how do you get your music out of the D8B ?

[keny]

Thank you so much! I’ll peruse this later tonight, but that definitely answered a few things already. Appreciate.
Definitely sounds like the way to go is setting the d8b to digital, and using the S/pdif cable. Like I said the only trouble with that Yamaha AW16g that I have is it only has optical intputs, xlr, or midi in/through, no spdif. im going to have to figure that out. I used to have an old echo mia input card somewhere and wonder if I could cobble that into a tower... may have chucked it too though. I wish the d8b had usb ports but its literally from before that time!

[Y-my-R]

@Funk:

I just stumbled over this on Craigslist (here in Los Angeles):

https://losangeles.craigslist.org/lac/m ... 32762.html

The breakout cable for the M-Audio Audiophile 24/96 PCI card for MIDI and S/PDIF is the same as for the Fast Track Ultra 8R, so this one would work.

I don't know where you're located and if not in the Los Angeles area, it probably won't make any sense. But M-Audio sold lots more of these Audiophile cards, so there might be more of those available than the ones that say that they're for the 8R. Might be worth looking for an adapter that is described as for that PCI card.

...but as you already said, these adapters are easy enough to assemble yourself. Just thought I'd share, in case you live in the LA area.

[doktor1360]

These guys (in Moldavia) seem to provide those m-audio breakout cables, among others, on a consistent basis...

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Breakout-Cable-for-M-Audio-Audiophile-2496-Adapter-Interface-MIDI-SPDIF/124611707495?hash=item1d036fc267:g:8FAAAOSwPhdU2u2d

If you're comfortable with the shipping source destination, and there's really no reason not to be, less than $30 including shipping seems reasonable enuff...

Here it comes:
[Standard Mgmt Disclaimer] - "Your actual mileage may vary..."

[funk]

I used the Roland's for years, great speakers, but I read a SOS review of the Neumann KH310 A's where the guy who wrote the review was supposed to send them back but they were so good that he bought them, so I did, and they are excellent and bring lots of frequencies out that were missed by the Rolands.
https://www.proaudioeurope.com/monitori ... -pair.html

Here's the new ones set up.

Ahhh right, i still use mine as normal good enough to get what i need to be done, had a look at your new ones, thats a large chunk of cash for monitors, if i could afford them reading the reviews sounds like its cash well spent, but thats me out for a while at least im afraid, one day phil, maybe notice your using an M-one as well, mine has also kept its place in the rack for a good while now, once you get use them with all the routing options its very hard to go to something else, tho i do have a Fireworx as well which also is a stayer in the rack just for anything quirky sounding, that thing can twist effects !!

@Funk:
The breakout cable for the M-Audio Audiophile 24/96 PCI card for MIDI and S/PDIF is the same as for the Fast Track Ultra 8R, so this one would work. Just thought I'd share, in case you live in the LA area.

hi Y, they are indeed im just waiting for one to arrive from ebay which i got from a 2496 just to take the guess work out of it cus i could not find a wiring di on the net, so thanks very much for the heads up, and also thanks for taking the time to type all that very helpfull info, very much appreciated, i have audacity tried that by going the long way via cd to get my mix there so when my new cable arrives i have a few options now, at least im on the right track now

@ Doc, thanks for taking the time to look Doc, yea im on it now mate, cheers

[funk]

It seems the problem was not with how i was doing it with sending my mix out to the cd recorder at all, as Y my R says there is no loss, i only found this out after getting the spmte lead to try Phil's way of sending the mix to cubase to process then exporting it to a wav or MP3 stereo master, it still sounded the same, ie when played back it was dull compared to the mix i am hearing on the D8B or cubase.
The problem is with windows media player, mine sounds crap i tried VLC player that was about the same, it was only when i read on the net of others having the same problem stating the problem is with WMP playback that someone said try quick time, so i downloaded Apples quick time for windows and bingo, played the same tracks as i was playing in WMP and there is a massive difference in quality,
so read some more options for wmp like change the coloration of wmp to "Non" and still the same also tried exporting at higher bit rates and so on... still the same.
so my questions.. does anyone else get this from WMP the mix sounding dull ?
im thinking you Apple guys are ok, as quick time was ok.
and is wmp relyent in the internal soundcard ? or is it software based only, thinking here it could be my lap top sound card or a bad version on WMP or even the driver,
I have played the mix on other laptops and a pc that i have and they are all the same, crap compared to quick time, so is everyone who has a windows lap top using WMP missing out here ?
so many questions, sorry guys, just determined to get to the bottom of this once and for all.

