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→Drivers
Most interfaces come with their own setup CD that includes the hardware drivers used for the OS or DAW software to communicate with the device. Before installing off the CD, you may want to look at the manufacturer's webpage to download the latest software/drivers - there's a good chance a later version was released.
For Windows, the preferred driver is usually ASIO. (ASIO is actually just a protocol - a driver simply ''implements'' ASIO. This means every ASIO-compliant driver is device-dependent, and you can't use the driver for one device on another.) Microsoft's default sound card driver is DirectSound, which is processed and buffered at multiple stages by the Windows OS before actually reaching the device. This leads ASIO bypasses the Windows sound kernel (KMixer), avoiding both latency and unwanted processing by the OS, leading to large amounts both higher quality and greater availability of latency computer resources. Using ASIO usually requires nothing more than installing the manufacturer's provided software. If you look in Device Manager, the driver may not explicitly say ASIO even if it is. There should be no need to change the preferred driver through Device Mananger. In your DAW, however, when selecting your audio interface, you may see your device listed multiple times with different driver names - DirectSound, WDM, MME, and increased CPU resourcesASIO. Given the choice, you should select ASIO. ASIO is not an open standard, requiring a license for a DAW or hardware manufacturer to implement it. Thus, some do not natively support it. A popular alternative when an ASIO driver is not provided for your interface is [http://www.asio4all.com/ ASIO4ALL], which is a free "driver" that uses advanced WDM techniques to achieve ASIO-like performance from devices that use a WDM driver. I find it's best to try to avoid the issue altogether by using ASIO compliant interfaces and DAW software. Getting ASIO4ALL to work correctly can make recording and producing music much more difficultbe tricky or impossible.
== Control Panel ==