Hi

@ReplicantX . . . . From what I've discovered, Music Master overrides the computer's audio and the only way to listen to anything else is to first close MM and then refresh/reload or close/re-open the other application. . . . .

This is a work around and may have to be done every time MMM is opened.

The issue has been raised many times in the forum and is usually caused by the sound card not supporting ASIO drivers, when no audio from MMM is heard, or where ASIO is supported MMM locking out other programs access to the audio card.

There are 2 fixes:

1. Setting the correct audio drivers in the programs settings tab see image below.
   
   
    
2. Installing and using ASIO4All as the audio driver in MMM - this is particularly beneficial if a MIDI keyboard is being used to control an instrument in the program and latency occurs.

HTH

John EB

Thanks for the help, John. I'll look into that.

Btw, is there a FAQ somewhere? I don't see one stickied.

@ReplicantX

No, unfortunately, but there is a manual. You should read the first part, especially Quick Start.

John CB

@ReplicantX: thanks for raising this issue as I observed the same problem.

@johnebaker: your comment helped a lot by explaining the issue. I connected an USB audio interface (Behringer UMC204HD) and now it works better with less latency.

@browj2: regarding the manual, where is it available online? I only found video tutorials on magix.com (my product "Music Maker Premium" is not even listed there).

Edit:

Just figured that I can download the manuals from the service area after logging in with my account. Then I go to "My Account > My Products" and there I can download the manuals for all products I had registered.

Finally I also found the FAQ which answers this audio question (at least in the German version of the FAQ):

German: https://support2.magix.com/customer/de/customer_faq

English: https://support2.magix.com/customer/en/customer_faq

IT IS RIDICULOUS to suggest that users should use a 3rd party audio driver from an insecure website to patch Music Maker. THE MAKERS of MMM SHOULD BE FOLLOWING MICROSOFT'S REQUIREMENTS AND NOT LOCKING THE REALTEK AUDIO DRIVER FROM USE BY OTHER APPLICATIONS!! This company should take the time to fix this problem instead of putting the onus on users to fix a problem that they created. I should not have to close out MMM to use Movie Studio or YouTube or anything else that require the use of the same audio driver!

@Barb-Marik

Welcome to the Magix forums.

First, I understand you are "annoyed" by this issue but posting IN CAPITALS is viewed as shouting and is likely to be ignored so please don't do it!

Second, you wrote

THE MAKERS of MMM SHOULD BE FOLLOWING MICROSOFT'S REQUIREMENTS AND NOT LOCKING THE REALTEK AUDIO DRIVER FROM USE BY OTHER APPLICATIONS!!

This is absolutely nothing to do with "the makers of MMM". For reasons of smoother playback, minimised latency, sound quality, etc., etc.., Magix choose to use ASIO as their driver model, entirely correctly in my opinion. Unfortunately, Steinberg, who devised the ASIO system, only ever envisaged it as needing to handle one input source at a time. So, this lack of access to other sound sources is a limitation of the ASIO specification and not something that anyone can bypass if they wish to use an ASIO driver.

Use of ASIO4All is a possible "answer" to the problem, since it uses the MME Windows Drivers, which true ASIO completely bypasses, and can, under certain circumstances, allow more than one sound source to be used simultaneously. However, it is not guaranteed to work for everyone in this scenario.

Jeff

Thanks for responding Jeff. I was yelling which is why I used capitals ;) . With regards to the driver model, it is not good programming to design an application that is not compliant with the Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL) functionality. A driver should never bypass the operating system and go straight to the hardware. It results in failure on the operating system to properly do its job and act as the mediator for hardware usage. I realize that this introduces latency however, it would only be a problem when you are compiling, which then could be countered by closing the other applications that are using the audio resources (if you even need to do this—some people have computers that can handle the processing). The problem with Music Maker is that as soon as you play a track, just one track, it locks the audio hardware and Movie Studio and other applications won’t play sound. The problem is not exclusive to ASIO either. The other driver options on Music Maker are problematic. Both the Wave Driver and Direct Driver choices do not function properly. They can be linked to the hardware on my machine, but Direct Driver won’t play sound and the Wave Driver also monopolizes the audio hardware. So, based on that, it’s a Music Maker programming problem.

@Barb-Marik

Hi

. . . . A driver should never bypass the operating system and go straight to the hardware. . . . use a 3rd party audio driver from an insecure website to patch Music Maker

It does and that is how Windows/hardware drivers can be designed to minimise things like Latency. See this article for the reasons why direct access for ASIO is preferable with some audio devices. ASIO4All is a very respected software driver, the article also explains why very few audio card/chipset manufacturers create their own ASIO drivers

. . . . The problem with Music Maker is that as soon as you play a track, just one track, it locks the audio hardware . . .

That is, as Jeff has stated, because Steinberg deigned the ASIO driver that way and it became 'the standard' to get low latency with audio devices.

. . . . Both the Wave Driver and Direct Driver choices do not function properly. They can be linked to the hardware on my machine, but Direct Driver won’t play sound and the Wave Driver also monopolizes the audio hardware . . .

This is not a Magix problem, this is a Windows issue.

. . . . So, based on that, it’s a Music Maker programming problem . . . .

No - it is a problem caused by Windows drivers, Direct X and WDM, not being of sufficient low latency for audio work. The ASIO method of connecting to hardware became 'the standard' and the momentum from this, that has developed over the years, is very difficult to overcome.

The introduction of Windows 10 has rendered a lot of legacy software unusable, the same would happen to legacy hardware if the 'standard' audio drivers were replaced with a new standard. It is happening, slowly, Microsoft through Windows 10, is introducing a new driver model (DCHU).

HTH

John EB