Audigy 2 ZS 24/96 ASIO Recording

INTRODUCTION
Is Audigy 2 ZS capable of 24/96 asio recording? Yes, it is. You will have analog mix (line in) and vst soft synths available for recording, listening and export as audio mixdown. The sound is crystal clear and you'll have a fine 24 bits and 96 khz song. If you want to have real professional recording you should have a soundcard with professional DACs and so you should consider buying an EMU card.
HOW TO DO IT? I'll use Cubase Sx 1.0.5 as reference. The names may differ but the main process is similar for newer versions of Cubase.
Open Cubase SX and under Devices - Devices Setup - VST Multitrack choose SB Audigy 2 ZS 24/96 as your Asio Driver. Untick "Release ASIO Driver in Background" and "Direct Monitoring", select a useful latency in Control Panel (less than 10 ms is good), hit Ok, Apply and Ok again.
Open a new project (empty) and under Devices - VST Inputs activate only Analog Mix (remap if asked). You're almost ready to rock.
AUDIO
Add an audio track (mono or stereo) and select your input (analog mix).
Now, check your Creative Mixer inputs: you must have Line In unmuted (and at 58% for best sound quality) and you must select Analog Mix at 50% (0 db) in your Rec slider. Check your Audio track in Cubase if you have monitoring signal. You can activate the track monitoring button for listening to any Vst Effects that you want to apply in your track (like reverb, delay...). Arm your track for recording and hit the record button (or * tab) and you'll have your sound recorded (guitar, voice...).
VST SYNTHS
Add a midi track, select your VST instrument (under Devices) and, in your midi track, choose I/O Midi SB Audigy 2 ZS as your Midi In and your VST Instrument as your Midi Out. Don't forget to enable Midi Thru Active under File - Preferences to have sound in your midi track.
After recording your song you can export your audio mixdown and you're done. Export it as Stereo Interleaved and include Automation and Effects.
SOUNDFONTS
You'll not be able to record them to audio, or listening to them when you export your audio mixdown.
VERIFYING RATES
Open your Creative Media Player and open any audio file you've record in Cubase (you''l have it in your Cubase project folder) and you'll see that it's a native 24/96 audio file.
Hope this will help everyone who wants to make good homerecording, without having to spend a lot of money in a professional board.
Message Edited by gemada on 11-04-2005 10:26 PM

Darkk_Nights wrote:
Thanks Jutapa!
I thought the file format were automatically set to 24-bit when the ' SB Audigy 2 ZS 24/96' ASIO driver is choosen. How can I set it to 24-bit?
And another question: why do you said that none of the Audigy series cards are good with 16-bit/44.1 kHz quality? In fact, what would be the difference between a recording made with an Audigy and with some others professional audio cards?
Again, thanks a lot!!!
Cubase SX --> Recording bit depth and SR can be set on Project settings.
1st, Creative Soundblaster cards are not pro cards but just consumer cards, intented for multimedia and gaming use. Creative pro cards comes from EMU brand. This information comes from Creative web pages.
Read this Creative Audigy2 ZS Sound Card Review : http://www.digit-life.com/articles2/creative-audigy2-zs/index.html
Then read couple of US$150 more Pro card reviews
- http://www.digit-life.com/articles2/esi-julia/index.html
- http://www.digit-life.com/articles2/audiotrakmaya44mkii/index.html
Then read couple Pro audio interface reviews
- http://www.digit-life.com/articles2/lynxtwo/index.html
- http://www.digit-life.com/articles2/multimedia/esi-maxioxd.html
Do you now see some of the differences?
jutapa

Similar Messages

Audigy 2 zs MIC ASIO recording problem?

I'm using Sonar 4 to simply record some voices through a micphone. I set the the "Creative ASIO stereo mic in L" as my input and i used a software "compressor" and "reverb" as my pre effects. It's working very well when i start monitioring. So that i can heard wet sound and record dry sound at the same time. But the problem occurs when i click the red "ARM" button and ready to record, i found that the input level are getting much greater and overloaded. I tried a lot but it seemed as if there is no way to adjust the input level of micphone under ASIO recording mode. The pre compressor seemed useless. Is there a way to record a limited or compressed micphone input? Now i have to record in another track and set the input as "Creative ASIO stereo mix in L". But in this way the background music has been recorded aslo. I'm getting mad. I don't know do i need a hardware amp or compressor for micphone.

make sure your have set up microphone in sound option and not "What you hear"Double click the Creative sound menu buttom right, and make sure its microphone thats in the far right?Put the volume to the max to might be that also, even try to use the 20db boost

ASIO Recording 24 bit (48 or 96kHz) A2 Platinum

I have read at kX Project that the Audigy 2 drivers from July 2004 enables 24 bit/96 kHz ASIO recording with the A2 ZS series. Can I get the same with the A2 Platinum eX? So far I have been using kX drivers with good results, but only with 6 bit and 48 kHz.
Thanks for someone to answer!
Sture in Sweden

