Release ASIO in Background

Cubase
#1

This is something I’ve not been bothered about up to now because I’ve been too busy getting the Cubase basics under my belt, but now I’m progressing a bit I thought I’d pop the question here sure in the knowledge that someone’s got the answer.

I’m using my Lexicon interface as my main sound device with LE1 and I thought that if I went to Devices/Devices setup/VST Multitrack and ticked the ‘Release ASIO Driver In Background’ box then other applications could access my interface even when LE was still running, with the ‘top’ window, whatever it is, taking priority on the ASIO driver.

Well this isn’t happening. With that box ticked my other applications like iTunes, Real Player, Windows Media Player etcettera report “a problem with your sound device” if LE is still running.

Like I say, I’ve not bothered about this up to now, I’ve just closed LE to use the other audio apps, but it would be nice to be able to leave LE running.

Any thoughts would be welcome.

#2

There´s a multiclient ASIO driver available from Steinberg. Read the info. Never used it myself, so use at your own risk.

#3

That’s interesting, thanks. The accompanying notes to the multiclient driver seemed pretty straightforward and I was warming to it until I got to the bit in the notes that said…no warranty … no support… if you get into trouble try xxxxxx a third party I’ve never heard of. At that point I cooled rapidly !!! So I think I’ll just stick to closing LE if I want to use another audio application, but thanks again for the link anyway.

#4

In the readme it is noted that the third party is an individual called Karl Steinberg, if you drop the “Karl” part of the name you should see something familiar.

You are also using Cubase LE/AI, a product that is not sold by, has no warranty from and no support from Steinberg. If you are fine with that I cannot see that trying out a driver that is not supported by Steiny can be a huge problem…

The other alternative you have is to ask Harman/Lexicon to properly implement an ASIO driver, my 10 year old ESI box has no problem being driven by multiple protocols at the same time, cannot understand why more modern variants do not since it is explicitly allowed in the ASIO standard.