Just before I ask my question, can I make an observation about the Help provided from within Cubase. It’s quite…prosaic, isn’t it? If it were an engineering site, it would go…
Which is a roundabout way of saying that this forum and YouTube are a lot more help with Cubase than Cubase Help.
Trying to set up my Audio IO, which is a Presonus Audiobox. (I’ve also got an Alesis IO, and the problem I’m about to describe also happens with that, so the issue isn’t the outboard gear).
Every YouTube and webpage tells me that once my IO has been recognised by Windows (and mine has, because Windows told me) it should then appear as an option on Studio SetUp screen shown below. But mine doesn’t, as you can see from the dropdown.
However, Cubase does know about it because it shows up under the Midi section, though I don’t know why.
So again, I must have missed something. And actually, I probably want to use the Alessis anyway, as it has a Midi IN and OUT, which sounds like something that quite soon I’m going to realise I want.
There are two ways that a device can “provide audio” in Windows.
It can implement the standard Windows audio features. This means the device shows up as an output in the Windows volume mixer, can be seen by games, web browsers, and the like.
The device can also implement “ASIO.” ASIO is not a Microsoft standard, but instead a standard that Steinberg came up with, to trade out some problems of Windows standards (high latency, bad sample timing controls) with other problems (device vendors need to implement a second standard, and figure out what to do to also interact with Windows.)
This is a long way to say: Your device might work with Windows using the “built-in” Windows support for class audio drivers, but it still won’t work directly with ASIO without having ASIO standard drivers for the device installed. Cubase only looks for ASIO devices, not Windows-audio devices. HOWEVER, the two devices shown in your menu, the “ASIO4ALL” and “Generic Low Latency ASI Driver” options, both should be able to find the Windows device, and make it “make noise.” It will, however, have higher latency than direct ASIO drivers would have.
So, why does the MIDI just magically show up? It turns out, there’s only one way to do MIDI on Windows, and the USB class drivers for MIDI are fine, so Cubase uses the built-in Windows MIDI driver. Thus, the device would show up for MIDI, as soon as Windows recognizes it, even if you don’t have ASIO audio drivers to specifically get low-latency audio out.
Ah, okay. So - if I understand this right, which I may not - each device needs an ASIO driver that’ll talk to Cubase’s ASIO4ALL.
If I’ve got that right, then I need to find the driver for the Alesis IO2, which is the one I think I want to use.
There are plenty of sites on the web that purport to be able to provide it, though my virus-shield screeches at most of them. On Alessis’s site, however, it offers ASIO4ALL, and suggests that it’s optional - which I guess it sort of is, given your explanation.
But I’ve already installed ASIO4ALL. Do I have to install it again, somehow telling the IO2 to ‘use it’, so that Cubase can talk to it.
Although I’m impatient to get started, I shall wait for a reply, otherwise I’m very likely to mess something up.
Apparently there are no specific drivers for your device.
I read somewhere that uninstalling and reinstalling Cubase could sort it out.
Maybe give it a shot.
You didn’t mention that in your previous posts, if I’m not mistaking. It clearly seems to be an issue with ASIO4ALL not recognizing the inputs/outputs of your interface.
If your device is well recognized by Windows, maybe what you could try would be to install the asio4all driver provided on Alesis site, as this is an older version of the driver. Current version is 2.14 (vs 2.10 on manufacturer’s site).
Gave it a go - but actually it turned out that that was the version of ASIO4ALL I was using anyway.
Maestro, you said that I didn’t mention in previous posts that the Alesis doesn’t appear in the ASIO4ALL Control Panel. You’re right - and that raises an interesting point of what may be confusion (on my part).
Your advice implies that I ought to be able to see the device as an option in the ASIO4ALL Control Panel - so it ought to appear by Arrow 2 in the attached screenshot.
But the YouTubes I’ve watched about installing audio devices seems to suggest it should appear as an option under the Audio System dropdown. (See Arrow 3, which is from YouTube.) But I don’t see it there. (See Arrow 1.)
In fact, the YouTube advice is a bit confusing to me because it implies that ASIO4ALL is regarded as a device, but also as a driver for devices. How does that work? Also, in almost all the online help I’ve found, they refer to the toplevel option under Studio Setup as ‘VST Audio System’. I don’t have that. I have ‘Audio System’. So maybe this all has to do with different versions of Cubase. Mine is Elements 11.
But in any case, I’m afraid that the Alesis IO still isn’t showing up in either place. It’s driving me nuts. I have friends chortling and saying, “Buy a Mac and get ProLogic. It just works.”
Which makes me all the more determined to figure this out.
As long as your device does not appear in asio4all settings window it is useless to look for it in Cubase.
You should first fix this problem.
So you are apparently using asio4all driver version 2.10.
Then what are you waiting for to install and test the latest version (2.14)?
This is the logical follow-up.
Some background info:
An ASIO driver connects an audio interface and Cubase.
Usually audio interfaces include an ASIO driver.
ASIO4ALL is a generic ASIO driver. It connects Cubase with any audio device recognized by Windows.
The puzzle is why ASIO4ALL does not recognize your Alesis device but the cause does not lie within Cubase. You need to contact Alesis for this.
Just tried it with Generic Low Latency ASIO Driver. It didn’t show up initially either.
After changing the sample rate in windows sound settings it appeared. Didn’t try it with asio4all but it might be the same. Try setting it to 44100 Hz 24 bit.
“The puzzle is why ASIO4ALL does not recognize your Alesis device but the cause does not lie within Cubase. You need to contact Alesis for this.”
Except that it doesn’t recognize a Presonus Audiobox either - so it’s not the device. Though Cubase does recognise the Audiobox as a Midi input, and that recognition, as jwatte explained above, doesn’t rely on ASIO4ALL - which would suggest that ASIO4ALL is a problem. But it might be something to do with some other variable at Windows level, I suppose.
Okay, but also ASIO4ALL is not from Steinberg, nor is it part of the Cubase installation.
ASIO4ALL takes any WDM audio device (Windows driver) and connects it to the ASIO protocol. You’re problem is somewhere between the devices, Windows and ASIO4ALL. Thus my recommendation to ask Alesis for troubleshooting.
Also please install ASIO4ALL version 2.14. It is freeware on the web, you can google it.
You did not understand this right. ASIO4ALL is the ASIO driver and it is not from Cubase.
ASIO4ALL is freeware and programmed by a single dude totally independent of Cubase, Steinberg, Alesis, or Presonus. He just wanted to do musicians a favor so that any Windows Audio Device can be used with an ASIO hosts such as Cubase.
It is either funny or sad that a professional company like Alesis uses freeware to get their hardware running rather than programming their own driver.
Well, a combination of all the above suggestions has at last got me to where I need to be - so I thank you all. I threw a lot of changes in there at once, but I think the clincher was changing the sample rate, though I can’t say that definitively.
I’ve now, of course, run up against another little issue concerning playback, but I’ll try to solve it myself before I come running to you. But believe me, I am very appreciative of your patience and support.