"The SB Audigy ASIO 24/96 is only available with the Audigy 2 Platinum EX which uses ASIO 2.0 driver and is fixed on 24-bit/96khz. When using Cubasis you should always have one of these drivers selected and not the Multimedia or the directX drivers. You can adjust the buffer latencies from the ASIO control panel in the Audio System setup from the default 50ms up to 500ms and down to 2ms."
taken from knowledge base
search "ASIO recording" pick the top article

Audigy 4, difficulty with 24/96 ASIO recording

I just purchased an Audigy 4 (SB0610, not Pro) with the intention of using it fir 24-bit recording with n-Track Studio (24-bit). When I'm in n-Track and select the Audigy 4 24/96 ASIO [D000] drivers, I can only get input from the left side of the line-in. Furthermore, when I make certain changes to audio settings in n-Track, I will lose even that input until I use the surround mixer to disable / re-enable the line input.
Is this *supposed* to work? Or am I barking up an incorrect tree?
The WDM driver does work and give me both left and right channels, but I'd like to use the ASIO driver if possible to reduce latency.
So far, I've tried changing my recording source in the mixer. I've tried disabling all loaded programs and unnecessary system services (via msconfig) and I use the auto update feature to update the Creative drivers. The update process itself was a little wierd because it didn't install the Audigy 4 drivers (only the audio console app) until I dug in to the installed programs and ran the driver installation manually.
It seems that if I change my speaker configuration to anything less than 5.1 (2.0, 2.1 etc), then I lose even the left channel. 6.1 and 7.1 give me the same results as 5.1, only left channel and no right.
I've also disabled non-essential system hardware to free up IRQs. I've even replaced the motherboard with an identical model (I found I had bad caps.)
Anyway, I can't seem to get the 24/96 ASIO under control. I also seems unstable as it will trap n-Track from time to time.
The mobo is EpoX 8KHA+, AMD Athlon 1900+, Windows XP SP 2.
Thank you greatly for any help!!!!!!!!

Thank you very much for the reply. The relevent parts seem to be:
(Note that in 24 bit 96KHz mode the inputs are limited to the analog input pairs.)
I'm in 24/96 mode because I picked the 24/96 ASIO driver for both recording and playback in n-Track Audio Devices, correct?
After selecting that driver, I tried to select a sample rate of 96000 in n-Track, but no radio button was selectable. I assume that's because the driver is determining the sample rate, correct?
• ASIO inputs 1 and 2 come from the Sound Blaster Audigy 2 eX Drive Line In 2 stereo input;
!! My NOTE: AnalogMix(Line-In/Aux-In/analog CDAudio/PC (W-U-H)/TAD/...)
In the n-Track settings, I only have one selectable input "SB Audigy 4 ASIO [D000]." Is it safe to assume that this represents the "AnalogMix" of all those physical inputs? If so, them I'm doing the right thing and I still don't know what's wrong. (BTW, what's W-U-H?)
This also may be relevent:
• ASIO inputs 15 and 16 come from the Sound Blaster Audigy 2 eX Drive Line In 1/Mic In stereo input;
• ASIO inputs 17 and 18 come from the Sound Blaster Audigy 2 eX Drive Line In 3 stereo input;
Are these the "analog input pairs" you referred to above? If so, are "Line in 1" and "Line in 3" the left and right channels on the blue connector on the back of my card? It seems kinda hokey to split a stereo signal across two ASIO channels, one of which is not selectable.
I'm not getting it yet. A block diagram would be very handy. Please help me understand.
Thanks again.

Audigy 2 ZS Platnum Pro Multitrack recording probl

I hope I am in the right forum. This one looks pretty close.
I have the Audigy 2ZS Platnum Pro in a brand new Compaq Prisario w/AMD (64) CPU running Windows XP w/52 megs of RAM. I bought this card new a couple of years ago and got frustrated trying to learn to multitrack with it. I recently installed the card in the above mentioned computer and went back to trying to learn to use this device. When setting the driver in Cubasis VST 4.0 I used the driver that came with my Audigy card like the instructions say to do but it caused my "sample rate" to be set to 9600khz. The instructions say to run at 44.khz to avoid problems but that is not an option with the Audigy driver. I tried several different recordings before I tried a full song. Things were going fairly well till I used the Audigy Pro driver, I started recording and my computer went wako on me then reset to the command prompt and began rebooting but it was like it was in some strange loop or something. It was hard to get it turned off and then reboot the computer. This happened a couple of times. I quit trying to use the Audigy driver and and tried all the other drivers listed in the audio setup program. I actually got a nice recording with my midi piano and a vocal track somewhere in all that crap. I ran into problems when mixing down though. All that came out was the vocal. Like the midi tract wasn't even there. I followed the tutorial word for word but things just didn't work out. I'm still trying to figure that oue out. Since the mix down went wrong I am having what I think is called "fall out". When I record my piano (midi) the play back sounds like I was playing irratic. Like I had hicups or something. And that is before even adding any other instruments. I tried all I know to do with my limited knowledge of recording software and ended up doing a "recovery" of the oporating sustem in hope of setting whatever went wrong back to factory settings. That didn't help. I upgraded from the factory 52 megs ram to gig, that hasn't helped. I am starting to loose my temper and that is not a good thing. Too much expensice stuff in my room. If someone can please help I will be forever in your debt. Lastly I already did the setting the processor to "back ground processing". Thank you. Jeff

