RCA lineouts... so that output is the same as what i'm hearing in the headphones right?

i installed the asio4all thing and haven't messed with it since this is actually working now, but i'll try it out to see if my soundblaster still sucks that badly (i bought it for gaming, not producing).

THANKS A LOT.

-Donovan
 
By the way... what's the difference between the ASIO driver for 16bit and 24 bit? any difference that is noticeable or is it just one of those things so that people can say "i have 24 bit recording"

-Donovan
 
Using a 24bit bitrate will give you a higher dynamic range. Use this is tracking in 24 bits. It is preferred over 16 bits when tracking since it helps with the quality.
 
as far as the stutters, make sure you have the tascam asio driver selected in in the settings of your recording program. then adjust the buffer setting to the lowest you can get it without any clicks.
 
I just made the US-122 my windows sound card, and all my sound is coming through it. When I just started it up it clicked a few times and now it's working fine though it has some stuttering spells every once in a while. This is pretty cool, I was just wondering if having multiple things on one USB port (Via hubs) is a source of the random clicking/stutters. I don't know how to increase the buffer in windows to make it go away.

-Donovan
 
You don't need to make the Tascam your Windows default sound card. If you do this, then Windows is trying to send junk to the Tascam (like alert noises and stuff like that), so you get worse performance than just selecting the Tascam within your recording app, because the bandwidth is used by both Windows and your music software.

-Hoax
 
I didn't make it the windows sound card for production, just because I could. I made my soundblaster the windows card again and now i just keep my headphones plugged into the us-122 when i'm producing. This thing works awesome, even in my bedroom setup. I now know what all those pages I read about acoustics meant though. I can hear the horrible reverberations in my recordings, and this mic picks up EVERYTHING. I was listening to the monitor and heard crickets, computer fan, doors shutting, mom screamin in the background. Classes start on Monday, which means my job starts Monday, whcih means I'll have $ two weeks from Monday, so after I pay for a few things I'll start acoustically trating my room, or renovating my closet. I'm going to make a new thread about the sound quality of this reasonably cheap equipment. THANKS for the help.

-Donovan
 
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