# ASIO driver



## chinni123 (Jan 8, 2012)

I am using 5.0 and I don't see option to select the type of driver. It seems is it available from beta. I read an article to use ASIO driver.

What is ASIO driver and what is the difference of using this vs whatever default in 5.0? I am not sure if there is option in v5.0 to select this.

Is it worth to upgrade 5.07 beta? Appreciate any link to upgrade to 5.07beta.


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## JohnM (Apr 11, 2006)

The beta version is in the Downloads area in the V5.01 beta thread.


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## EarlK (Jan 1, 2010)

*ASIO DRIVER* 

Best to read everything in the above link & educate yourself about ASIOs' usefulness .

FYI, not every soundcard comes with the ASIO driver .

Also, ASIO only exists in the PC world ( ie; not Mac or Linux ) .

If you soundcard ships with an ASIO driver ( & you installed it ) then ( yes ) it is worth using the latest beta version of REW .

:sn:


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## chinni123 (Jan 8, 2012)

EarlK said:


> *ASIO DRIVER*
> 
> Best to read everything in the above link & educate yourself about ASIOs' usefulness .
> 
> ...


Thanks. You summarized pretty well. Looks like it is driver that directly talks to sound card without layers like Java driver and reduces latency. I have TASCAM 144 MK II. I am hoping that it supports ASIO driver.

Also, I find this in the help.

*Java drivers permit the input and output to be on different devices and allow volume control from REW. ASIO drivers support one ASIO device which must be used for both input and output and REW has no control over levels.*

I am assuming here that input implies microphone and output implies connection to speaker should be on same card. I as assuming this applies to TASCAM 144 MK II since it has both connections.

I am not sure what is the meaning of "REW has no control over levels". What levels? What it really means on how to control volume using ASIO? Thanks for your help.


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## EarlK (Jan 1, 2010)

> I am assuming here that input implies microphone and output implies connection to speaker should be on same card. I as assuming this applies to TASCAM 144 MK II since it has both connections.


Yes, that's correct . Typically, driver latency is not really much of an issue with REW .



REW-Help said:


> Java drivers permit the input and output to be on different devices and allow volume control from REW. ASIO drivers support one ASIO device which must be used for both input and output and REW has no control over levels.



The inference here is that sometimes JAVA drivers are more useful to a specific situation ( since one can split the signal between different devices for input & output ). This is true and I do use this flexibility in some special circumstances .

:sn:


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## Barleywater (Dec 11, 2011)

Being able to use multiple sound cards is nice, but if clocks of two cards don't match very closely it leads to artifacts in measurements. However, if both cards have digital i/o it is often possible to connect the two and have both cards synchronized with the clock of one card. Some cards support this. Obviously this ties up some connectivity.

Andrew


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## EarlK (Jan 1, 2010)

Generally my experience ( with using split sound cards in JAVA ) is that REW simply stops working ( before corrupted data is obtained ) .

The above pic is a typical "flag" indicating a complete loss of synch ( this was from a composite WDM driver kludge-up, cobbled together using ASIO4ALL ) .

:sn:


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## EarlK (Jan 1, 2010)

> I am not sure what is the meaning of "REW has no control over levels". What levels? What it really means on how to control volume using ASIO?












The normal preferences screen ( in Java ) looks something like above .

You can see that when using the computers built-in soundcard , you have quite a lot of control over input & output levels ( from within REW ) .

Here's how the preferences page looks as soon as you chose ASIO .










You can see that all those input & output level boxes are now missing .

ASIO drivers ( depending on their complexity ) may have their own way of controlling levels ( through software ) .

Here's the software mixer for my M-Audio Fast Track Ultra card .










:sn:


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