Ableton Forum

Hey all,

I just received a Push for my birthday, and am looking for some help. I'm a former bass player, entirely new to production. Competent with computers and software, but new to working with Audio.

I'm running a windows laptop. Latency with Push was bad so I installed ASIO4ALL which has fixed the latency problem and makes the Push a lot of fun to play. (Going well so far)

However, ASIO4ALL knocks the system sounds out of action, so if I'm working on something with Push/Ableton I can't also have system sounds playing, which I want to be able to do. As far as I can tell, this is a limit to how ASIO4ALL works and that's fine, so I'm looking for a workaround.

To learn Push/Ableton I'm trying to recreate some songs I like (at least mimic the production as best I can) but I want to be able to quickly play and stop these reference tracks I'm listening on my computer as I work in Ableton. Or in another scenario be able to work in Ableton while watching tutorial videos on YouTube.

If I add an external soundcard (something simple like this: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Creative-Soundb ... 0028RZ23I/ ) or an entry level audio interface (e.g. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Behringer-UCA22 ... 0023BYDHK/) will I be able to play Push/Ableton through this new sound card/interface while using the system sound at the same time?

I'm not looking to do any live audio recording now, and want to spend the absolute minimum on extra kit. I just need something that can run in parallel with system sound, and doesn't have silly latency.

Or, I'd be grateful for any other tips on how to get this setup working?

Not all audio interfaces allow for multiple apps using the audio driver at the same time. I had a focusrite that couldn't, I think their new offerings can.

I would avoid those level entry interfaces, the first I would conside are the cheapest steinberg offerings (CI 1), being the UR22 probably one of the best low end interfaces.

Push is good for bass players, chromatic mode is tuned in 4ths so it's like an 8 string bass.

Did you check to see where your system audio is being routed? Just installing a new driver won't necessarily change the default routing. Open your "change system sounds" dialog from the control panel and go to the playback tab. Right click in the middle and tick "show disabled devices". Look on the list and see what you've got. There should be a checkmark or something next to the default output. You might need to change or reset that to another device on the list to make it work. I was able to get my Realtek HD to work with both MMX and ASIO4ALL although I never had issues with the MMX in the first place. However the best buffer size I was able to use was 1024.

shakeout wrote: I want to be able to quickly play and stop these reference tracks I'm listening on my computer as I work in Ableton.

Doesn't solve the underlaying problem (I don't have a Windows machine, so I can't really help), but for this you just drag the track into Live and let it play in a seperate track. You will even see the waveform of it there in the clip, so that you could chop it up into parts that you can then try to recreate.