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Echo Digital Audio Corporation

Gina24, Layla24, Mona, Mia, and MiaMIDI

VxD-WDM combo install – version 6.08

DISCLAIMER................................................................................................................................................................2

INTRODUCTION.........................................................................................................................................................2

VXD VS. WDM BASICS.............................................................................................................................................2

WDM - NEW FEATURES ..........................................................................................................................................3

WDM – FIXES ...............................................................................................................................................................3

WDM – KNOWN ISSUES ..........................................................................................................................................3

WDM - PUREWAVE...................................................................................................................................................4

WHAT IS PUREWAVE?................................................................................................................................................. 4

PUREWAVE VERSUS WDM ........................................................................................................................................ 5

PUREWAVE APPLICATION GUIDE............................................................................................................................... 6

WDM - SUPER CHANNEL .......................................................................................................................................7

WHAT IS SUPER CHANNEL?........................................................................................................................................ 7

WHEN WOULD I WANT TO USE SUPER CHANNEL?.................................................................................................. 8

WDM – CONSOLE.......................................................................................................................................................9

WDM - WAVE DEVICE CONFIGURATION.................................................................................................................. 9

WDM - CONSOLE SESSIONS .................................................................................................................................... 11

WDM - DIGITAL INPUT AUTO-MUTE....................................................................................................................... 11

WDM – CONSOLE HOT KEYS.................................................................................................................................. 12

WDM - DIGITAL I/O FOR GINA24, LAYLA24, AND MONA...................................................................13

WDM - DOLBY DIGITAL OVER S/PDIF..........................................................................................................14

WDM - EXAMPLE 5.1 OUTPUT...........................................................................................................................15

WDM - ASIO SUPPORT..........................................................................................................................................17

WDM – USING SONAR............................................................................................................................................18

WDM - WINDOWS VOLUME CONTROLS.....................................................................................................19

WDM - KNOWN ISSUES .........................................................................................................................................20

WDM - TROUBLESHOOTING.............................................................................................................................21

VXD – VERSION HISTORY...................................................................................................................................22

WDM - VERSION HISTORY.................................................................................................................................22

Summary of content (26 pages)

