18F-CONTROL AUDIO FCA202 User Manual

4. Working with the FCA202

4.1 Device drivers and latency

A device driver is an interface that ensures communication between the software (audio application) and the hardware (the FCA202). In recent years, the PC platform has witnessed the establishment of several different driver models for sound cards. Some of these drivers cannot be used for simultaneous recording and playback or for working with software plug-ins, since they do not support the full range of functions provided by professional sound cards and cause a long time delay (latency).

The FCA202 software provides a number of driver models for Windows platforms and for professional recording.

With standard Windows-applications, you don’t need to worry about which driver is currently being used by the operating system. You only need to select the correct playback device via the Windows “Control Panel”.

However, as soon as you start to produce or record computer-based music and work with special audio software such as Cubase, Live, Logic, Tracktion, or others, you should make sure that you selected an ASIO driver. This driver model

supports the full range of functions offered by your hardware and gives you the best performance.

You will normally find the selection of a driver model for the FCA202 hardware in an audio setup menu or in the standard default settings of the software you are using. If necessary, check the documentation for your software.

If you work with the program Sonar from Cakewalk, you can also use the WDM KS driver, since this achieves comparable latencies to the ASIO driver. In case of doubt, check whether the ASIO or the WDM KS driver gives better results with your Sonar system.

Things are much simpler with the Mac platform.

With OS X, there is only one driver model, the CoreAudio driver. Thus there´s no need to worry about which driver to select.

◊In PC systems, the latency very much depends on the driver used. For recording, always select an ASIO driver and use the CONTROL PANEL to set up a lower latency (less than 16 ms). The smaller the value, the better.

If audio dropouts occur, try increasing the latency in stages.