• Registered: 2018-04-21
  • Posts: 2

Topic: Noob questions

I'm building a DAW and am a total noob at this and have a few questions.

First, is a Babyface simply an external soundcard with a bunch of I/O ports?  Ie, it's generating all audio for the (in this case) laptop and I can disable the onboard sound card?  Any audio generated... windows alerts, etc is all going to be generated by the BF which will have a standard windows audio driver I install?

The other question is about connecting a keyboard to the laptop (currently I have a USB based Yamaha using ASIO4ALL and am replacing it with an NI S88).  Am I connecting the S88 directly to the laptop via USB and then assigning the outputs to the BF in Ableton?  That's where I'm going to reduce latency, replacing ASIO4ALL with the RME windows driver?

Lastly, I've read that my studio monitors need to have XLR connections.  True?

I think that's about it for now.  Thanks for helping me understand how this all works together.

2 Reply by ramses (edited by ramses 2018-04-22 07:27:27)

  • ramses
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Re: Noob questions

An RME recording interface can / will fully substitute your internal sound card.
My server mainboard doesn't even have a built-in sound card.

In the RME driver settings dialog you can choose the amount of WDM devices, that the RME ASIO driver shall create for Windows. These WDM drivers can then be used by Windows Applications which do not support ASIO.

ASIO4ALL I would avoid, as it is based on the WDM driver model, not a real ASIO driver. It only mimicries / talks to the upper layers (the application) ASIO. But its not from ground up an ASIO driver which directly and most efficiently communicates with your recording interfaces hardware.

Its a workaround that works for some people if they have picked the wrong HW like i.e. USB Microphones which can not be used because the DAW can only work with one audio driver.

The NI keyboard is a master keyboard, you can connect it via MIDI to the Babyface. Am not 100% sure whether it would work when using the USB driver, probably not. USB micros would definitively not work, as a DAW can only work with one audio driver and this should be the ASIO driver of your recording interface.

But as I said use MIDI then, which is supported by the Babyface.

BR Ramses - UFX III, 12Mic, XTC, ADI-2 Pro FS R BE, RayDAT, X10SRi-F, E5-1680v4, Win10Pro22H2, Cub13
  • Registered: 2018-04-21
  • Posts: 2

Re: Noob questions

Thanks much.  And any idea about XLR connections being mandatory for the studio monitors?

4 Reply by ramses (edited by ramses 2018-04-24 06:05:20)

  • ramses
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Re: Noob questions

rawbar wrote:

Thanks much.  And any idea about XLR connections being mandatory for the studio monitors?

Balanced connections have the advantage to be more robust against noise and allow for longer distances.

On RME side you have on the breakout cable an XLR plug.
On the monitor side it could be either XLR or TRS. Most important is that the monitor supports balanced cabling.

Then you simply choose a cable with either XLR / XLR or XLR / TRS plug.

I personally would prefer a cable with quality Neutric XLR plugs, as such cables usually lock when plugging.

BR Ramses - UFX III, 12Mic, XTC, ADI-2 Pro FS R BE, RayDAT, X10SRi-F, E5-1680v4, Win10Pro22H2, Cub13
  • Registered: 2018-04-07
  • Posts: 15

Re: Noob questions

Just to be clear, symmetric = balanced. The vast majority of pro studio monitors and gear will accept balanced inputs. If they do not (e.g. they have RCA jacks only) then you lose the benefits of the balanced cabling.

@ramses is correct when saying that you can use a (well made) cable to convert from XLR to TRS for monitors which accept TRS. But make sure whatever monitors you are using accept balanced inputs (and not just RCA or 3.5mm headphone jack style inputs - those won't work well although if you're absolutely desperate you can unbalance the connection - but that's another subject for another post).

  • ramses
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Re: Noob questions

Yep sorry symmetric is a "germanism" .. I mean a balanced cable wink

BR Ramses - UFX III, 12Mic, XTC, ADI-2 Pro FS R BE, RayDAT, X10SRi-F, E5-1680v4, Win10Pro22H2, Cub13