ASIO Monitoring & Latency Weirdness (Good news for ASIO users!)

Nappylady

I have one computer built now for use as an outboard active crossover, with 3 Soundblaster Live! cards in it. (Only one is in use right now.)

I got the crossover set up about where I wanted it, but I wanted to do some corrective EQ and delaying, so I installed Cubase SX on the computer and started tweaking. (For clarity: the sound comes into the computer thru the Line-In AC97 input. Then, kX's 4th-order Crossover plugin splits the signal into bass and treble. These 4 channels (2 bass & 2 treble) are then fed into the ProFX ASIO plugin, where Cubase does its thing and sends them back out channels 0-3 on the FXbus. From there, they go out the analog outputs for amplification.)

The first thing I did was set ASIO latency to 2.33 ms--whoops, that's too low for a K62-400. So I set it to a high value, 21ms. Then I noticed something odd--playing music, there was no discernable latency! I figured that, because I was using ASIO monitoring to bounce the channels through Cubase, it was simply forwarding the audio to the correct output. To check this, I set up an equalizer on one of the channels--and I was wrong!

EQ worked perfectly, as did all the effects I tried, such as reverbs and delays! And there is no discernable latency, even with the kX Control Panel latency set as high as 41.66! (Though, if I set the latency too low, I still get dropouts...)

I'm happy that I'm getting something for nothing but... Is there a catch someplace? Can someone explain to me why this is the way it is? *scratches head*

peate

Latency is a recording/monitoring issue. You're basically feeding audio directly to your outputs, not trying to record and playback in synch which is where latency plays a role.