badraven wrote:
hope I am in the right forum. This one looks pretty close.
I have the Audigy 2ZS Platnum Pro in a brand new Compaq Prisario w/AMD (64) CPU running Windows XP w/52 megs of RAM. I bought this card new a couple of years ago and got frustrated trying to learn to multitrack with it. I recently installed the card in the above mentioned computer and went back to trying to learn to use this device.
When setting the driver in Cubasis VST 4.0 I used the driver that came with my Audigy card like the instructions say to do but it caused my "sample rate" to be set to 9600khz. The instructions say to run at 44.khz to avoid problems but that is not an option with the Audigy driver. I tried several different recordings before I tried a full song. Things were going fairly well till I used the Audigy Pro driver, I started recording and my computer went wako on me then reset to the command prompt and began rebooting but it was like it was in some strange loop or something. It was hard to get it turned off and then reboot the computer. This happened a couple of times.
I quit trying to use the Audigy driver and and tried all the other drivers listed in the audio setup program. I actually got a nice recording with my midi piano and a vocal track somewhere in all that crap.
I ran into problems when mixing down though. All that came out was the vocal. Like the midi tract wasn't even there. I followed the tutorial word for word but things just didn't work out. I'm still trying to figure that oue out. Since the mix down went wrong I am having what I think is called "fall out". When I record my piano (midi) the play back sounds like I was playing irratic. Like I had hicups or something. And that is before even adding any other instruments. I tried all I know to do with my limited knowledge of recording software and ended up doing a "recovery" of the oporating sustem in hope of setting whatever went wrong back to factory settings. That didn't help. I upgraded from the factory 52 megs ram to gig, that hasn't helped. I am starting to loose my temper and that is not a good thing. Too much expensice stuff in my room.
If someone can please help I will be forever in your debt. Lastly I already did the setting the processor to "back ground processing". Thank you. Jeff
I think, it's best if you use Creative bundled ASIO drivers @ 6-bit/48kHz 'resolution' (even your card perhaps supports 24-bit/96kHz w/ ASIO -> is the Cubases capable for this).
Depending on your CPU performance, you should keep the ASIO I/O latency setting under 0ms when recording/monitoring.
Also, remember set your 'project' to same resolution the driver is set to.
When you're recording external sources (through line/mic/etc. ports), use AnalogMix/Line-In n for line source(s) and microphone for microphone recordings (recording/input source selection).
You mentioned reading some tutorial .. was it the same bundled w/ Audigy? If not then, check this thread for more information -
http://forums.creative.com/creativelabs/board/message?board.id=profaudio&message.id=726
BTW, have you tried w/ other recording software (like demos for sonar, li've, etc.)?
jutapa

Audigy 2 ZS 24-bit/96kHz Recording support

Hi
According to Creative's website,on Feb 2004,
only SBAudigy2Plat.Pro had --> ASIO 2.0 Low Latency Multi-Track Recording Support (24-bit/96kHz)
See http://web.archi've.org/web/2004028023909/http://www.soundblaster.com/products/Audigy2ZS_platinum_pro/compare.asp
But now, after Audigy4's release, the website's comparision chart shows all the members of the Audigy2 family can do 24bit/96kHz ASIO 2.0 Recording.
See:
http://www.soundblaster.com/products/Audigy2ZS_platinum_pro/compare.asp
Please clarify this ?
Were any new driver released by Creative to add support for 'ASIO 2.0 Low Latency Multi-Track Recording(24-bit/96kHz)'
for Audigy 2 ZS, as well as Audigy 2 ZS Platinum ?

-Q,
This has been added to the drivers. Make sure you are running the latest drivers and this should update you to ASIO 2.
Jeremy

X-Fi - Selecting bit depth when ASIO recordi

When using the X-Fi with the Creative ASIO driver (in 3rd party applications), how do you select the bitdepth 6 or 24 when recording? The ASIO driver only gives access to the soundcard latency. I am missing something obvious?
digifish
Message Edited by digifish on 0-20-2008 06:54 PM

I can answer this for you.... I'm afraid it wont work from what I've read on other forums in Vista.
First of all you need to leave the creative software alone as that never works, then you do it by right clicking on the speaker icon etc to do what I am doing [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5qa-HODWbc">here[/url].
I don't think you will see What U hear in there tho.
Have a read of this massi've thread [url="http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=52527&postdays=0&postorder=asc&sta rt=20">here[/url]?post by ]usenet7.
Re: Creative X-Fi "stereo line-in"
Don't bother getting the card if you have Vista. There is no stereo mix or other like capabilities.
Ive spoken to that guy, and I can tell you what he says is correct.
Now the really bad news.. I don't know of ANY Vista laptops that can do what I have in that video either using their onboard sound or any add on card you can buy.

