conexant high definition audio driver

I have an HP Pavilion dv6500 laptop with all stock hardware. Im running windows vista with no outboard gear.
soundcard is the conexant high definition smartaudio HD2,
processor is the AMD Athlon 64X2 Dual Core Processor TK-55
I'm running Sonar 6 and the issue I'm having is when I try to record audio. Playback seems to run just fine but the only way I'm able to record is to have the input monitor engaged. The problem then is that I am only hearing the echo. It comes thru delayed which makes it difficult to record. I thought it might be a latency issue but when I increase the latency the sound becomes very degraded. I'm wondering if it is just the sound card. Thanks

It comes thru delayed which makes it difficult to record. I thought it might be a latency issue but when I increase the latency the sound becomes very degraded. I'm wondering if it is just the sound card. Thanks

If its delayed then you dont need to raise your latency, you need to lower it..You need it under 5ms

+10101011100 For what Kiosk posted above
Cj

high definition. what does that mean? Its a $0.50 sound chip meant for Media player and games. It works great for that but its not ideally suited to digital audio production. Take the good advice of the others and get a good solid current audio interface.

Yes welcome to the forum.

ORIGINAL: keith

ORIGINAL: John
high definition. what does that mean? Its a $0.50 sound chip meant for Media player and games. It works great for that but its not ideally suited to digital audio production. Take the good advice of the others and get a good solid current audio interface.

Yes welcome to the forum.

It means capable of supporting hi-def output for hi-def DVD (Blu Ray, HD DVD, etc.) playback... 24-bit, up to 192kHz, multichannel surround, etc.

The specs of those chips aren't bad in terms of capability, with high sample rate support, spdif, etc.... however, the quality of the componentry (clock, etc.) is, of course, still consumer grade. In any event, with proper drivers it should still be possible to use such devices at reasonable latencies. The problem is getting proper drivers... I think Noel mentioned something about improved support for HD audio in the fine print thread -- I assume he's talking about HD onboard chips.

In the meantime the OP can try ASIO4ALL.

LOL that was a rhetorical question.

Great Jusnki! I had the same problem as Rick and the ASIO4ALL driver soved the problem with the Conexant HD audio board.

You have to take the 'Its a crap game media player sound card' assault with a grain of salt ;-)

As for a sound card goes - the fact is that an onboard sound card is not SO bad... somebody mentioned the quality of converters... well this really holds not argument anymore... most converters you find in 'Pro Audio Interfaces' are the same as you would find on an onboard sound card. Some offer slightly better converters - but the margin is very nil few db at best. The preamps on an onboard interface might not be the best as yes they are designed for simple mics for online chat etc. But most onboard cards will have a decent line input if you have an external pre-amp, or some cards have even a digital input if you have a pre-amp with a digital output - this would provide an excellent quality recording - yes even on a ACL888 (Realtek HD) onboard sound card.

As for drivers... I think we need to get the terms right here... too much confusion due to incorrect terms being used which are supposed to simplify things - in which they do not. Somebody mentioned ASIO drivers and WDM drivers... well this is not a true statement. WDM is a driver model (format) designed my Microsoft for device vendors - these drivers are what one would call Kernel Mode drivers... this 'driver' is what allows Windows itself to talk to the hardware. ASIO is in fact NOT a driver - it is an API (Application Programming Interface), an API's job is to provide an Interface or a connection from the audio application (Sonar, Acid, Windows Media Player, WinAmp whatever) to the actual driver (again the WDM format Kernel Mode driver that talks to the device). ASIO provides a path that allows for a robust, low latency to the WDM driver. Not all vendors (i.e onboard sound card vendors) will supply an ASIO API for their driver... but yes an ASIO API would be optimal. ASIO2ALL is such an API that can be used on virtually any WDM (again kernel mode) driver. Other APIs such WDM/KS and MME are alternative ways for the application to talk to the WDM driver. I could go into WDM/KS and MME more but that's off topic ;-) (I should point out that technically WDM/KS can also provide a low latency path the driver as it bypasses Windows' KMixer - which produces about 20-30ms of latency).

In a nutshell (sorry I tend to ramble with geek speak) onboard sound cards are not 'EVIL' as most will make them out to be... if you are doing mostly MIDI with softsynths and rendering to a file audio file - then the quality of the converters and Pre Amps will be irrelevant. If you are recording (guitar, vocals etc) then maybe look at a good external preamp, honestly a good (perhaps tad pricey) preamp will give you far better results than say an averaged priced 'Pro Audio Interface'. I would recommend getting the ASIO4ALL API (which is free) and using that to lower the onboard card's latency.

In a few years (if Microsoft has it's way) WDM drivers will be gone and replaced with Microsoft's UAA - which means all cards/interfaces will need to work directly with Windows with no 3rd party drivers - which when poorly written, cause stability issues with Windows itself (again WDM drivers are Kernel mode drivers). Then everything will change!

