Torq User Guide » Chapter 1 76Torq User Guide » Chapter 15 76
Audio Interface
This preference allows you to select a n audio interface for Torq.
1. Click the Audio Interf ace box.
2. A menu will be displayed, listi ng all audio interfaces currently connec ted to your computer.
3. Select the audio inter face you want to use with Torq.
Sample Rate
Below the Audio Interface selectio n you will see sample rate adjustment. Increasing this value will improve sound qualit y
(depending on your source material) but will also place heavier demands on your computer. It is therefore recommended to
leave the sample rate only a s high as you need it to be. If you only play MP3 l es or songs from CDs, you won’t really have
any reason to raise this value b eyond 44,100 since that is the sampling rate used by MP3s a nd CDs
Buffer Size
The other important setting for your audio interface is the Buffer Size. This parameter can cause a lot of confusion for some
users, but i s actually not that complicated. To understand how the buffer size af fects the perform ance of Torq, you must
understand a littl e bit about how your computer processes audio.
Multi-tasking is a term that refers to doing multiple jobs all at once. It ’s what allows your computer to run more than
one progr am at a time (i.e. listening to iTunes while sur ng the Web). While i t looks like the computer is doing t wo
separate things at once, it’s actua lly not—it’s still doing only one task at a time, but changi ng between tasks faster than you
can see.
This provides for a streamlined co mputing experience, but creates a p roblem when using audio applications. Aud io is non-
stop—a 5- minute song will play for 5 minutes without interrup tion. So how can the computer keep audio playing while it’s
jumping around to do other tasks? The answer is buffering. An audio buf fer is a temporary “stor age tank” that can h old a
brief moment of audio. The computer will ll t he audio buffer with music then let the buffe r play while it does other things
(like update the clo ck on your screen, check your net work connections, monitor R AM usage, etc.). When a ll things work
properly, the computer will complete its other tasks and ll the buffer with more da ta before the buffer em pties, thus
resulting in perfect au dio while multi-tasking.
If the audio buf fer happens to empty before the computer can ll i t with more data, the audio playback will stop until the
computer can ll the buffer again. The se “dropouts” happen very quic kly, not sounding like prolonged gap s of silence, but
sounding more like click s and pops or otherwise distorted audio. When t his happens, the solution is to either lighten t he
CPU load (by closing unnecessar y applications or processes that are wasting the com puter’s time) or by increasing the size
of the audio buffer, allowing it to play longe r (thus giving the computer enough time to per form its other tasks).
So why not just go with a large b uffer size and avoid dropouts? The problem is that i ncreasing the buffer size increases t he
system latenc y. Latency is the time between when you tell the compu ter to do something (such as activating an EQ Kill)
and when you actu ally hear the results from the speakers. If you have a large audio buffer, the buf fer will have to play out
its entire contents before you’ll hear any new EQ changes in the audio. Wh en DJing, this can be a nightmare if you’re trying
to do things with accurat e timing—all of your actions will have a delayed ef fect on the music.