ASIO and WASAPI don't work

[David Coombes]

When I bought Notion 4, it was for my laptop with a Cakewalk UA-4FX USB sound card. ASIO didn't work, nor did WASAPI, but at the time that wasn't a significant issue.

I've just built a new i7 Win7 64bit PC and have exactly the same issues. Neither the UA-4FX nor the inbuilt Realtek motherboard audio can be run on ASIO or WASAPI drivers. I select the drivers in the preferences and am simply told "<Audio path> could not be opened." This is on a completely virgin Windows installation so it can't be blamed on other software. There are no other audio packages installed. It's literally Windows, system drivers, audio driver for UA-4FX, Office and a couple of graphics programs, and now Notion which doesn't work. What's the solution here?

[Surfwhammy]

When I bought Notion 4, it was for my laptop with a Cakewalk UA-4FX USB sound card. ASIO didn't work, nor did WASAPI, but at the time that wasn't a significant issue.

I've just built a new i7 Win7 64bit PC and have exactly the same issues. Neither the UA-4FX nor the inbuilt Realtek motherboard audio can be run on ASIO or WASAPI drivers. I select the drivers in the preferences and am simply told "<Audio path> could not be opened." This is on a completely virgin Windows installation so it can't be blamed on other software. There are no other audio packages installed. It's literally Windows, system drivers, audio driver for UA-4FX, Office and a couple of graphics programs, and now Notion which doesn't work. What's the solution here?

This is the link to the Roland knowledge base instructions for installing the UA-4FX Windows driver:

[NOTE: This addresses what might be a different problem, but there is information on ensuring that the device works correctly, which includes details on account privileges; not using a USB hub; disabling anti-virus and other security software during the installation; and so forth, hence might be useful in solving the problem you are experiencing . . . ]

UA-4FX: SYMPTOM: Driver Will Not Install (Windows) ~ Roland

This is the link to the general Roland knowledge base information about the UA-4FX:

UA-4FX Knowledge Base (Roland)

This is the link to the Roland download page where the drivers for the UA-4FX are found:

[NOTE: There are separate 32-bit and 64-bit drivers for Window 7, where the bit depth refers to the edition of Windows 7 rather than to the mode in which you are running NOTION 4 (32-bit vs. 64-bit). Since you are running the 64-bit edition of Windows 7, you will want to use the 64-bit UA-4FX driver . . . ]

Downloads for UA-4FX (Roland)

THOUGHTS

If you did not download and install the Roland driver for the UA-4FX, this could be the problem . . .

It has been a while since I did anything in Windows, but as I recall Windows did not always have the most current drivers, which at times happens with Mac OS X, as well, hence it is a good idea to check with the manufacturer to ensure that you are using the most current driver . . .

And while Windows probably has evolved in a few ways over the past decade or so, a lot of it is the same at the innermost levels . . .

Lots of FUN!

[David Coombes]

Thanks, but I did install the UA-4FX driver okay. It works fine in other software, and that also doesn't explain why WASAPI doesn't work. The UA-4FX is a little old and I can understand that not being compatible (although it's just ASIO), but I could use WASAPI with my old laptop internal audio. Why isn't WASAPI working with the common-as-muck Realtek audio? Then I could just plug phones into the front of the PC using Notion, and in the UA using SONAR.

[Surfwhammy]

Thanks, but I did install the UA-4FX driver okay. It works fine in other software, and that also doesn't explain why WASAPI doesn't work. The UA-4FX is a little old and I can understand that not being compatible (although it's just ASIO), but I could use WASAPI with my old laptop internal audio. Why isn't WASAPI working with the common-as-muck Realtek audio? Then I could just plug phones into the front of the PC using Notion, and in the UA using SONAR.

