Help me understand KX and ASIO

notorius

Hi there,

Although im using KX Drivers for ages (and never touched the default DSP-configuration), i got some questions regarding the ASIO-Outputs.

I am doing Music with Renoise, which has the possibility to route singe Tracks to specifix ASIO-Outputs (unlike other DAW's like FL / Reaper and so on)

Basically i have 5 Groupsends (lets say "Voice", "Beat", "Keys", "Bass" and "Effets")

I used to route all on tracks/sends to KX-Out 00/01 and i was happy.

Now my questions:

1. When i choose 0/1 2/3 4/5 in the Master Output/Group i get sound, with 6-15 i dont get any sound at all. Whats the other ASIO-Outputs good for then ?

2. Would the soundquality increase if i route my Group through different ASIO-Outputs instead of "let the CPU do the Mix and route all to one ASIO-Output"

Example:

Voice = 2/3
Beat = 4/5
Keys = 6/7
Bass = 8/9
Effects = 10/11

I hope i explained my questions well, so i would thank you, if you can give me the answers. ( and sorry for my bad english )

My Setup:

SB-Live! Platinum CT4760 10k1, KX-Drivers 3550, WinXP (Stereo 2.1 Surround off)

Attached Thumbnails

 

Russ

The default DSP config is for generic use, it does not cover every possible situation (and what you get depends a lot on the configuration of kxmixer and the different plugins in the DSP).

For more specific purposes (e.g. ASIO related), use should use a custom DSP config.
ASIO outputs from your software enter the DSP from the FxBus plugin (FxBus 0-16 for kX Outs (ASIO) 0-16). It is up to you to design a config that does what you want with each stream (i.e. mix, add effects, route to specific speakers, etc).

Your DAW probably does it's mixing, etc. using a higher bit depth than is possible in the DSP, so you would likely get higher quality letting the DAW do the work (though it is all sent to the DSP eventually). Using the DSP (for stuff that can be done in the DAW) is good if you want to take some of the workload away from the CPU (though more ASIO streams also means more work for the CPU), or if you want to route different tracks to different sound card outputs, etc.

notorius

thanks for your reply.

Well my basic question is still:

Would it make sense, to map the KX-Outputs and gain a better Quality as reward, or is it the same if i use the internal Mixer of my DAW ?

I have heard that, the more tracks you use on one Channel, the more dynamics you loose due to mixing it down to one Stereo-Output (especially when you use compression on several tracks).

So my thought would be:

The more tracks i share on different KX-Outputs, the less dynamics i would loose.

I have tested a song with 24 Tracks by routing them all to one Asio-Output (kx 0/1) and afterwards splitted the Tracks into Groups (Voice/Keys/Beat) and routed them to 0/1 2/3 3/4 and i think that the whole song became more transparent.

But maybe my ears are fooling me, so im still not sure about it.

What do you think ?

Russ

I do not know... What do you have connected to these outputs? An externel mixing console? Assuming that you are doing a mixdown at some point, I do not see you gaining any quality or dynamic range by not doing it in your DAW (and I would think it is possible that you may lose some dynamic range doing it that way).

In any case, I am not an expert, someone else can probably give you better info on the subject.

janez

The weak point of most kx compatible hardware is that anything that enters or leaves the dsp is truncated to 16 bit and going through a rate conversion.
The internal calculation depth is 32 bit, which is the same as most software DAWs. Protools works with 48 bit internally, but Iīm not even sure if the LE Version does that, too.
Mixing hardware based or software based can make a difference in terms of "tansparency" because of the timing in the realtime calculation processes.
You probably have an advantage mixing in the DAW if you bounce (or render) from there and just export it into a file instead of going through kx again.


If less stuff is mixed together within 16 bit you have a higher resolution. So its pretty possible. I canīt tell you off the top of my head in precise mathematical terms but after all I tend to trust my ears. Although sometimes its hard to say if its your ears or you belief system telling you what seems to be going on.

Russ

The internal bit depth for many of the software DAW's is 64 bit (floating point).