ASIO4ALL Not Loading Automatically

did you disable your computers sound card? if you open up the asio4all panel go to tools and disable it there as well this will force sonar to use asio

I guess I'd call this my tracking setup?
 
AMD Phenom X4, Windows 7 SP1 32Bit, 4GRam, Home Studio 7 XL or Sonar X1
On Board MOBO Sound, Alesis IO2 Express, Alesis Multimix 8 USB, PV Vypyr Amp (USB)
 
I'm generally recording using the various USB devices.  I pretty much use the USB stuff for recording and play back using the on-board PC sound.  The setup is in my den, so I keep the microphones, line-in's, and guitars hooked up all the time.  So I'm kinda using the recording interfaces and the sound simultaneously.  Using ASIO4ALL to wrap the various devices (including on-board sound card), so no ASIO, no sound. 
 
I'm also doing initial review/mixing on this computer, so I'm creating .wav and .mp3 files to see if I need to re-record parts.  I do need to have the default PC speakers activated to do this. 
 
My setup works for me, but it is a PITA to have to force-load the ASIO drivers.  I was hoping that there might be some setting in an .ini file or a Sonar parameter that would let me force or pre-load the SAIO driver.
 
 

Beagle - I honestly do appreciate your input (and all of the other advice that I have gleaned from your insightful posts on this forum).  Your help and assistance to countless people is significant.  I am, however, a hobbyist with no intentions or aspirations of recording professionally or commercially.  The equipment I use blows the socks off of recording with an old cassette deck and a Radio Shack stereo microphone.  Its capabilities far exceed both my talent and the capabilities of my old hard-used ears.
 
If someone who has been involved in this technology from the time of soldering irons and wire-wrap could give you some advice, it would be that the technology is constantly changing and improving.  Concepts and approaches that were dodgy in the past often become the standards of the future.  It is probably a good thing that device manufacturers are adopting industry standards that allow their devices to use protocols like the "Generic USB Audio Codec."  Handing this low-level work off to the operating system where it can be managed in real-time is the right direction (even though it may not be the most efficient today).  The hardware will eventually be powerful enough to manage it properly.  Like it or not, Alesis is developing their products the way all devices will be interfaces in the future.
 
The ASIO4ALL driver-wrapper does make recording very convenient for me by aggregating the various pieces of equipment that I use.  It really does make them all available within Sonar without a lot of fuss and bother.  Once the 'driver' is loaded this configuration works wonderfully (for me).  It is just that it is an inconvenience to have to force it to load.  I can't help but believe that there is some setting in a configuration file that will tell Sonar to load the ASIO 'driver' on startup.
 
 

gcolbert


Beagle - I honestly do appreciate your input (and all of the other advice that I have gleaned from your insightful posts on this forum).  Your help and assistance to countless people is significant.  I am, however, a hobbyist with no intentions or aspirations of recording professionally or commercially.  The equipment I use blows the socks off of recording with an old cassette deck and a Radio Shack stereo microphone.  Its capabilities far exceed both my talent and the capabilities of my old hard-used ears.
 

I completely agree!

If someone who has been involved in this technology from the time of soldering irons and wire-wrap could give you some advice, it would be that the technology is constantly changing and improving.  Concepts and approaches that were dodgy in the past often become the standards of the future.  It is probably a good thing that device manufacturers are adopting industry standards that allow their devices to use protocols like the "Generic USB Audio Codec."  Handing this low-level work off to the operating system where it can be managed in real-time is the right direction (even though it may not be the most efficient today).  The hardware will eventually be powerful enough to manage it properly.  Like it or not, Alesis is developing their products the way all devices will be interfaces in the future.
 

sorry, but here I completely disagree.  windows usb codec is a poorly designed protocol - it has no consideration for low latency use by recording programs and engineers and they likely never will put it in there.  this is something that Microsoft doesn't value in their marketing plans because we are a niche market - a very small market compared to the massive sales of general computer users. 
 
no, the future for recording will always lie in the hands of those creating the hardware and software that work together in a symbiotic relationship.  in the hands of the soundcard manufacturers.  for example, the M-audio fast track ultra has drivers that allow you to get your latency down to just over 4 msec round trip!  using the windows usb codec, you'll be luckly to get the latency down to 40 msec round trip!  that's 10X the difference and is clearly audible.  and the windows usb codec is completely dependent on the CPU and system where the drivers for the recording soundcards like the fast track ultra are largely dependent on the proficiency of the driver code (although CPU does play into the latency end result - but not nearly as much as it does in the windows usb codec).
 
so - if you believe that this is the future, we can agree to disagree.  but I cannot see microsoft caring about our niche market more than the manufacturers of the soundcards do.
 

The ASIO4ALL driver-wrapper does make recording very convenient for me by aggregating the various pieces of equipment that I use.  It really does make them all available within Sonar without a lot of fuss and bother.  Once the 'driver' is loaded this configuration works wonderfully (for me).  It is just that it is an inconvenience to have to force it to load.  I can't help but believe that there is some setting in a configuration file that will tell Sonar to load the ASIO 'driver' on startup.
 
 

I agree for your particular set up that ASIO4ALL is your best option.  I'm sorry if you can't believe that there's not a configuration file that will change the problem, but that's the way it is.
 
If you or someone else knows of a way to resolve the problem then I'll be happy to know it and pass the information on in the future.  but at this point I would have to say it's all in the fault of the windows usb audio codec and cannot be resolved without getting hardware which does not use that protocol.