User manual TERRATEC PHASE88

[. . . ] TERRATEC PRODUCER/PHASE 88 English Manual Version 1. 0, last revised: Oktober 2003 CE Declaration We: TerraTec Electronic GmbH, Herrenpfad 38, D-41334 Nettetal, Germany hereby declare that the product: PHASE 88, to which this declaration refers is in compliance with the following standards or standardizing documents: EN 50013, EN 50022, EN 60065 The following are the stipulated operating and environmental conditions for said compliance: residential, business and commercial environments and small-company environments. This declaration is based on: Test report(s) of the EMC testing laboratory The information in this document is subject to change without notice and shall not be deemed as a warranty by the seller. No warranties, express or implied, are made with regard to the quality, suitability or accuracy of this document. The manufacturer reserves the right to change the contents of this document and/or the associated products at any time without the provision of prior notice to specific persons or organizations. [. . . ] For more information, go to www. terratec. com. PHASE 88 (English) 21 MIDI interface. The MIDI interface of the PHASE 88 audio system allows you to connect the device with properly equipped peripherals such as MIDI keyboards, DAW controllers and countless other devices. The cables for MIDI connections are always connected "crosswise", meaning OUT to IN and vice-versa. MIDI sequencer software usually offers you to loop MIDI data through, using the Through function. Practical tip: Even if your input keyboard (master keyboard) has a USB connection available, you should use the MIDI input (IN) of the PHASE 88 whenever possible: the "direct connection" to the PCI data bus of the computer, and thus to the MIDI software, allows a substantially faster and more stable timing than most USB-MIDI interfaces. Of course, the same is true for the output when it is needed. 22 PHASE 88 (English) The drives (Windows operating system). The PHASE 88 audio interface features a range of drivers for a variety of applications. The drivers support all bit rates between 8 and 32 bits with all common sample rates between 8 and 96 kHz. In other words, the system always automatically sets itself to the sample rate with which an application is recording or playing back. But now to the individual drivers. The Wave driver. In most Windows programs, you will encounter drivers with the designation "PHASE 88Wave x/x" for recording and playback. In order to address the outputs of the Audio Interface, you will also find a numbering that corresponds to five output pairs: 1/2, 3/4, 5/6 and 7/8, as well as Digital Left/Right. If you have multiple cascading audio interfaces, the operating system, as a rule, numbers the driver names from 1 to 4. "As a rule" means, in plain English, that there can be exceptions under Windows over which we (unfortunately) have no influence. Depending on the application software, the driver names are displayed with supplements that refer to the audio architecture of the operating system: MME, WDM or DirectSound (see below for more information). The ASIO driver. Programs that make use of Steinberg's ASIO interface indicate in the corresponding dialogs the ASIO drivers of the PHASE 88 System. With ASIO, programs achieve extremely short delays (latency) during audio recording and playback. Therefore, a latency of significantly less than 10 ms should be targeted. For fast, well organized systems, even latencies of less than 1 ms are possible at sampling rates of 96kHz!The ASIO driver is listed in compatible programs under "ASIO for PHASE 88". The inputs and outputs (usually "buses") available in the programs are called "PHASE (n) Out", where n is used to distinguish between multiple PHASE interfaces (1 to 4, see Ü page 39). In many cases, only the left channel of the output pair (1/2, 3/4, 5/6, 7/8 and Digital Left/Right) is stated, it applies for both channels however. PHASE 88 (English) 23 The GSIF driver. The GSIF driver of the audio interfaces is also visible only in certain programs. The GigaStudio sampler application and other Tascam / Nemesys products can also access the hardware in a very fast and direct manner. The outputs available in each program are called here "PHASE 88 GSIF (n)" and lead directly to the outputs of the PHASE 88 audio system. The MIDI driver. For the recording and playback of MIDI data via the MIDI IN and OUT jacks, a separate driver is available. The driver, which is designated as "PHASE 88 MIDI" in the system, can be selected in any situation in which its use is appropriate. Practical tip: If MIDI files, which can be played back using Windows' media players, are also to be transferred to externally connected devices, open the "Sounds and Multimedia Properties" dialog window from the Windows Control Panel and set the "MIDI Music Playback" device to the driver mentioned above. 24 PHASE 88 (English) In detail - special properties of the drivers. The following contains in-depth information for those with the need to know. Less experienced users won't encounter any problems if they skip over this section. [. . . ] Tip: select the floppy disk drive as the first boot device and insert an empty diskette. When the error message warning of a missing operating system appears, you will also be able to see the PCI Device List ;-). Basically, all modern PCI cards with WDM drivers support IRQ sharing, but under some circumstances this can cause problems. For example, if the sound card requests an interrupt request during playback or recording of an audio file but the request cannot be carried out immediately, perhaps because the ISDN card is also using this IRQ and the IRQ controller must first query which device is actually requesting the IRQ, this can cause interference like static and crackling as a result of missing samples. [. . . ]