are you getting good sound? using music apps?

[bob2131]

hi,
are you people who are running windows xp via vmware fusion or parallels getting good clear sound??

im using vmware fusion only for a coupla music production/audio applications. the internal macbook sound works, but introduces alot of latency....like if you hit a sound, you wont hear it till like a second or two later....not good for music stuff.

so i thought using a proper audio interface/soundcard would solve this....ie...using asio sound drivers, which all good soundcards have and all software manufacturers recommend us to use for music stuff....for sound low latency.

im usng an m=audio fast track pro....it works fine on the mac side of things, but on windows xp....the sound is all crackled up...really messed up.
ive tried changing the latency settings on the card, audio settings in apps....not working out.....

in theory it should be fine, because ive used the same audio interface with my dekstop windows pc....but on my macbook, its just not working.
ive got the latest drivers for service pack 3....

im thinking about getting another audio interface, for pro tools, an mox2 or something.....hopefully that will work on mac and pc.....

how are you guys doing for sound on windows xp?? on your macs.....
is it solid and good alwyas? what kind of soundcards are you using?

is anyone running music apps on windows side? any audio midi sequencers? and audio editors? eg cubase, soundforge, VSTis....

latency is bad...and sound quality is really bad.....with my audio interface...maybe its some kind of setting.....i dont know....ive tried everthing. i mean.....theres settings for the soundcard, settings in the audio apps, settings for windows xp sound settings, sound driver settings with device manager in xp.... and theres probably sound settings in vmware fusiion too right? ....and should i be looking and playing with sound settings in mac leopard too??

man.....running windows on mac is not plain sailing or easy.....
ive had a tough coupla weeks with it all....

im also running the latest vmware 2.0.

any help or info would be most helpful....thankyou.

 

[valvehead]

im using vmware fusion only

There's your problem right there. You should be using boot camp if audio and video performance is important. In a virtual machine all of the hardware is emulated. This makes low latencies nearly impossible to achieve.

Then again, boot camp isn't running smoothly for me either. I'm pretty sure it's related to Nvidia's Windows drivers. I have tried many, many different ones to varying degrees of success, but I'm still getting audio dropouts anytime something redraws on the screen (and yes, I set it to background services). It happens on both the internal sound interface and my RME Fireface 800. Latency settings have no effect on the dropouts. All the 3D performance in the world means nothing if the 2D performance is pathetic. It's causing problems in my CAD software, too. My 5-year-old custom desktop PC runs better than this.

Fortunately Cubase 4 works great under OS X so I'm able to get work done. As for my other PC apps (Audition 2.0, Vegas Pro 8, etc.), I'm stuck using my desktop until I can find a solution. I'm fed up with Nvidia. I hope the new MBPs use ATI (the lesser of two evils). If only Matrox made mobile GPUs...

 

[bob2131]

There's your problem right there. You should be using boot camp if audio and video performance is important. In a virtual machine all of the hardware is emulated. This makes low latencies nearly impossible to achieve.

Then again, boot camp isn't running smoothly for me either. I'm pretty sure it's related to Nvidia's Windows drivers. I have tried many, many different ones to varying degrees of success, but I'm still getting audio dropouts anytime something redraws on the screen (and yes, I set it to background services). It happens on both the internal sound interface and my RME Fireface 800. Latency settings have no effect on the dropouts. All the 3D performance in the world means nothing if the 2D performance is pathetic. It's causing problems in my CAD software, too. My 5-year-old custom desktop PC runs better than this.

Fortunately Cubase 4 works great under OS X so I'm able to get work done. As for my other PC apps (Audition 2.0, Vegas Pro 8, etc.), I'm stuck using my desktop until I can find a solution. I'm fed up with Nvidia. I hope the new MBPs use ATI (the lesser of two evils). If only Matrox made mobile GPUs...

dude,,,,.....so it would be better if i tried bootcamp??
reckon my sound problem would be solved?
yeah my desktop pc is better than this mac windows thing.
ASIO drivers give good latency figures, in my exerience.....id be happy with asio settings....but my sound is really crackling so ooo bad.....

it could just be a simple setting or a way of setting it up.....
RME interface is a good one too right?

yeah im using logic and pro tools on the osx side....its just that i got some good windows only vsts and coupla other things.....that i just havnt or cant get for mac......that i wanna explore.....and eventually get rid of my desktop pc.... (desktop pc is gonna be hard to let go...hard)

nvidia?

im getting an mbox2 very soon.....and hope that will work on windows xp on vmare for general audio stuff (soundforge, wavelab, cubase) .....as i wanna use it a normal audio box for windowss xp and then also use it for pro tools LE on the mac side.......

so its not just me then.....music production on windows xp on vmware is not too stable right? ive emailed m-audio, lets see what they say......

man.....with windows xp....its one thing after another.....its NEVER smooth sailing with windows xp....for me.......never...... its why i bought a mac in the first place......

and vmware maual on sound settings is not very good either.....

ok thankyou for your help....

 

[valvehead]

You can certainly try boot camp. It may end up working fine for you. Windows runs natively in boot camp. This allows it to communicate directly with the hardware.

The RME is great (though it's not cheap). It has tons of I/O and excellent sound quality. I was a little apprehensive about going the firewire route since many people had problems with the Agere chips in the late 2007 MBPs. The good news is that Apple switched back to Texas Instruments' firewire chips in the current February '08 revision.

I'm sorry about ranting in your thread. I'm just a little annoyed because I bought my MBP specifically for audio and video production. To spend thousands on hardware and software and have it all come crashing down due to poorly written video drivers is aggravating. I'm waiting to see what the new MBPs will be like.

 

[bob2131]

You can certainly try boot camp. It may end up working fine for you. Windows runs natively in boot camp. This allows it to communicate directly with the hardware.

The RME is great (though it's not cheap). It has tons of I/O and excellent sound quality. I was a little apprehensive about going the firewire route since many people had problems with the Agere chips in the late 2007 MBPs. The good news is that Apple switched back to Texas Instruments' firewire chips in the current February '08 revision.

I'm sorry about ranting in your thread. I'm just a little annoyed because I bought my MBP specifically for audio and video production. To spend thousands on hardware and software and have it all come crashing down due to poorly written video drivers is aggravating. I'm waiting to see what the new MBPs will be like.

right...yeah ill gonna try bootcamp....just gonna wait until i hear from m-audio support...and read some audio troubleshooting articles, it could be a simple setting.....

yeah ive heard good things about RME...not cheap, but good quality. you sure are really getting into your specs arnt you.....you make music right?

no its good to rant...i do it almost everyday. i feel your pain...MBP is EXPENSIVE....i bought my macbook specifically for pro tools and logic....at least that side of things is running very nicely. i guess im just getting greedy with puttting windows and other stuff on....but rightfully so....as i need those apps and windows is supported.

have you thought about just trying a different audio interface?

ultimately, i think i wanna eventually just get rid of windows xp...and be a 100% mac user..... windows has affected and troubled my life enough over 3 years.....

cheers bud