So Microsoft Windows Vista/7 have a new architecture for playing sound. They have what they call glitch resilient sound layer. Not glitch free. Essentially, a lot of sounds go thru Windows Mixer and get DSPs to fix the sounds and then the final sound is sent to the sound card. For normal people, this is causing many glitches and playback problems. For home recorders, this causes another issue: monitor latency.

What is monitor latency? When plugging in something in the line in of the sound card, you can monitor the same signal thru the computer speakers. This is not so much of a problem for recorded playback thru line in. But if the signal is live such as a guitar signal, it will have problems. My guitar goes straight to the line in. Ok, first, I realize this is not the ideal solution and one must either buy a recording interface or mic the amps. But realistically, at 1 in the morning when a musical idea is being formed, I just want to plug the guitar in and record it. I can mic the amps later or even record clean then DSP it with a vamp. Anyway, line in playing has so much latency in monitoring that I can’t play. It throws me off rhythm.

I’m getting frustrated with it. In Win XP it was simple. All line in signal was sent to the soundcard. Apparently, in Windows XP the sound was proceseds in Kernel Streaming mode. There was also the ASIO route. But in Vista/7, the sound stuff was taken out of the kernel level to remove BSODs. There is a Windows Mixer processing all sounds.

Microsoft does have a way for an application to get control of the hardware and route signal directly to the hardware and bypass the Windows Mixer. It’s called WASAPI – Windows Audio Session API. But an application has to support it. In other words, one cannot plug in a guitar, start playing and monitoring it. Some application must first be written to support the API, and then must be run before the sound is will bypass the Windows Mixer. This mode will also disable all other sounds from any other apps. So in other words all the dings, bings, and other sounds will not be played.

Hopefully, I can use my Windows 7 machine for home recording. Otherwise, I’ll have to move to Windows XP, or buy a recording interface. Not sure, which is the more appealing option.