The people at places like singsnap are tearing their hair out over this.

X-Fi - Selecting bit depth when ASIO recording

When using the X-Fi with the Creative ASIO driver (in 3rd party applications), how do you select the bitdepth 16 or 24 when recording? The ASIO driver only gives access to the soundcard latency. I am missing something obvious?
digifish

Unfortunatly thats the way it is with soundblaster cards and vista drivers at the moment. There are a few threads open with people that have been complaining about this for months.Your 3 choices are; run windows xp, deal with the lack of driver features at the moment, or get a different brand of soundcard.

Audigy 2 value. Creative smart recorder has encountered a problem and needs to clo

At last I installed the audigy 2v software but I get this error when I try to open creative smart recorder."Creative smart recorder has encountered a problem and needs to close." My mic functions but my speakers don't. So I have switched to my on board card now. I am using Windows Xp, service pack 2. Everything functioned perfectly until I got the last updates using autoupdate. Any suggestions?

Thanks PeeBee! For some reason WMP burned those songs as write-protected (although at some point in the past I had turned it off). I reburned those songs and they uploaded just fine. Now if only I can figure out this video thing. Thnaks again. - Chris

Sound stops working on audigy 2 zs after using ASIO / reas

I just got Reason 4 and I noticed that after a while my sound will not work anywhere BUT reason. So once I use reason for a bit I cant play music in WMP or anything, but sound will still work from reason. The only thing that brings my sound back is restarting my computer. Is this an ASIO issue? I tried switching the asio driver in reason, but theres only one that works. A weird problem, and super annoying...
oh and Im using the latest vista driver, the july 2008 one.
Message Edited by aeroshock on 0-02-2008 0:54 AM

Yeah, I've tried 2 sets of headphones that I know work properly on my other computer. The speakers and headphones worked just fine until I installed the EMU 0404, removed it, then reinstalled the Audigy 2 ZS. This was all in the course of?one day, BTW, because I could never get the EMU 0404 working properly in this computer. When I have the volume all the way up on the speakers or headphones, I hear the sounds very very faintly, but there's a lot of hiss at the same time because the volume's up so high. The sound signal is not being output to the line-out at the proper strength. Augie

Audigy 2 ZS Platinum - can't record from front panel "mic-

I'm using an Audigy 2 ZS Platinum. I have an electric guitar plugged into the "mic-in" port on the front panel. I can hear the guitar through my speakers but I can't record from any program. I've tried using "Creative Wave Studio" and XP's "Sound Recorder" but it doesn't record.
I can record by plugging a microphone into the back mic-in port.
This is very frustrating, please help
--Dan

First is to set the Recording device to MIC2. The front panel device is considered the second microphone. Basically whatever program you use, I would assume it has to recognize this second microphone. Make sure you ahve it selected under the sound mixer (task bar Icon) "Line in 2/Mic 2" underneath "REC" on far right side. Then you can go from there.
|)O( Try this, if not use the old Hamer to Front of PC method, lol.

SB Audigy 2 Platiunum ex on Vista - Recording device "Currently Unavailable&qu

Hi, thanks in advance for any help!
I'm having difficulty recording on Windows Vista. Having installed my soundcard recently from a previous computer, I downloaded the relavent Vista Driver: "Creative Sound Blaster Audigy series Vista Driver 2.2.0002" (6 Mar 07). I have not installed the beta version released 02 Jun 08 (perhaps someone will recommend i try that).
Now, I opened up a recording software (Cakewalk Sonar 7) - and followed the instruction for recording. Upon not recieving any level information from a mic plugged into the Audigy "Line-In /Mic" - it recommended I open up Windows Vista "Sound Recorder" and attempt recording from there, which failed with the following pop-up message: "An Audio recording device cannot be found".
It then automatically opened up the "Recording" tab on the?Sound control panel where i could see the recording devices listed: They were listed as follows:
- Line-In /Mic, Creative SB Audigy 2 (WDM), Currently unavailable
- Line-In 2, Creative SB Audigy 2 (WDM), Currently unavailable
- S/PDIF-In, Creative SB Audigy 2 (WDM), Working
- "What U Hear", Creative SB Audigy 2 (WDM), Currently unavailable
The "Currently Unavailable" seems to be the crux of the problem - have i done something incorrectly, and how do I make them available if this is where the problem resides? I tried selecting the Line-In , etc, as default with no results from that Vista recording program (When i selected S-PDIF-In, the vista recording program?allowed the record to begin, and when saved, played back nothing but noise).
The sound card is working perfectly normally - I can hear sound, and even get the plugging in jack noise when i plug into the Line-In slot on my Audigy box in addition to being able to speak into my mic and hear myself back through my speakers. I am quite confused! Surely a solution is kicking me in the face...
Many thanks in advance for any help in remedying my current recording crisis!

