Basic advice on audio driver for PC

[Crumb$]

Hi,

I'm just starting to learn Ableton. I don't usually work with DAW's but I travel a lot and am starting to rely on VST's and a Keystep Pro.

I've got Ableton Live Lite v11.3.21 installed on a Windows 11 laptop. I could do with a little bit of advice here as to the best setup for the audio driver.

As it stands I can choose MME/DirectX or ASIO. If I choose MME/Direct X, I can switch from Ableton to a youtube video without any loss of audio (which is great because I'm often in need of some guidance as I learn how to use it) but the latency when playing my midi keyboard is unusable. If I switch to ASIO the latency comes down to 24ms and is much better for playing the keyboard. The only problem here is that I then loose the audio from the web browser.

The third option I have is to use my Focusrite 2i2. This is almost my preference because I can plug my headphones in to it and control the volume much easier. Only problem is, there seems to be more latency using this method than I expected. Not terrible, but not as good as using the ASIO driver.

Maybe I'm already using the correct technique here but as I'm new to it I wanted to check on the forum. Any advice is appreciated.

[Tarekith]

Did you install the latest ASIO driver for the Focusrite? That should be your best option.

[Crumb$]

No, I hadn't been able to get the focusrite to work with the installed ASIO driver. Let me have a look in to this.... thanks!

[Tarekith]

Go to the Focusrite site and make sure you download and install the latest and greatest what works with your sound card. That's step one

[CryptoJimBo]

Go into Ableton Preferences, Audio tab, and play with the Sample Rate and the Latency Input and Output Buffer. Hopefully you can find a sweet spot that will get rid of Latency without crackling and popping.

P.S. You might have to click the Hardware Setup button in Ableton's Preferences to adjust the Latency Buffer on the ASIO driver.

[Crumb$]

Go to the Focusrite site and make sure you download and install the latest and greatest what works with your sound card. That's step one

Thanks. It's working very well indeed now. Perfect!

[Crumb$]

Go into Ableton Preferences, Audio tab, and play with the Sample Rate and the Latency Input and Output Buffer. Hopefully you can find a sweet spot that will get rid of Latency without crackling and popping.

P.S. You might have to click the Hardware Setup button in Ableton's Preferences to adjust the Latency Buffer on the ASIO driver.

Thanks for this tip!