The only other things that come to mind are (a) the audio resolution, which for NOTION 4 needs to be standard CD quality, which is 44,100-Hz at 16-bits; (b) you need to select the device in NOTION 4 Preferences on the Audio tab, so that NOTION 4 knows where to send the generated audio; and (c) the NOTION 4 Mixer Master stereo output specified in the NOTION 4 Mixer might need to be changed from the default Channels 1-2 to a different channel pair, which is the case on the Mac when I am using the MOTU 838mk3 Hybrid external digital audio and MIDI interface, which expects the main or "master" stereo output from the Mac Pro to be sent on the Channels 9-10 pair . . .

[NOTE: By default, the NOTION 4 Mixer sends the Master stereo output to the Channels 1-2 pair, but for some external audio devices this needs to be changed. If you click on the lower button outlined in red in the following screen capture, a list will be displayed that has all the possibilities. When I encountered the problem, I called MOTU technical support, and they explained that it depends on the way audio applications decide to route the main stereo output, and they had me start with the Channels 1-2 pair and continue through the list until I found the channels pair that worked, which for the MOTU 828mk3 Hybrid was the Channels 9-10 pair. Whether this is unique to MOTU is another matter, but they assign the channels based on the first eight channels being mapped to Analog-1 through Analog-8, which are monaural channels, with the next assignment in the sequence being Main 1-2, which is a stereo channel pair, hence the mapping to Channels 9-10, which makes sense although for me it was not intuitive. So, in this experiment you compose some music in NOTION 4 and then play it while trying different channel pairs for the NOTION 4 Mixer Master stereo output channel. "Output" is the default, and at least on the Mac it is routed to the Channels 1-2 pair . . . ]


NOTION 4 Mixer ~ Master stereo output track

When you click on "Output", this is the fly-out menu where you can select a different channel pair . . .

[NOTE: The numbering and naming convention for the channel pairs is a bit strange, but the clue is that the Channels 9-10 pair maps to "5L+5R" in the fly-out menu. All the tracks in the NOTION 4 Mixer are stereo, and they also are called "Mixer channels" but with a different usage for "channels", hence I prefer using "tracks" to avoid confusion with ReWire channels and output channels); so the logic is that the Channels 9-10 pair is the fifth stereo pair, hence "5L+5R"; and from a different perspective this mapping is something that only a dedicated computer geek can appreciate, really. The way I remember it is that the total of the two numbers is the numerical value of the right channel; and the channel pairs have an odd number for the left channel and an even number for the right channel . . . ]



If none of these suggestions resolve the problem, I think the best advice is to contact Notion Music technical support . . .

Lots of FUN!

P. S. Another possibility--which is a bit subtle--will happen if you have ReWire enabled in NOTION 4 and first start a DAW application that acts as a ReWire host controller, followed by starting NOTION 4, because when you do this, NOTION 4 becomes a ReWire slave and by design sends its generated audio to the ReWire host controller, hence you only will hear NOTION 4 generated audio if there there are tracks in the DAW application which are configured to receive the NOTION 4 generated audio, and it is subtle even when you know about it, because sometimes you forget that a DAW application is running, so you think that NOTION 4 is the only audio application that is running but you hear no sound . . .

The rule is that the first application started that can be a ReWire host controller becomes the ReWire host controller and from that time forward, applications that can be ReWire slaves become ReWire slaves when they are started. This ends when all the ReWire slaves are exited and then the current ReWire host controller is exited, which officially ends the current ReWire session that began when an application that can act as a ReWire host controller was started . . .

I do this every so often--and nearly have a panic attack due to thinking something is broken--but after checking which applications are running I realize that I had Digital Performer (MOTU) running but forgot about it or whatever, and since Digital Performer at the time probably is minimized, which is the reason I forgot about it, there is no obvious visual cue . . .

[Admin]

This is a Roland UA-FX4 conflict with the Asio Driver. If you want to use the UA-FX4, you are going to have to use the Windows Default sound or Direct Sound to run the UA sound card. If you want to be able to adjust the buffer size, you are going to have to download Asio4all. We have a ticket for this issue. The above is the workaround. Let me know how it goes.

-Admin