Copied from the Video forum - (related to video operation under Vista)
I have used the follwoing procedure to install a working configuration of the Audigy 2 ZS Video Editor in a clean install of Vista Ultimate.
() Download from Creative Labs (US) site: http://us.creative.com/support/downloads/ the following files:
(a) Creative Sound Blaster USB Series Windows Vista Driver .00.0060 - USBVS_PCDRV_LB__00_0060.exe (from the Vista section)
(b) VidCap for Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS Video Editor .00.000 - A2VX_PCVDE_L9__00_000.exe (from the WinXP section)
(2) Use WinZip or WinRAR to open the file (b) and extract the folders \DrvInst and \Vidcap into your Vista Downloads folder.
(3) Connect the Video Editor to the power supply and a video source; connect the USB cable to your PC. Ignore the "Found NEw Hardware" dialog that pops up.
(4) Doubleclick on file (a) to install the Creative Sound Blaster USB Series Windows Vista Driver, and follow prompts as required; accept all defaults. After install is complete, let the PC reboot.
(5) After rebooting, in the "Found New Hardware" dialog that appears, select the options to search for a driver, don't go online to search, browse for a driver and point the search at the \DrvInst folder you extracted in (2) above. The USB video driver will be installed from the \DrvInst\Video\Driver\Win2k.
(6) After the video driver is installed, doubleclick on the Setup.exe file in the \Vidcap folder you extracted in (2) above to install the Vidcap application.
(7) Setup the options in Vidcap, and run a test recording.
Happy capturing under Vista.Message Edited by Dale-CL on 04-8-2007 :3 AM

Audigy ES crackle/poping whenever I record and playb

When I upgraded from an older Biostar motherboard, cpu and RAM this past month i recently reformated my hard dri've for a clean sweep. I am a musician and when I installed the drivers for the Audigy ES normally as well as Abode Audition nothing at first sounded any different.
Now that I upgraded to an Asrock K7VT6 socketA MB, 2600XP Athlon 333mhz fsb 52kbL2 cache CPU, and a single module of Rosewill 52mb PC3200 ram- when i record with my microphone jack on the Audigy, i get cracking and poping randomly from the Audigy ES. I checked to see if it was directly from the sound card by trying different cords, input sources, etc.
I am definite that the sound is from the Audigy ES, but I've never had this problem before I upgraded my hardware and did a clean install. I also uninstalled the card and all CL software along with disabling onboard sound and moving the Audigy ES to a different PCI slot.
Same thing.
Could it be because of my upgrade there may be some hardware interfearence? Or perhaps I 'fried' the Audigy ES somehow?
help?

this is a pretty common problem amongst athalon xp chip users. It's my understanding, that on board raid chipsets play a part in the noise too. I've found though, that, I've had that problem before, and, w/not only a clean install of windows, depending on what features you're bios has, theres several ways to improve, if not even fix your situation. If your board has mp support enable it to ./.4... this will allow you to have many IRQ's (it's essentialy multiprocessor support on a uniporcessor board) Also, instead of automatic pci support, go manual, and choose IRQ 5 for the soundblaster. Another trick is to check enable memory hole in bios. I've virtually eliminated these issues, using these things, however, I find that, VIA chipsets, G-force cards, Creative cards, and winXP pretty much blowz for stability, so, get yourself a nforce chipset, w/an amd 64 chip, and discover what mac users have known for a long time.... multimedia and 64 bits is the shiznitz. (even when runnin at 32 bits.. :-))
Stealthy
ps.
.. if I remember more, I'll post again. Oh... Remember, on clean install of win2k/winXP, if you click <f5> when it's asking<f6> for scsi (if you need scsi click'm both several times) <f5> will allow you to make choices relating to the type of pc you're installing your nt5 os too... choose standard pc if you want to be able to manually choose IRQ's, and acpi uni if you've got that mp support. Good Luck.