[Phil.c]

After I've recorded the mix to Logic and convert it to mp3, I play it back through the D8B, where I can A/B with the original, apart from the slight mp3 compression they are pretty much identical.

[Y-my-R]

Is there a reason why you want to use Windows Media Player, @Funk?

I do almost everything on macOS, but here are some thoughts from my tech support times, about audio in Windows:

There's different audio driver standards for different Windows operating system versions. Here are some of them:

1. MME: Oldest of them all and the only thing there was up to around Windows XP, I think. Horrible latency to a point that makes it useless for real-time audio.
2. WDM: Was added to MME at some point, and wasn't much better. Still horrible latency.
3. DirectX: Kind of like a driver-wrapper, that takes MME/WDM drivers and presents them in a different way to PC games and the likes. Also pretty much useless for real-time audio (...there used to be directx formatted plug-ins, but they weren't worth using this format and you were usually better off using VST plug-ins, instead)
4. WASAPI: I think this one replaced all the above around Windows 7 or 8 or so. Definitely better than everything before, and "almost" usable for real-time audio... but still no match for ASIO (that's next).
5. ASIO: Since Microsoft couldn't manage to create an audio driver type/environment that is usable for real-time audio, Steinberg created "ASIO". That's a driver format that bypasses Windows' audio completely, and instead directly accesses the audio hardware. So, basically a pipeline from your audio software to your audio hardware (bypassing the operating system's audio system). Yes, that's how bad Windows audio is/was.

Depending on the OS version (e.g. Windows 95 vs Windows 10), the built-in Windows drivers do some sort of automatic resampling, to make sure that all applications that are running at the same time, will use the same sample rate (so there's no audio dropouts like clicks, etc.). I'm not sure anymore, but I think older Windows versions sampled DOWN to the lowest common denominator (which might explain the quality difference, if there's any app running something like 22 kHz, as used to be common for VoIP apps, etc.). Later Windows versions sampled UP to the highest sample rate the soundcard could handle. So, often times 96 kHz (or 48 kHz, when using the built-in soundcard or an interface that can't do more).

So, when sampling UP, there shouldn't be too much in the way (but if there's a setting for WMP to not colorize the sound, then it's definitely a good idea to turn any such thing off).
However, since resampling is going on within Windows, it will not be 1:1 what the file actually is. So, I would highly recommend NOT to control-listen with anything Windows manages, and only listen with an app that uses ASIO as the driver standard.

Quick Time installs it's own codec (kinda like a way to encode/decode audio to pack it in a certain format and play it back again), so it might get around some of Windows' limitations as well. But I'd still assume that Windows likely resamples in the background.

Long story short: If on windows, it's safest to use something that can use ASIO as the driver type, such as pretty much any DAW or sample editor. I'd stay away from media player apps, that don't have their own audio interface selection and sample rate/bit-depth settings, since otherwise, the audio is subject to whatever windows wants to do with it (and that isn't usually a good thing).

There is definitely a factory ASIO driver for the Fasttrack Ultra 8R... but for others reading along, if you use the built-in soundcard or something that doesn't come with an ASIO driver, make sure to download and install the free "ASIO 4 All" driver. This gets around all the nonsense Windows is doing, that I mentioned above:

https://www.asio4all.org/

P.S.: Can you tell that I hate Windows with a passion? PC hardware is not the problem. I actually PREFER to run macOS on PC hardware since I can get better performance out of that for less money, but Apple Silicone pretty much stopped that for the future. But almost every time I use Windows, I leave screaming at some point, hahaha

[funk]

After I've recorded the mix to Logic and convert it to mp3, I play it back through the D8B, where I can A/B with the original, apart from the slight mp3 compression they are pretty much identical.

cheers phil i will try that, at least that way i will know if the transfer is good or bad.

" Is there a reason why you want to use Windows Media Player, @Funk?

