I am trying Ardour for the first time, on a new Windows 10 laptop, and although it records through the microphones in the laptop it doesn’t recognise a USB audio device (this one http://artproaudio.com/turntable_preamps/product/usb_phono_plus-ps/) giving the “failed to open audio device” popup message dialog whenever “Microphone (USB Audio CODEC)” or "Speakers (USB Audio CODEC) is selected. I have checked the device works well in Audacity, for both input and output. I’m not sure where to go to diagnose this, so hope there are some simple thing I might have forgotten.
@paulsherwood6: make sure you’re using ASIO. Otherwise, even if you manage to get recording working, you will run into latency problems.
@alexthebassist thanks, but under ASIO I don’t see any devices, is that because I have to use an additional application (JACK ?) to connect the device?
@Learn Digital Audio, that link looks correct, so I think it is reasonable to assume there are no ASIO drivers. I didn’t realise that would be a show-stopper. Thanks for the help.
Ardour can run without ASIO. There is also support for winmme on win7+10 and WASAPI (although that’s buggy on some windows10 systems and the driver is not installed by default, it’s an option in the installer). If you don’t use ASIO, try with large buffer sizes (2048 or 4096) and consumer-grade sample-rates (48000 or 44100).
If you need reliable low latency, there’s usually no way around ASIO – in some cases http://www.asio4all.com/ can help out.
@x42 thanks, I would be happy, for now, to record using MME or WASAPI but in both cases, although the USB Audio CODEC shows up on the menu (presumably that means there are drivers) the “failed to open audio device” message comes up, so I am not sure what to try next.
Did you try the “Buffered I/O” option (checkbox on the right side)? some USB devices require that.
A nicely written article with some good information.
I’m surprised that you didn’t mention distributions like AV linux in your first article, as many Ardour users are using it AFAIK and the sort of configuration you document in your article is not necessary.
yeah sorry, my post was in the wrong thread. Not sure how that happened…
Anyway, in regards to this thread, Audacity and Ardour use the same portaudio library to communicate with the audio device so some combination of driver (MME, WASAPI, ASIO), samplerate and buffer size should enable the device to work if it works in Audacity. As rgareus mentioned the “Buffered I/O” option may be required for some devices.
If you are still having trouble please let us know.