Problems with ASIO on multiple Audigy 2 ZS cards

G'day,
I've been using an Audigy 2ZS PCI for a couple of years now with great success. I convert old audio recordings to various digital formats using a couple of applications (mainly Adobe Audition 1.5 & 2.0).
Recently, my workload has increased to the point where I needed one card to just record at high res, and another card to handle just playback and general Windows bells & whistles without impacting the performance of the recording.
I installed a second 2ZS, it was detected by Windows, etc, and I set it up so Windows uses one card (identified as A800) for all its stuff, and the second card (B000) is used only for ASIO recording.
That's where the nightmare started. I've uploaded and installed the May 2006 Creative driver update, but I still suffer from a number of problems, some related to Audition, some not.
The least annoying problem is that all the Creative drivers seem to identify only a truncated version of the ID string. So for example, in various applications, I see "SB Audigy 2ZS [B0 -1" or "SB Audigy 2ZS [A8 -5". This is annoying but not showstopping.
The biggest problem is getting applications to correctly interact with the Creative Labs ASIO driver and enumerator. Most applications (Nero, Audition, Premiere Pro) can "see" the ASIO driver, but when it's selected, it may not work at all, or may work from one or the other sound card, without any clear indication of which card is selected.
I'm sorry if this sounds generic, but I've spent a week with the Adobe folks, who simply ended up telling me "it's a problem with the CL drivers", and most forums I frequent say the same thing, and the specifics vary from application to application, but at the core, CL drivers are just not working properly with the system when two cards are installed.
By way of example, using ASIO4ALL has fixed many of the card selection problems, but even there, sometimes the inputs of one card are disabled, sometimes the other card, and in the middle of a recording session (line in jack, 44.1k/16 bit), the input waveform slowly biases down to -2V and then all I get are inverted samples - quiet appears as max. value samples, while valid audio appears as -2V samples! If I put the audio line into the other card, it plays just fine (I know what I'm doing WRT grounding and line levels, etc).
This system has run essentially non-stop since September 2005, and I guess it collected a lot of software crud, so I bit the bullet and performed a clean reinstall of Windows XP and updated every driver I could. Some problems have since changed for the better (i.e. clicking on the configure button of the CL ASIO driver no longer bluescreens or displays an empty window), but the problems described above still happen all the time.
I was wondering if other users have seen the same or similar problems, and if so, what has worked for you?
The system is a Gigabyte 81PE1000Pro2, PCI bus, 3.2GHz P4 with HT enabled, 2G physical RAM, and a 1.5Tb RAID disk system.
Recording when a single sound card (either of the cards works beautifully on its own) is perfect; just when both cards are installed, everything gets confused! Even the WDM drivers don't correctly identify or manage the routing of inputs and outputs reliably.
Sorry to go on about this. If anyone can offer constructive suggestions (I define "constructive" as not telling me to "buy another type of card" or (as one poor soul suggested) telling me that multiple PCI sound cards are not supported under Windows), I would be most grateful.
Thanks and regards,
Peter

G'day Jutapa, thanks for looking at this!
Yeah, I got all the possible ASIO drivers listed, one CL ASIO driver is listed for each card, and I have spent much time trying different configurations of card order, I/O port order, direct sound enabling/disabling, timesync enable/disable, etc.
The problem for me with the CL ASIO drivers is that it limits me to 48/96k sampling only. That is not acceptable, because I need to sample at 44.1k for "straight" conversions to CD, or 192k/24-bit for archival purposes (used for extremely old or fragile recordings), so I end up with large files that nearly always need to be resampled to 44.1k, or saved permanently at 192k/24-bit. Typical filesize is 650Mb, largest so far is 5.66Gb - so that's an awful lot of time spent downsampling or pointless upsampling. I'm starting to think that the problems I'm experiencing may be due to sampling at "non-native" ASIO or WDM rates. I haven't tried sampling at 48/96k to see if that "fixes" the problem...
Using the WDM wrapper drivers (I don't know if these are provided - or supported! - by Creative or Adobe) results in randomly disabling one or the other Audigy. At that point, the only way to recover functionality for the disabled card is to reboot. Sometimes only the inputs are disabled, sometimes only the outputs, sometimes both. There is no pattern that I can see or duplicate.
Both cards appear to work fine under Windows. I can define either card as the default recording or playback device, and I can define one card as the default recording and the other as the default playback, any combination works fine. However, any application that uses WDM drivers to access the cards also get confused when a card's inputs suddenly become disabled! This does not appear to happen when Windows is the only application using the cards.
Specifying "use preferred devices" in Windows does disable the non-selected card (or card input or output if I specify different cards for input and output) in other applications.
The problems are much worse when I try to use any ASIO drivers to access the cards. This problem with ASIO appears regardless of the application I use.
I have installed ASIO4ALL, and it finds and configures the cards without any problems in ALL applications - but if I'm recording (with no other applications or drivers or tray applications loaded or active), when I stop recording and restart, the input I was just recording from appears disabled! If I open the ASIO4ALL configuration window, one or both Audigy cards will have their inputs disabled, or both inputs AND outputs disabled. This doesn't happen all the time, and my workaround is not to stop recording once I've started. Not a good workaround! I do realise that ASIO4ALL does fiddle around with the sample rates in the background, but at least when it works, I get a single clean sample without having to do all the resource-intensive resampling later. Maybe it's 6 of one, 1/2 dozen of the other...
I understand and appreciate that perhaps CL never intended to provide software functionality for more than one Audigy on any given PCI bus/bridge. I just don't get why the drivers appear to work natively under Windows (I'm assuming that Windows just uses WDM access) but not with any other applications.
I will try and do some testing with "native" ASIO sample rates (i.e. 48/96k) and see if that fixes some or all of the problems. My concern here is really that my expectation is that the drivers, once identified and enabled, should not suddenly disable themselves in all applications (by whatever mechanism), regardless of what sample rates are specified. But maybe that's too much to expect.
BTW, this happens with any combination of 2 of my 3 Audigy 2ZS cards, each of which works perfectly on its own with ASIO and WDM drivers. So it's definitely a multiple card issue.
The workaround that has been suggested is to purchase a different vendor's card : but there are so few cards that I can use to sample at the resolutions I require, and they are all so bloody expensive, that's why I've committed so much to CL Audigy 2ZS.
I'll get back to you once I've tried a few days working at the "standard" ASIO sample rates. Thanks again for taking the time with this stupid and unusual problem!
Kind regards,
Peter

