Please forgive the crossposting. I tried this in the Hardware forum, but not much action there:


I'm trying to help a friend get started on Sonar X3e Pro. He has a hand-me-down Layla 3G interface and a Yamaha CP-4 Stage piano to use as a controller. The PC is a custom built i7, 7200 rpm drives, lots of RAM, Win7 64-bit. He has installed the latest drivers from Echo. He seems to have it all connected properly, because he is getting both analog sound out of the Yamaha and audio from soft synths controlled by the Yamaha. But when using soft synths he tells me he gets a lot of crackling, distortion and dropouts while playing, making the system unusable.
 
I have been reading on this forum that Layla was designed for the old PCI bus and never updated, and some Sonar users have had problems making it work with the modern PCIe bus. So I'm wondering if anyone who has experience with this can shed any light on what might be going on. At this stage replacing the motherboard is not an option, even if there are any available with old-style PCI slots. And though at this time he doesn't really need all the I/O capability of the Layla, why give it up for a slower (USB), less capable box if he doesn't have to?
 
Are there driver settings or a workaround for this that anyone knows of? Or does my long-distance diagnosis seem wrong? If he can get the Layla working reliably on the existing PC that's the way he wants to go.  I should mention that money is an object, as usual.
 
Thanks for reading!

Get in touch with EchoAudio, see what they say. I have 2 old Layla 24 PCI cards and Win7, they do well.

Make sure the Layla is not the default windows audio play back device, in the control panel of MS win he is using.
And make sure the ASIO is selected in Sonar....use the right buffers settings, and see what gives up a ghost telling, if it helps?
 
If none of that is responsible...then we go deeper.
I was told pcie would allow the use of 1x and pci cards to be installed...but not always so working correctly when I tried to add a SATA card to the system... My machine just would not detect that PCI card...
 
So yah how long do these things last, and ASIO has been revised...but Layla was popular in the beginning..and it seems a newer version of their deluxe model flagship...So why would they stop making drivers that work?....Yah if something is with the audio device, check with Echo...good support I had with them for the Gina brand I had...but as all things do....they die a early death!...and we move on in time with the new....it seems to be a constant unfortunate truth all must accept in all things...perhaps so a opposite occurs in time.
 
 

Gerry - I've been suggesting that he contact Echo. He might call them, but they are pretty much out of the interface business now. Working strictly it seems on audio over ethernet.
 
Sir Les - I'll try your suggestions if and when I get a chance to sit down at his PC, and thanks!

Larry Jones
Gerry - I've been suggesting that he contact Echo. He might call them, but they are pretty much out of the interface business now. Working strictly it seems on audio over ethernet.
 
Sir Les - I'll try your suggestions if and when I get a chance to sit down at his PC, and thanks!

Man that was news to me. I'm getting close to a new computer and ditching my old Layla 24's and thought I may use the newest Layla - but not now. I saw on their website where they do not use PCI-e slots.

Hello, Larry. I have seen both of your threads but have been a little too brainscrambled lately to really reply. If you have been searching this forum for answers then I'm sure you have encountered the threads (and posts) I have made on the subject back when I was still trying to get my old Echo Layla up and running. Those are VERY old threads and I've moved on to using my Focusrite Scarlett 18i6 exclusively HOWEVER I did actually start getting my Echo 3G working reasonably well after some kernoodling.
 
First of I have some concerns with some of the statements you have made in regrads to PCI vs. PCIe. I am no computer guru but as far as I know a legacy PCI board will in no circumstance fit into a PCIe slot. They are physically different. If that is NOT the case I would sure like someone to tell me so but on my ASUS MOBO there is NO way for me to slide my old Echo Card into the PCIe slot.
 
So there may be a miscommunication there (in your other thread you made reference to the PCI Echo card somehow getting into a PCIe slot which is why I brought it up).
 
Okay... so that said, in my scenario I had an old XP system and an Echo Layla 3G. The motherboard was old enough that PCI (not PCIe) was the standard connection.
 