I do almost everything on macOS, but here are some thoughts from my tech support times, about audio in Windows:

There's different audio driver standards for different Windows operating system versions. Here are some of them:

1. MME: Oldest of them all and the only thing there was up to around Windows XP, I think. Horrible latency to a point that makes it useless for real-time audio.
2. WDM: Was added to MME at some point, and wasn't much better. Still horrible latency.
3. DirectX: Kind of like a driver-wrapper, that takes MME/WDM drivers and presents them in a different way to PC games and the likes. Also pretty much useless for real-time audio (...there used to be directx formatted plug-ins, but they weren't worth using this format and you were usually better off using VST plug-ins, instead)
4. WASAPI: I think this one replaced all the above around Windows 7 or 8 or so. Definitely better than everything before, and "almost" usable for real-time audio... but still no match for ASIO (that's next).
5. ASIO: Since Microsoft couldn't manage to create an audio driver type/environment that is usable for real-time audio, Steinberg created "ASIO". That's a driver format that bypasses Windows' audio completely, and instead directly accesses the audio hardware. So, basically a pipeline from your audio software to your audio hardware (bypassing the operating system's audio system). Yes, that's how bad Windows audio is/was.

Depending on the OS version (e.g. Windows 95 vs Windows 10), the built-in Windows drivers do some sort of automatic resampling, to make sure that all applications that are running at the same time, will use the same sample rate (so there's no audio dropouts like clicks, etc.). I'm not sure anymore, but I think older Windows versions sampled DOWN to the lowest common denominator (which might explain the quality difference, if there's any app running something like 22 kHz, as used to be common for VoIP apps, etc.). Later Windows versions sampled UP to the highest sample rate the soundcard could handle. So, often times 96 kHz (or 48 kHz, when using the built-in soundcard or an interface that can't do more).

So, when sampling UP, there shouldn't be too much in the way (but if there's a setting for WMP to not colorize the sound, then it's definitely a good idea to turn any such thing off).
However, since resampling is going on within Windows, it will not be 1:1 what the file actually is. So, I would highly recommend NOT to control-listen with anything Windows manages, and only listen with an app that uses ASIO as the driver standard.

Quick Time installs it's own codec (kinda like a way to encode/decode audio to pack it in a certain format and play it back again), so it might get around some of Windows' limitations as well. But I'd still assume that Windows likely resamples in the background.

Long story short: If on windows, it's safest to use something that can use ASIO as the driver type, such as pretty much any DAW or sample editor. I'd stay away from media player apps, that don't have their own audio interface selection and sample rate/bit-depth settings, since otherwise, the audio is subject to whatever windows wants to do with it (and that isn't usually a good thing).

There is definitely a factory ASIO driver for the Fasttrack Ultra 8R... but for others reading along, if you use the built-in soundcard or something that doesn't come with an ASIO driver, make sure to download and install the free "ASIO 4 All" driver. This gets around all the nonsense Windows is doing, that I mentioned above:

https://www.asio4all.org/

P.S.: Can you tell that I hate Windows with a passion? PC hardware is not the problem. I actually PREFER to run macOS on PC hardware since I can get better performance out of that for less money, but Apple Silicone pretty much stopped that for the future. But almost every time I use Windows, I leave screaming at some point, hahaha "

" Is there a reason why you want to use Windows Media Player, @Funk?"
hi and thanks once again for the very informative reply... no reason its just that is the default player on my lap top and also was thinking that is the default player on most of other peoples laptops and one or two of my friends who contribute to the tracks so they are also getting the same sh!t sound.
i do have the asio 4 all installed, i did not know i could use that for wmp, thats great, i have that running for cubase but after looking found also that the " Dr Dre Beats audio driver that comes with the lap top is also running, and the HP driver for the sound card has bad latency that you cant plug a guitar or bass in to the lap top and play along with any tracks that WMP is playing, i can now with the M-audio R8, its perfect.. so im going to strip all the old drivers out, get rid of the beats thing and start again. thanks once again

[Y-my-R]

I don't think you can use Asio4All with Windows Media Player. That's not what I said.

I said to avoid using applications that can't use ASIO drivers (i.e. avoid apps like WMP, RealPlayer, WinAmp or any of that cr*p), since Windows is likely to resample the sound either up or down (depending on the Windows version), so you will not hear the exact sound of the mix you did. That's a Windows limitation.

What Windows version are you on? If it's WinXP or so, I think it will sample DOWN to 22 kHz, as soon as any application is running that is using that. So, Skype or any other messenger application that runs at 22 kHz (even if the app itself wasn't launched but there's an icon for it in the system tray next to the clock, for example), or typical Voice-over-IP apps for computer telephony, etc. (...not sure if these kinds of apps use higher sample rates by now, but since it's about saving bandwidth during transmission over the internet, they're probably still at 22 kHz, which is enough to easily understand speech). Some of these apps, you can't even easily close, and it's safer to remove them from getting automatically started when Windows boots, to ensure they're not messing with MME/WDM/WASAPI audio of other applications.
It's really a mess (...and I hated doing tech support for cases like this back then).

