Sound Card

Lum

There are two standards for those front panel audio connectors, AC97 and HD-Audio.

They look identical but are incompatible.

There should be a setting in the Xonar drivers to choose which standare you are using. From memory it asks you during the initial installation.

Whichever one you chose. Try the other one

Robm1955

Nearly there. I did what you said Lum, and selected the configuration for AC97, and now I've got front panel earphones, but no microphone.

Lum

There's probably somewhere else in the drivers where you choose what microphone to select. Sorry I can't be more specific than that as I ended up taking my Xonar back due to the DPC latency issue.

The Mic Boost option is often helpful too.

Robm1955

Managed to get it working, through the interface, by messing with the settings until I got it to work. Still not working as expected though. I'm using the mic socket to connect my electric guitar to my pc. To get any decent volume, I set the headphones on the interface, to Dolby. All the other settings were relatively quiet. If I play an mp3 though, this is too loud, so I have to adjust the volume on the media player, to get the balance right ( I like to jam along to my mp3s). The other problem, which I can't see an answer to, is there is a slight delay from me plucking the strings, to hearing the sound through my headphones. It's ever so slight, but noticeable.

Lum

I'm no guitar expert but I'd imagine you'd want to use the line-in on the back for that, and the mic socket for microphones?

The slight delay is normal as the sound is being digitised, passing through the sound card to your CPU, mixed in software with your MP3 and then back to the sound card and back to analogue.

This kind of latency is the bane of musicians everywhere, and is generally reduced by using special low latency drivers called ASIO drivers and software that works with ASIO rather than the standard Windows sound interface.

I'm actually in the same boat as you right now. I use my system for live DJing and have the same lag between what I do on my USB mixing deck and hearing the result. I've kind of gotten used to it but will eventually get myself an ASIO capable soundcard.

I believe there are ASIO drivers for the Xonar, but I'm not sure what software you'd use to jam along to an MP3. Honestly for that I'd just plug both the computer and the guitar into a mixer and from there to an amp rather than have the computer mixing in software. It's a much simpler solution than messing about with ASIO.

Robm1955

Thanks Lum. I always plugged the lead into the Mic socket with my previous sound card, and had no delay. Tried the LineIn, and got nothing. A mixer may be a bit too excessive for my needs. I'm only a novice. Guess I'll have to get used to the delay, if I still want to jam.

Lum

Probably need to set the recording source to line-in instead of mic as well.

But like I said, I'm no expert when it comes to guitars, I have no idea if the pickups use different output levels compared to mics or other audio sources.

Can you bodge it with a y-piece and plug both directly into your amp that way?

And do try the ASIO drivers to attempt to reduce the delay.

Robm1955

Thanks Lum. Never thought of the line-in, as previously, I used the Mic socket with my old sound card, without any delay. Tried Line-in, but doesn't work. A mixer is a bit excessive for what I need. Guess I'll have to put up with the delay.