FYI, Audigy & ASIO - ASIO I/Os Explained

FYI, this is based on Audigy 2 Platinum eX but functionality is ~same w/ other models too:
Creative wrote:
Asio Inputs
At 16 bit 48KHz, Sound Blaster Audigy 2’s ASIO driver also supports 12 simultaneous sample-synchronous, low-latency ASIO audio inputs that are sample-synchronised to the ASIO outputs listed above. Again, there are more sources available than merely the physical inputs of the system, and these are mapped as follows:
(Note that in 24 bit 96KHz mode the inputs are limited to the analog input pairs.)
• ASIO inputs 1 and 2 come from the Sound Blaster Audigy 2 eX Drive Line In 2 stereo input;
!! My NOTE: AnalogMix(Line-In/Aux-In/analog CDAudio/PC (W-U-H)/TAD/...)
• ASIO inputs 3 and 4 (Mix Pre EQ) This records a simple downmix of all audio coming out of the sound card, without EAX effects, regardless of what speaker mode you are in. (This isn’t a physical input);
!! My NOTE: (this functions as "What U Hear")
• ASIO inputs 5 and 6 are "Mix (Post EQ Front L/R)", and this, too, isn’t a physical input. Using compatible software, this allows the signal to be fed via the onboard Creative DSP Spatializer and main EQ, making it possible to record a "virtual" 6.1 mix for playback over a two-channel headphone or loudspeaker system. What happens is that the DSP Spatializer processes the individual surround components in a way that recreates the illusion of 6.1 surround-sound from a two-speaker system. Very neat! What’s more, you can hear the effect when replayed over any two-speaker system or headphones, and so, if you use this effect on one of your own tracks, anyone can play it back using regular stereo playback equipment. Note, however, that, if you’re in 6.1 speaker mode and record this output, no signal will be output from the rear, centre or subwoofer channels. What you hear will be the virtual surround-sound coming from a single stereo output. If you want to hear these elements separately, choose "Mix (Pre EQ)";
• ASIO inputs 7 and 8 are "Mix (Post EQ Rear L/R) ;
• ASIO inputs 9 and 10 are "Mix (Post EQ Centre/Sub)" ;
• ASIO inputs 11 and 12 are "Mix (Post EQ Rear Centre L/R)" ;
these virtual inputs allow tracks output to the onboard Creative DSP Spatializer and main FX and EQ, to be recorded to separate tracks to allow you to add a virtualised surround feel to your stereo mix.
• ASIO inputs 13 and 14 come from the S/PDIF input on the Sound Blaster Audigy 2 card. This input includes automatic sample-rate conversion, enabling any consumer digital source to be used. (Sound Blaster Audigy 2 always clocks from its own internal sampling clock);
• ASIO inputs 15 and 16 come from the Sound Blaster Audigy 2 eX Drive Line In 1/Mic In stereo input;
• ASIO inputs 17 and 18 come from the Sound Blaster Audigy 2 eX Drive Line In 3 stereo input;
(note that the order and naming conventions of the Asio I/O is subject to change)
Asio Outputs
At 16-bit 48KHz, the ASIO driver supports up to 14 simultaneous, sample-synchronous, low-latency ASIO audio outputs, which, as you may have noticed, is more than the number of physical outputs. This is because the ASIO driver can access a number of internal points (virtual inputs and outputs) within the Sound Blaster Audigy 2 hardware environment, as well as the physical inputs and outputs. One function of these virtual outputs is to allow several different signal sources to be routed and/or mixed via Sound Blaster Audigy 2’s internal effects.
Physically, the Sound Blaster Audigy 2 Platinum eX Card has the following outputs which are all located at the rear of the card:
Analog
• Front left and right (rear of the card);
• Real left and right (rear of the card);
• Front Centre, Rear Centre and LFE (sub) (rear of the card);
Digital
• S/PDIF out - Optical and Coaxial (front and rear of the Creative Audigy 2 eX Drive respectively)
ASIO can route to all of these physical outputs directly, as long as the host software supports this facility.
The ASIO outputs are identified as follows:
• Asio outputs 1 and 2 (Wave/MP3) go via the stereo upmix path, internal to the Sound Blaster Audigy 2 card. Depending on the speaker mode and the CMSS (Creative Multi-Speaker Surround) settings, they may also be output to the rear and centre speaker physical outputs. For example, if CMSS is active and the card is set to 6.1mode, the audio is processed to make it sound more natural and some of the signal is routed to the centre speaker. Furthermore, EAX CONTROL may be used to add effects to the "WAV/MP3" path, in which case whatever effects are assigned there will affect the signals being output;