In other words, if you're on a rather old version of Windows, such as Windows XP, do not use Windows Media Player or any other app that you can't use ASIO with, since it will most likely resample your sound (you might be running an app at 22 kHz in the background without even knowing it - and then everything gets pulled down to that low sample rate in old Windows versions). So, old Windows versions sample down and make everything sound like sh*t. Newer Windows versions sample UP, so you probably won't hear the difference.

If you send the file to people to check it out who you suspect use old Windows versions that are likely to sample DOWN, you'll probably have to tell them.

This is nobody's fault but Windows' fault. I'm sure the decision at Microsoft to have Windows sample DOWN was done to have the resampling process not take so much CPU time (i.e. when the first 96 kHz audio interfaces were introduced, some new computers at the time couldn't even handle it)... but for critical listening of mixes, it makes something like Windows Media Player on old Windows versions completely useless.

I think the Beats by Dre laptops came out maybe around 2015 or so? I recall having one in the support department at work. The performance was good for the time, but it was still just a (insanely overpriced) Windows laptop, so it isn't exempt for all of the issues I described above (or all the other frequent issues with audio and its configuration that plague windows computers).
Anyway... cool laptop, but it still has the typical Windows problems for audio.

[funk]

I don't think you can use Asio4All with Windows Media Player. That's not what I said.

I said to avoid using applications that can't use ASIO drivers (i.e. avoid apps like WMP, RealPlayer, WinAmp or any of that cr*p), since Windows is likely to resample the sound either up or down (depending on the Windows version), so you will not hear the exact sound of the mix you did. That's a Windows limitation.

What Windows version are you on? If it's WinXP or so, I think it will sample DOWN to 22 kHz, as soon as any application is running that is using that. So, Skype or any other messenger application that runs at 22 kHz (even if the app itself wasn't launched but there's an icon for it in the system tray next to the clock, for example), or typical Voice-over-IP apps for computer telephony, etc. (...not sure if these kinds of apps use higher sample rates by now, but since it's about saving bandwidth during transmission over the internet, they're probably still at 22 kHz, which is enough to easily understand speech). Some of these apps, you can't even easily close, and it's safer to remove them from getting automatically started when Windows boots, to ensure they're not messing with MME/WDM/WASAPI audio of other applications.
It's really a mess (...and I hated doing tech support for cases like this back then).

In other words, if you're on a rather old version of Windows, such as Windows XP, do not use Windows Media Player or any other app that you can't use ASIO with, since it will most likely resample your sound (you might be running an app at 22 kHz in the background without even knowing it - and then everything gets pulled down to that low sample rate in old Windows versions). So, old Windows versions sample down and make everything sound like sh*t. Newer Windows versions sample UP, so you probably won't hear the difference.

If you send the file to people to check it out who you suspect use old Windows versions that are likely to sample DOWN, you'll probably have to tell them.

This is nobody's fault but Windows' fault. I'm sure the decision at Microsoft to have Windows sample DOWN was done to have the resampling process not take so much CPU time (i.e. when the first 96 kHz audio interfaces were introduced, some new computers at the time couldn't even handle it)... but for critical listening of mixes, it makes something like Windows Media Player on old Windows versions completely useless.

I think the Beats by Dre laptops came out maybe around 2015 or so? I recall having one in the support department at work. The performance was good for the time, but it was still just a (insanely overpriced) Windows laptop, so it isn't exempt for all of the issues I described above (or all the other frequent issues with audio and its configuration that plague windows computers).
Anyway... cool laptop, but it still has the typical Windows problems for audio.

=============================================

aaarrr right sorry, yea i did try and get rid of the wmp driver and use asio, it did not work when playing back through the laptop speakers as could not load asio for that application, but, strangely enough, while the wmp driver was uninstalled i could use wmp if the m-audio R8 was on, strange, so the asio driver was still working when monitoring wmp through the M-audio, which sounds much better, im starting to get my stupid head around it now, bit of a learning curve and thanks for putting up with me.
im using windows 7 on an old hp pavilion dv6 i3 the stainless steel beats one, been a good little lap top to be fair to it, time for a new one i think, saving for a nord stage keyboard at the mo so the new laptop will have to wait, though i do need something faster as tech is leaving it behind a bit, im using "Arturia" soft synths which i love and are amazing but there is some annoying midi latency when using a midi keyboard through the R8...... bla bla bla and so it goes on thanks again y my r
ps ...do you want me to send you the track im doing all this testing on ?