Latency, soundcards, and Vista

[Lambox]

Okay so I've been making music for a decent amount of but the whole use of computers as a part of the process is something fairly new to me. Before I say anything else I'm using a laptop with Windows Vista with the factory sound hardware (yeah I know, it's trash; I'm not made of money).

One problem I've encountered: latency. Before when I would use Audacity to record things, minor latency problems could be fixed by manually aligning tracks after I record them. But now that I'm using MIDI controllers, this is not an option, and the latency problem has to go away (or at least diminish). Is this a hardware issue that can only be resolved by buying a new soundcard? Otherwise, how do I help fix it? I've already tried eliminating background processes that don't need to run.

Also, what kind of soundcard should I look at? The whole VCI-100 deal isn't so much what I'm into, but I do need something decent with line-in that is high enough quality to do some decent work.

Sorry for being long-winded. Thanks for your help.

[BentoSan]

Grab Asio4all drivers if your too poor to afford a proper soundcard

http://www.asio4all.com/

Btw the VCI-100 doesnt have a soundcard(which i am thankful for)

[Lambox]

Grab Asio4all drivers if your too poor to afford a proper soundcard

http://www.asio4all.com/

Btw the VCI-100 doesnt have a soundcard(which i am thankful for)

Thanks for making me feel poor . Haha I'm kidding.

But now I can't get it to work. I'm using FL Studio 6 (yeah go ahead and groan all you want). I set the audio options to ASIO4ALL and all the correct devices are enabled in the settings, but there's no sound...

[BentoSan]

Make sure other programs (including your interenet browser) arnt using the soundcard before you open it up in FL studio otherwise it wont run - then make sure the right port is selected as the main out for fruity.

[Lambox]

I think I did, what looks wrong?

[Lambox]

Actually, I need to buy a new audio interface anyway. What do you recommend? I have a decent laptop. I'm trying to spend less than $200. I need something that has line-in so I can record my hardware synth.

Not that I have money laying around for this kind of thing, but now seems like a good time to bust out the credit card

[BentoSan]

Go into the FX section(the mixer), select the master channel and in the bottom right of the mixer window where it says OUT try changing try the two different outputs to see which ones gonna put out the sound.

I have used FL studio for a number of years now, its an excelent program for production. For live use its alright, it has its good and bad points - one of my favorite things that i wish Ableton had is the FL dashboard which is crazy crazy powerful when used in conjunction with the fruity formula control. I think its the best program out for its midi control over effects, cant say much for the way samples are triggered and layered live though

Check this post out for soundcards - http://www.djtechtools.com/2008/02/1...rds-under-200/

[Lambox]

The only option I have there is "HD Audio Headphone"... or none. Errr... this is frustrating.

But I agree. I'm glad someone else doesn't mind FL Studio. Yes, it's fairly easy to use, but you can do a lot with it. I think it gets a bad rap because a lot of people that don't know what they're doing throw together something garbage and then throw it on youtube. I don't know...

[BentoSan]

Spor(popular drum and producer) uses FL studio Enough said !

Keep playing around with the settings and you should get it to work - you might want to try rebooting and loading fl before you load any other program and try that way.

[Lambox]

It was the reboot that did it!!!!

Thank you so much for your help. I can't tell you how much better this is without a ton of latency!