• ASIO outputs 3 and 4 (front left/right) feed the left and right output sockets at the rear of the Sound Blaster Audigy 2 Platinum eX card directly. These are the outputs that would be used for most desktop recording work, where the desired final product is mostly a conventional stereo mix;
• ASIO outputs 5 and 6 (rear left/right) feed the left and right surround outputs on the rear of the Sound Blaster Audigy 2 Platinum eX card directly (when the card is set to 4/5 or 6.1 speaker mode), although these can simply be utilised as an additional stereo pair by software that can access them. They don’t have to be used for surround purposes
• ASIO outputs 7 and 8 (centre/LFE) feed the centre and subwoofer outputs on the rear of the Sound Blaster Audigy 2 Platinum eX card directly (when the card is set to 5.1 speaker mode), although these too can simply be utilised as an additional stereo pair by software that can access them and also don’t have to be used for surround purposes;
• ASIO outputs 9 and 10 (rear centre) feed the Rear centre output on the rear of the Sound Blaster Audigy 2 Platinum eX card directly (when the card is set to 5/6.1 speaker mode), although this too can simply be utilised as an additional mono output by software that can access it and also doesn’t have to be used for surround purposes. As Asio outputs are seen as pairs the single mono output which is part of the Centre/Sub/Rear Center triple jack output must be addressed as a stereo pair. Simply pan hard Left when mixing. You will need to arm yourself with a three pole minijack to 3 RCA mono outs cable to make best use of this output.
• ASIO outputs 11 and 12 (FX Slot 1/2) allow you to send a specific channel from your VST mixer directly to one of the Audigy 2’s EAX hardware effects. 4 effects can be added to the EAX Control panel, and this buss accesses the first two as mono sends. Use your track’s Effects Send Destinations to select “FX Slot 1/2 Left” for Effect 1 (Reverb) and “FX Slot 1/2 Right” for Effect 2 (Chorus). Set the send level in Pre Fader mode to allow you to control the send level independent of the channel’s dry volume. Then use the EAX Control panel to select the required Reverb preset, tweak as desired and then configure the Effect levels under the “Source” tab, with Source set to “WAVE/MP3”. You can then create a new track in Cubasis VST CE with the input set to Post EQ which will allow you to monitor the return signal from the Effect and also record it to that track. This new “wet” effected track can be played back alongside your original dry track.
• ASIO outputs 13 and 14 (FX Slot 3/4) use the same principle as with Slot 1/2 except that the effects in Slots 3 and 4 are user selectable. A step by step guide of how to use these busses is given below.
Note that when you select “SB Audigy Asio 24/96” for 24 bit 96 Recording, you will only have access to the 4 Asio pairs which correspond to the analog ouputs on the rear of the card. This, however, is perfect for 6.1 output.
Above, and a lot more valuable information can be found in online help file called "Music Creation Guide" which can be found @
- installation path; C:\Program Files\Creative\_your_card_model_\Music Creation Guide\
- path on original installation CD; \Audio\Setup\GuideBk\ (select language)
You normally need to use (w/ std Audigy 2 Zs):
AnalogMix L/R for the Line-In, (Aux-In, analog CDAudio, PC (WUH), TAD)
Mix L/R functions as "What U Hear")
S/PDIF In L/R for digital input (use bit-accurate setting w/ this input method)
Mic In L/R for microphone
jutapa
Message Edited by jutapa on 07-25-2006 11:25 AM

As I said before, this surely is a ASIO host related problem. All available analogue inputs refer to a certain physical input of your soundcard. Here is what to do:
. Open the "VST Connections" menu and enable the analogue inputs that are related to your Mic In.
2. Enable as many analogue outputs as you want (enabling "Front L/R" is mandatory).
3. Create a new Audio Track and set its input to your corresponding Mic In port.
4. Enable/arm this track for recording.
5. Check (enable/disable) the Direct Monitoring status of this audio track.
I believe that it has to do with some audio inputs and direct monitoring on/off ststus, so this procedure should be a solution to your problem.

Audigy 2 ZS 24/96 ASIO Recording

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