My Asio is clipping - Head-Fi: Covering Headphones, Earphones and Portable Audio

fishtankfish · 07-24-2005, 05:18 AM

Ive spent the night setting up and comparing winamp and foobar with ASIO, i've gotten both to run ASIO through my Emu 1212m but when i do there is clipping, how can i control that?

Helter Skelter · 07-24-2005, 05:37 AM

Clipping as in you get the little red clipping indicator in PatchMix, or actual audible clipping? If it's just PatchMix, all you need to do is make sure all the levels in patchmix are at 0.0 and perhaps turn the volume down in winamp and foobar a bit.

fishtankfish · 07-24-2005, 05:44 AM

It's audible and its in Patchmix, i could hear it so i checked patchmix and it was there clipping (in the red). I turned down everything but nothing seems to help. When going through ASIO the winamp volume is worthless and i can't find foobars volume.

Also, i was using Kernel Streaming, is there a benefit to ASIO over Kernel Streaming?

Helter Skelter · 07-24-2005, 06:28 AM

I think you might have other issues at work here. What ASIO plugins are you using for Foobar and Winamp? For Foobar, you should be using the one found here:
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/...howtopic=29879

If you're using something like ASIO4ALL, you really don't need to and should disable it before trying again.

In the case of the EMu cards, there's something of a debate going as to if there's any difference when using an ASIO plugin at all, seeing as it appears that PatchMix sidesteps the kernel mixer completely. Someone else would probably know more about that.

Foobar's volume is controlled by the + and - keys on the keypad or the - and= keys on the number row on the top of the keyboard, by the way.

fishtankfish · 07-24-2005, 05:05 PM

So does anyone else use ASIO through their E-mu card?

derek8555 · 03-25-2008, 01:40 AM

Sorry for bumping this old thread (damn it's old! how did I find it in the first place o.O)

I noticed this clipping too with Foobar2k + E-MU's own ASIO. I used to lower volume in PatchMix's main mix by 30db but lately I was troubleshooting another issue and installed the latest driver+software pack which sets everything back to normal.

Any solution to this other than lowering the volume in Foobar2k? I think it degrades sound quality by a fair bit...

infinitesymphony · 03-25-2008, 05:26 AM

I have a 1212M, and yes, when all of the stages are set to 0.0 dB, it does clip in PatchMix, even if the clip indicator isn't going off (i.e. it's getting near the red). It's sort of a strange problem since 0 dB technically shouldn't clip, but at least it's known. What you'll need to do is insert a volume level control into the master ASIO and Wave channels (right-click on one of the empty black boxes above the slider and you'll see the list of possible inserts). I lowered the volume by something like 6 dB.

Keep the volume in all of your players to 100%, and keep the actual sliders at 0.0 dB, except for the master volume slider. This will allow proper gain staging to maintain signal quality.

derek8555 · 03-25-2008, 09:35 PM

Aha! I knew there is some kind of solution to this!

Thanks! I will definitely give this a try.

thomaspf · 03-26-2008, 12:06 AM

I am not sure that lowering the volume in the digital domain is such a great idea. This translates to throwing away one bit of resolution.

If you have set up everything for 16 bit 44.1 Khz playback through the ASIO interface you shoule be able to get all the bits that are in the source stream to the card. If you set all gain stages to 0 you should convert the bits that are in the stream. In these days of mp3 players and low quality awareness many recording are actually containing clipping. Clipping being arbitrarily defined as 3 consecutive samples with full amplitude.

So unless you really want to attenuate the signal getting a full amplitude sample ince in a while is completely harmless. For real clipping attenuating the volume is not going to improve the sound since the sample are clipped at the recording so you will still play 3 or more smaples at a fixed amplitude were there was a differetn wave form at the recording.

Just a thought ...

infinitesymphony · 03-26-2008, 12:47 AM

Theoretically, that should be the case, but the 1212M seems to be a unique exception. With everything set to 0 dBFS, it will audibly clip when the source material approaches 0 dB, even before it reaches the red portion of the volume meter--I've never seen that on another sound card. The only way to prevent it is to turn down the signal before it hits the channel strip, which is why the volume level insert needs to be used.