Audio Driver Help

Alrighty, so I recently bought an M-audio Axiom Pro and to improve latency issues with the midi keyboard I downloaded/installed the ever so famous ASIO driver. But I ran into a problem when changing the "Driver Type" and the "Audio Device" to the newly installed ASIO components.

Here's the problem: when I switch the driver type from the (default) MME/DirectX driver to the ASIO driver and switch the audio device to the ASIO4ALL v2, I open up the ASIO4ALL UI and try and route the audio through my USB DAC/Headphone amp so I can use my AKG q701's, but the status on the USB DAC reads "Unavailable." I've already deactivated the exclusive processing on the speaker settings, so why does it still suggest the MS GS wavetable synth is enabled?

Is there something else using the ASIO driver that conflicts with the USB DAC?

here's a picture to clarify things up:

http://imgur.com/OuRM4

Any tips for how to change the status for this? because I can only route the audio through the "Realtek High Definition Audio" with ASIO and using my headphones without the amp destroys the sound quality.

Thanks,

-Tekk

From the FAQ -

Q: Why do I get an error 'Could not start ASIO' or some such? (READ THIS ESPECIALLY IF YOU ARE HAVING PROBLEMS WITH LOGIC!)

A: (Version 1.x) ASIO4ALL requires exclusive access to the audio device. More often than not, starting the driver fails because the audio device is already in use. There are obvious instances, like some other audio application still open, but there are also things to consider that are not so obvious. Such as the "Microsoft GS SoftwareWavetable Synth", which is enabled as a default MIDI output in some sequencer software. Check the MIDI settings of your host application! For a further explanation on this issue, I recommend this link. Besides, this may also be related to the 44.1 vs. 48kHz issue as explained above. Try to set up a project with 48kHz and see whether this makes a difference. As a last resort, check the "Force 16 Bit Samples" option in the control panel. If it still doesn't work, report!
(Version 2.x) This error should not happen as often anymore. Instead, you simply get no audio, and, if you open the ASIO4ALL control panel, you will find that your audio outputs are flagged with an error symbol. The most likely reason and remedy for this hasn't changed, however.

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For midi work, I'd just use the default (MME ?) audio driver as (I seem to remember, though it was a few years since I last used it) the ASIO4ALL driver only will affect the latency of the processing of Audio Input and shouldn't affect MIDI latency

Okay cool thank you, I'll just mess with the buffer sizes for the MME instead of the ASIO nonsense.

yes i've had this problem, i had to select a different midiout besides the microsoft wavetable synth in the host program i was using, in this case, max...