On those older boards the PCI slots used a "native" chipset. Again I will point out that I am NOT a computer guru but what I have gleaned is that "native" means that those old PCI connectors had their own dedicated chipset handling the data to and from the CPU. This makes everything flow faster making it good for audio.
 
On newer motherboards after the old PCI standard was being pushed aside in favor of the newer PCIe slots what they did was continue supporting those old PCI slot BUT they would "bridge" the board/connection to the newer PCIe chipset.
 
So now the data was taking a little detour and being processed by a chipset intended to process data from the newer PCI slots.
 
For most purposes those "legacy" PCI slots that the MOBO manufacturers installed would work (just think of all the crap you could run through those ports... like printers, controllers, whatever). The "bridged" setup works.
 
Unfortunately for streaming stuff like audio and video that bridge screws things up and creates an extra step... and that is where the "crackles" come in.
 
I had those crackles. I thought I had made a wise decision by snagging the ASUS board that I did because it had that legacy slot but that "bridged" vs "native" PCI crap bit me in the butt.
 
However... as I said, I did get it working. I did this by doing the old school system tweaks everyone needed to do on old XP systems (I used the Sweetwater guide but there is that Black Viper thingie and tons of info on sys tweaks). Increasing buffers, cache, whatever as much as possible helps too.
 
Unfortunately beyond that type of micromanagement and babying of the system settings there ain't much that can be done.
 
A couple of other things for your friend to consider...
 
Back when I was dealing with this I was told about some experimental PCI to PCIe adapters that the Layla card could be mounted with into a PCIe slot.
 
That does NOT seem like a good or reasonable idea though and I abandoned it almost immediately after a bit of research. That was years ago though so maybe that tech has come around.
 
The more reasonable option is to completely forget the PCI card and use the Layla as a "slave". The 3G has both ADAT in and out. So if your friend snags another interface that has ADAT i/o then he can use the Layla's inputs and outputs.
 
ADAT connectors allow for 8 channels at 48khz and 4 channels at 96khz (I think it's 96). So that would mean if he found something that has an ADAT in AND an out that uses USB or PCIe or whatever but doesn't have a ton of analog ins/outs he could use the Layla for recording up to 8 tracks (and the layla has two direct multi ins) and sending out to 8 separate channels for monitors, headphone mixes, whatever.
 
 
aaand... I'll stop typing.
 
Just tossing some ideas and insights at you. Other folks here actually USE their Layla's so they could give better insights than I.
 
Cheers.

Thanks for all that, Beepster. I did see your posts on this topic when I was searching this forum. My friend lives 50 miles away so I have not yet seen his setup in person. He hasn't told me the exact specs on his PC, which was built for him by a local shop, but whatever he's got, the PCI card for the Layla fits, and Layla is recognized by the system. Last time we spoke on the phone I had him change Windows system sounds to play through the onboard Intel sound module. After that we spoke for a few minutes while he played his Yamaha piano into Sonar, and all was well. In my mind that's not enough of a test to be confident the problem is fixed, so we'll keep an eye on it and go to the next step if necessary. For non-geek musicians like him, the main thing is that everything works every time he turns it on, and he gets to make music instead of troubleshoot the computer. If the problem persists we'll see if we can disable CPU throttling in the BIOS (suggested by Jim Roseberry). If that doesn't do it, I guess my friend has a "shopping opportunity."
 
A note on my own PC: It's a 3-year-old custom build, Asus Z68 board. Device Manager says there is a PCI bridge, and my M-Audio Audiophile 2496 fits into one of the slots and works fine. (I don't remember if there are PCI and PCIe slots in there.) In another thread Jim Roseberry says Asus boards tend to be more compatible with older cards, while M-Audio devices are more forgiving of PCI-to-PCIe bridges, so maybe I lucked out, since that is the combination I have and I've never had a problem.