I recently purchased a laptop to use for writing my scores and I am having a problem being able to record the output to a file (.wav, .mp3, etc...).
I am using Sibelius 3, Midi Yoke, VD2 (or Kontakt 2), and recording in Cakewalk Pyro. I downloaded the Asio4all driver and the playback is great but when I try to record it I get a message saying the soundcard driver is incorrectly installed. When I switch to using the Direct sound driver it works but the playback is not very good due to the non low latency. I tried lowering the latency and got all kinds of pops and other wierd noises.
My system:
HP laptop
Intel P4 HT 3.0GigHz
2gig ram
80gig Hard drive
genaric laptop sound card (Conexant AC97 Audio)

Ken

Ken - I'm not sure I can be of much help as I don't know a lot about the asio4all driver, and the myriad of generic windows laptop soundcards. I think these are the sources of your problem. But here are a few things to consider...

- if trying Direct Sound, you should [b]raise[/b] the latency rather than reduce it. Lowering latency places more strain on your processor, which is most often the source of those nasty pops and strange sounds. Since you're not performing live, it's ok to have higher latency in exchange for better CPU performance. If your DS driver doesn't allow you to adjust latency, then I suppose this comment may not apply to your configuration.

- If using ASIO4all, have you configured it as the device in both VDL2 (or Kontakt 2), as well as Cakewalk Pyro? From what I understand, this driver requires exclusive access to the soundcard, so if they aren't both using asio4all, this may be the conflict. I'm not completely sure. If anyone else has more experience with asio4all that might have other feedback, please let us know.

Hey Jim,
I tried to mess around with different latency's on the DS driver but none of them gave an acceptable playback. I kept getting dropped notes with the higher latency setting. As for Cakewalk pyro, I don't appear to have a way to select the asio4all driver within the program. I tried talking to their tech support and didn't get any where. Is there an alternative to Pyro that is good for this situation?

Ken