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Echo Digital Audio Corporation Gina24, Layla24, Mona, Mia, and MiaMIDI VxD-WDM combo install – version 6.08 DISCLAIMER ................................................................................................................................................................2 INTRODUCTION.........................................................................................................................................................2 VXD VS. WDM BASICS .............................................
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Disclaimer This is a fully supported release. While we have tested these drivers extensively, there may still be bugs lurking. Please be aware that these drivers are used at your own risk; Echo Digital Audio Corporation is not responsible for any damage incurred by the use of these drivers. Introduction Version 6.08 fixes several issues with previous drivers. No major features are added with this driver. We recommend that all users running Windows Me, 2000 and XP upgrade to this version of the driver.
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WDM - New features No new features were introduced with 6.08. WDM – Fixes - New firmware for MiaMIDI and Layla24; this fixes a problem with MIDI output.
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WDM - PureWave What is PureWave? While the Windows WDM audio architecture is fine for consumer applications such as games and watching DVDs, it is not entirely suitable for professional audio applications. PureWave is an exciting new feature that gives your audio applications a more direct connection to Echo hardware, allowing your audio data to pass through unmodified.
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PureWave versus WDM With the WDM driver, you can run each wave device in either WDM mode or PureWave mode. Here’s a chart explaining the differences between the two. Note that this only applies to software that uses the wave/MME API to communicate with audio hardware. Applications that use other APIs, such as ASIO or GSIF, do not benefit from PureWave as they already enjoy a direct connection to the hardware. For a list of what applications can benefit from PureWave, please refer to the next section.
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PureWave application guide The following table lists various professional audio software applications and how best to configure your Echo hardware for these various applications.
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WDM - Super Channel What is Super Channel? Super Channel allows you to customize how the various inputs and outputs on your Echo hardware are presented to Windows. When the WDM driver is first installed, the hardware is presented as a list of stereo inputs and outputs.
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Say you want to do 5.1 surround sound playback from a DVD; to do this, you need a single sixchannel wave device. For instance, you could set up your wave-out devices like this: • • • Layla24 1-6 Analog Out Layla24 7-8 Analog Out Layla24 1-8 Digital Out Now you have only three wave devices – a six channel device addressing the first six analog outputs, a stereo device addressing the next two analog outs, and finally an eight channel device for the eight digital outputs.
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WDM – Console This section covers new features in the 6.05 WDM console that are not covered in the product manual. WDM - Wave device configuration You can use the “Wave device configuration” dialog box to set up both PureWave and Super Channel mode. This allows you to customize how your audio hardware is presented to Windows applications. (Note that this interface has been totally redesigned for version 6.05.
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Wave device configuration The interface works the same for both inputs and outputs. Link buttons: Along the left hand side you’ll see a group of funny-looking black connectors. Notice that this column is labeled “Link.” These are the link buttons; they let you link channels together to form Super Channel wave devices. Try clicking one of the link buttons; notice that it has changed shape and that two of the rows are now joined together. Click on it again; the two rows are now disconnected.
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Once you have completed your changes, hit OK or Apply. On Windows 2000 and XP, you will be asked if you want to immediately apply the changes, or wait until you reboot. If you choose to immediately apply the changes, your computer will be unresponsive for a period of time after clicking OK while the driver restarts. The delay time will depend on the number of channels you are grouping together. More devices will mean a longer delay. For Windows Me, you will need to reboot for your changes to take effect.
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WDM – Console Hot Keys The console supports several hot key functions: F1-F12 F L S T Selects the output bus Fast-saves the current session Loads a session Saves a session Opens the settings dialog Ctrl-click a fader to set to 0 dB Ctrl-click a pan slider to set to center Shift-click a fader to negate the gang button Copyright © 2003 Echo Digital Audio Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
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WDM - Digital I/O for Gina24, Layla24, and Mona S/PDIF and ADAT connections are treated differently with the WDM driver than they have been in the past. Previously, S/PDIF and ADAT devices were listed separately even though they were not available at the same time. With WDM, the hardware is considered to have 8 generic digital inputs and outputs.
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WDM - Dolby Digital over S/PDIF The WDM drivers support transmitting Dolby Digital data via your hardware’s S/PDIF output. The stream will bypass the kernel mixer and will be transmitted with bit-for-bit accuracy. In order to use this feature follow, these steps: -Select S/PDIF (RCA or Optical) digital mode in the console. -Select the digital output of our card in the Windows “Sounds and Multimedia” control panel, under the Audio tab.
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WDM - Example 5.1 output Super Channel can be used to play surround sound Dolby Digital and DTS encoded data. Configuring Windows for surround sound output takes several steps. This example is for 5.1 output, but doing other speaker configurations is very similar. 1. Set up your output speakers. • Select which 6 outputs to use for your 5.1 mix. You must use a contiguous group of outputs, e.g. Analog 1 – Analog 6.
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4. Set up your DVD player app – example for Intervideo’s WinDVD • Open WinDVD • Select “Properties…” by right clicking in the WinDVD playback window or by clicking on the “wrench” button in the WinDVD player. • Select the Audio tab. • Select “6 speaker mode (5.1 channel).” • Click OK. • You may need to close WinDVD and open it again for the “6 speaker mode” option to be available. Other surround sound applications such as PowerDVD will work similarly. 5. Check for 5.1 output.
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WDM - ASIO support This driver release includes full ASIO 2.0 support. The WDM ASIO driver includes a number of improvements over the VxD-based ASIO driver: • Rewritten for maximum performance – audio latencies should be improved. • Supports mixing older and newer cards in the same ASIO application – you can now run Layla20 and Layla24 at the same time • ASIO DirectMonitoring for Mia.
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WDM – Using SONAR Here are the required settings for using SONAR with our driver: Note: The settings below will need to be reset every time you reconfigure your wave devices. Go to Options/Audio. • On the “General” tab, set “Audio Driver Bit Depth” to 24. • On the “Advanced” tab, we suggest selecting “Trigger & Freewheel” • On the “Driver Profiles” tab, uncheck “Access Driver In Mono”. Be sure to set “Stream > 16 bit data as” to “32 bit PCM, left justified”.
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WDM - Windows volume controls The WDM driver supports the Windows volume control program. When you run it (Start/Programs/Accessories/Entertainment/Volume control), you should see a slider marked “Line volume”. This slider doesn’t do anything; it’s a dummy control that has to be there for the program to run. Adjusting the “Wave” and “Synth” sliders will set the volume levels for the Windows kernel mixer, not the hardware. These settings are not the same as the volume sliders in the console.
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WDM - Known issues Windows 98SE: We strongly recommend running the VxD driver on Windows 98SE. However, if you really want to run the WDM driver, you can – the installer will give you the choice. Windows 98SE has a significant number of problems with WDM audio. To learn more about this issue, you can go here: Microsoft KnowledgeBase article We have not tested the WDM driver with Windows 98SE. We do not anticipate ever officially supporting Windows 98SE with WDM drivers.
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WDM - Troubleshooting If you are running Windows 2000 or XP and your computer spontaneously reboots on you, you probably have experienced what Microsoft calls a “bug check”, but what everyone else calls the Blue Screen of Death (BSOD). The default setting for the BSOD is not to show the BSOD, but to reboot the computer. This isn’t very helpful for tracking down problems.
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VxD – Version History 6.08 6.07 - Version number change to match the WDM driver 6.06 - Added support for MiaMIDI 6.05 - New firmware for Gina24 – fixes minor error in internal clock sample rate 6.04 6.03 6.02 -No changes – just a version number update to match the WDM driver. 6.01 -New firmware for Layla24 – fixes minor error in internal clock sample rate 6.
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6.06 - - Support for Mia MIDI MIDI output has been made more efficient Mia now has lower hardware latency The GSIF buffer size is now saved per card instead of for all cards Analog input dithering has been added to PureWave when recording in 16-bit or 8-bit formats Console sessions now save and restore the wave device configuration The WDM driver has been rewritten to conform with Microsoft's latest recommendations on writing efficient WDM audio drivers.
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6.02 -Fixed shutdown problems -Fixed MIDI sysex output 6.01 -Super interleave -Configurable wave devices -Surround sound playback – four speaker, 5.1, and 7.1 -Console sessions -Card naming -Support for dynamic card removal in the console launcher -Digital input auto-mute for Gina24, Layla24 and Mona -Power management -New hot keys -Mia device names -New firmware for Gina24 361 and Layla24 – fixes minor error in internal clock sample rate -Less non-paged memory usage -New integrated DSP code 6.
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-Windows mixer support -Fixed bug with ASIO driver where you couldn’t select the sample rate in Cubase -We think we’ve finally fixed the infamous blue-screen-when-I-run-the-console bug; this was happening when the driver either ran out of memory or couldn’t initialize the hardware. Now, the console will display an informative error message and refuse to run. -Driver now uses less non-paged memory -Fixed a memory leak in the ASIO driver -Fixed a bug with Mia and ASIO 2.
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PureWave is a trademark of Echo Digital Audio Corporation. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Copyright © 2003 Echo Digital Audio Corporation. All Rights Reserved.