Ableton Forum

Yesterday, I picked up NI's Audio Kontrol 1 for my laptop, and much to my delight
(yeah, right), the audio drops completely out at uneven intervals. The guy at
the store convinced me to get it over an M-audio card, but recommended that I
run it off a Win XP partition, as he had experienced problems in Vista. He also
said that Vista in general has problems with external interfaces.

I do not particularly feel like shelling out for Win XP just for this, so I'm
wondering if anyone's running the AK1 on Vista without problems.

Alternatively, is anyone a happy user of M-audio's Fast Track Pro on Vista?
(I don't need the usual, mandatory drivel about M-audio, by the way)

I bit the bullet and got Vista with my new computer, and it works great with my Presonus Firepod... so, yeah, I guess you might say "Vista has problems"-- if you DONT WANT ANYONE ASKING YOU VISTA QUESTIONS AT THE STORE...

but all it takes is a little research beforehand. Make sure the products have Vista drivers... I'd especially do a search on the m-audio site for Vista drivers. At the time I got my computer, I know peole were saying M-audio had yet to release Vista-drivers for their more popular soundcards, I don't know if they've recetified that yet or not.

I figure, eventually new stuff is gonna start coming out that doesn't work in XP, so I'm gonna hafta learn to use Vista, and so far, its not as horrible as people say.

Anyhow, are you using the ASIO drivers? And is this being Bus powered or does that have a power supply? Does your lappy have a wireless card? Using Aero, or Windows basic look?

Live's GUI (dynamic elements like volume meters) creates huge CPU load under Vista's Basic Desktop. At the moment you better switch to Aero when running Live under Vista. Everything else is mostly down to driver problems. Don't blame Vista, blame them lazy driver developers who can't get their sh*t together.

Install OSX Leopard, the greatest and most stable OS ever conceived!

laird wrote:At the time I got my computer, I know peole were saying M-audio had yet to release Vista-drivers for their more popular soundcards, I don't know if they've recetified that yet or not.

I think M-audio have got their act together, so kudos to them if they've
actually got their products working properly with Vista.
Edit: Typical... Fast Track Pro is still on beta drivers

laird wrote: I figure, eventually new stuff is gonna start coming out that doesn't work in XP, so I'm gonna hafta learn to use Vista, and so far, its not as horrible as people say.

Yeah, Vista is quite all right, actually, and I'm quite used to it by now.

laird wrote: Anyhow, are you using the ASIO drivers? And is this being Bus powered or does that have a power supply? Does your lappy have a wireless card? Using Aero, or Windows basic look?

I've been through a lot of the suggested solutions, some of which I found
at the Native Instruments forum, including disabling wireless card, anything
pertaining to Windows Media Centre (I don't have MC, but some features in
Vista are called MC this and that). I'm using ASIO drivers, and I've tried
both Aero and basic. But the audio dropouts aren't first and foremost a Live
thing, as they happen if I play an audio CD or an MP3 in the media player -
in fact, they seem to be more frequent in Media Player than in Live.

Maybe I should trust Google? A search for Audio Kontrol + Vista returns a lot
of complaints about glitches and dropouts, whereas "Fast Track Pro + Vista"
doesn't seem to indicate any problems at all...

Aha! Yeah, sounds like this is Native Instruments problem.

Before spending more money on a soundcard with beta drivers, I'd exhaust all free options


Also, try different power options. Try a different USB2 port if ya got one. Not all USB ports deliver enough power, necessarily.

also, try

www.asio4all.com

some people report better performance with that workaround than with their soundcard's ASIO drivers.