Cheers,
Chris

ORIGINAL: Chris Hawkins

Jonbouy - great post! Just thought I would point out that in fact HD Audio is a specification by Intel not Microsoft. More info here... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HD_Audio

UAA will make a world of difference in the coming years! Will be a rocky road while it is implemented but the end result looks promising... no more 3rd party drivers to cause problems with Windows!

Cheers,
Chris

Cool thanks for the Intel info...I thinks it's kinda funny when some far-eastern chip manufacturer gets run down for the quality of its drivers when just their quality assurance department alone is prolly far bigger than the entire manufacturing facility of many specialist audio card manufacturers, but there ya go.

I guess apart from those that NEED top spec gear because their income depends on the guaranteed quality of their work, there are plenty here that have to justify their overspend on gear by putting the shrewd among us down...

ORIGINAL: daveny5

I have an HP Pavilion dv6500 laptop with all stock hardware.

There's your problem. Sonar is a pro audio program. Running it on stock hardware is like trying to run a high end video game on a computer with a stock video card. It just doesn't make sense and it won't work very well.

You should also have at least 2GB of RAM to run Vista. You didn't mention how much you had.

Nothing like having a good example when you need one....

Can you tell us why it doesn't make sense - I mean technically ??

Does it make sense to buy a $500 program and run it on equipment that is not capable of using it to its full capability? It doesn't to me, but then again, I'm a pragmatic guy. That's like buying the top of the line HDTV and running it on a regular cable box without HD.

you'll see that you can run your precious software very well these days on the onboard gear....period.

Not really. Depends on what you call "very well". Most people have trouble with it.

you'll see that you can run your precious software very well these days on the onboard gear....period.

I thought you said "outboard" not "onboard". I wouldn't use it, but whatever floats your boat.... For one thing, onboard soundchips tend to pick up low level noise from the motherboard.

Most people have trouble with it.

Most user of onboard sound here aren't allowed to mention the fact without getting laughed at. Pro rata I see folk have as much trouble with various prosumer drivers as the onboard chips.

ORIGINAL: daveny5

you'll see that you can run your precious software very well these days on the onboard gear....period.

Not really. Depends on what you call "very well". Most people have trouble with it.

What trouble - give us technical information - and yes some interference can make it's way into a internal sound card, Creative Labs have been working on this by covering the PCI card...

http://www.soundblaster.com/ISS/images/products/large/17791_1.png

And how much interference do you think you can find crammed into one of those Firewire or USB interfaces? They are all powered (either by the Firewire bus or USB bus) - we are talking alot of chips being powered inside a small casing.

Chris

In fact most onboard sound cards (Realtek etc) or even Sound Blaster cards have far more stable drivers (again read my above post on what a driver is) than most of the 'Pro Audio' cards.

Where did you get that information? Creative is known for its crappy drivers. They also way overhype the capabilities of their equipment advertising 24 bit cards which only playback 24 bit and record at 16 bit.

And thanks to ASIO4ALL the superior API (ASIO) can be used with any WDM driver audio device.

The ASIO4ALL driver isn't even an ASIO driver. Its a WDM driver made to look like an ASIO driver.

Presonus: Employees approx. 60
Realtek: Employees 970 (2005)

So more employees equal better products? You're joking right? Tell that to GM or Ford or Chrysler.

You guys can go ahead and use your game cards. I'll stick with my Delta44. I have a Soundblaster Audigy sitting in my junk drawer where it belongs. I have the Realtek HD soundchip in my computer disabled. I've tried both of them and they don't compare to the quality of the Delta44.

ORIGINAL: Jonbouy

If we both bounce a 24 bit wav file out of Sonar it there ain't gonna be any difference between yours or mine whatever you may imagine in your head.

Technically speaking,the bounced wav of Sonar or indeed any DAW is totally irrelevant to the quality of the souncard-IF we are talking for pre-recorded material,samples,and VSTs!And of course,if we could transfer a project through 2 different PCs with the exact same settings (EQs,filtering,signal processing in-the-box) and plug ins used (again without having recorded anything through the soundcard),and 2 totally different souncards, the bounced audio will be identical

However and seeing as some people here do know the tech side of things I have mainly too concerns:

1.The quality of the AD\DA converters between a consumer audio card and a so-called "pro-audio interface"
This means there is the chance that if we record material through our soundcard it will not be recorded with the same quality if the AD\DA converters are not of the same quality
But even if we only use pre-recorded material and VSTs,denpending on what you hear you end up making different decisions about the afforenmentioned settings in your project.So a degraded quality of sound can possibly lead to a misjudged mix and that I think doesnt need further technical explanations

2.The quality of the drivers between a consumer card and a "pro-audio inerface"
And Im not concerned about how that could affect the audio output quality BUT how it could affect the latency of the device

edit:typos