Operation Under Asio; General; Known Problems - RME Audio Hammerfall HDSP 9632 User Manual

13. Operation under ASIO 2.0

13.1 General

We will use Steinberg's Cubase VST as an example throughout this chapter. All information
provided can easily be adaptated to other programs.
Start the ASIO software
and select 'System' from
the Audio menu. Select
'ASIO Hammerfall DSP'
as the audio I/O device.
The 'ASIO system
control' button opens the
HDSP's Settings dialog
(see chapter 9,
Configuration).
Hammerfall DSP also
allows simultaneous
record and playback of
SPDIF audio data
together with record and
playback in ADAT
format. Please note that
the external SPDIF
devices have to be
running in sync,
otherwise recordings will
be corrupted.
Hammerfall DSP supports 'ASIO Direct Monitoring' (ADM).
When the sample frequency is set to 88.2 or 96 kHz, the ADAT optical input and output
operates in Sample Split mode, so the number of available channels is reduced from 8 to 4.
At a sample rate of 176.4 or 192 kHz (Quad Speed Mode) the ADAT I/O is no longer available.
Nevertheless it will send out a synchronized ADAT signal at a quarter of the sample rate.

13.2 Known Problems

In case the used computer has no sufficient CPU-power and/or sufficient PCI-bus transfer
rates, then drop outs, crackling and noise will appear. We also recommend to deactivate all
PlugIns to verify that these are not the reason for such effects.
Unfortunately some newer UltraATA66 and UltraATA100 hard disk controller (also Raid
controller) seem to violate against the PCI specs. To achieve the highest throughput they hog
the PCI bus, even in their default setting. Thus when working with low latencies heavy drop
outs (clicks) are heard. Try to solve this problem by changing the default setting of the
controller (for example by reducing the 'PCI Bus Utilization').
Another common source of trouble is incorrect synchronization. ASIO does not support
asynchronous operation, which means that the input and output signals must not only have the
same sample frequency, but they must also be in sync. All devices connected to the
Hammerfall DSP must be properly configured for Full Duplex operation. As long as SyncCheck
(in the Settings dialog) only displays 'Lock' instead of 'Sync', the devices have not been set up
properly!
User's Guide Hammerfall DSP 9632 © RME
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