Help: Soundblaster Live! 24-bit USB External with Window Vista OS

[MichaelSim]

Hi All,
Please do excuse me if the below questions that I had had been answered in other threads.
Do bear with me and thank you for your patience.

I had acquired all the necesary equipments in order to bring my movie watching enojoyment to the next higher level.
However, I had encounterd numerous issue in setting it up for measurement over the weekend.

Equipments used:
Dell Notebook Insprion 1420 (Windows Vista OS)
Soundblaster Live! 24-bit USB External
Model 33-2050 Old Analog RS Meter
BFD Pro DSP1124P
All the necessary cables and connectors.

Having read through all the available documents (Room EQ Wizard Help Contents), I begin my long and tough (but fruitful - yet to taste it) journey......

#1 Encounter (any write up for setting the soundcard based on Windows Vista?)
============================================================
Firstly, am I right to use the setup for the SB Live! 24-bits USB external based on Windows XP on my notebook, which is Windows Vista based?
Or is there a write up similar to "SB Live! 24-Bit USB External Setup for XP", which is meant for Vista?

Reason for asking is because:
i) I am not able to: Ensure in the Creative Speaker Settings that the "Digital Output Only" box is not checked.
ii) I am not able to: Open the Creative Surround mixer and check that in the Source panel Wave is not muted, Line-In/Mic-In is muted and that in the Rec source Line In/Mic In is selected.
iii) I am not bale to: Ensure monitoring is off (click the + by the Line In/mic In symbol in the Source panel and ensure Monitor is not checked in the Advanced Controls dialog this pops up.
iv) I am not bale to: In the Creative Device Control program set the Output Audio Quality to 48kHz, 16 bits and ensure you select 48kHz as the sample rate in REW, also make sure Enable Monitoring is not checked).

With my PC (Window XP based), I am able to access the above but not so for my notebook (Window Vista based).
However, while calibrating my soundcard XP based, I am not able to adjust my input voulme to be within -3db of the output volume.

I hope that I have been able to describe the problems that I am facing and the readers is able to understand.
Please help and any input is welcome.

Thanks & Best Regards,

[brent_s]

This thread may help you adapt the REQW setup to Vista. Let us know if you have any specific questions.

The bottom line problem is Creative can't or won't give us a complete driver/sw patch for Vista.

Brent

[MichaelSim]

Hi brent,
Thanks for the link and will read through it and will get back to the forum should I encounter other problems. Thanks for the help.


Thank,
Michael Sim

[MichaelSim]

Should my BFD be in "BYPASS" mode when I am doing my sound card calibration, SPL adjustment and when measuring?

The reason I'm asking is prior measuring, I did a "check level" I was prompted "Level is Low -84.0dB". Ignoring it, I proceed with measuring and again was prompted "very low signal level".




Please advice.

Thanks.

[brucek]

Should my BFD be in "BYPASS" mode when I am doing my sound card calibration,

The BFD isn't connected when doing the soundcard calibration. Only the soundcard is.... line-out to line-in.

Read the well written REW HELP FILES

brucek

Hi Bruce,

Christmas has come and I got all that equipment you helped me with earlier: http://www.hometheatershack.com/foru...-computer.html

So I haven't gotten far at all due to this threads topic. I have the SB Live loaded on my Vista laptop, upgraded to the latest drivers, the device shows up in device manager showing alls ok, under Sound/Manage Audio Devices...the SB live shows up Playback and Recording and shows both with green Check and Working. And it shows up in Audio Console in the Control Panel. I also should mention that the device works, I can hear music thru the headphone jack.

But when I click on any Creative application, like Speaker Setup, I get "The audio device supported by this application is not detected" Under Diagnostics, I get "The audio device supported by this application may not be present or may be operating in an unsupported mode."
So really, I haven't gotten too far under your Help files, yet alone, to this stage http://www.hometheatershack.com/foru...nal-setup.html

Searched google and didn't have much luck. Do you have any suggestions for me to try?

Thanks A Lot for any hints!

Fore

[brucek]

So, if you run REW, does the soundcard show up in the settings page?

brucek

[brent_s]

Fore, if you'll look at the thread I linked in post #2, you might find some help.

Short answer, I've not found a way to use the Creative software with Vista. Creative only provides drivers, so I'm guessing they don't plan to ever address this for Live-Ext and older cards. It may be that they simply can't get the "older" cards to be completely functional with the Vista sound API...MS did a major overhaul. I fault Creative for saying the Live-Ext works with Vista, but not specifying the limitations.

You can still get to most of the Live-Ext's features via right clicking the volume icon on your toolbar and choosing Play/Record Devices. The dialog box that appears will allow you to get into the invidual "properties" of each device to enable/disable/configure settings.

With a bit of fiddling, you can get it to work. I've compared the same Live-Ext/cables/meter using different XP and Vista laptops. Calibrations were statistically identical between the two OSes despite the REW calibration level difficulties you'll find with Vista.

-Brent

Thanks for chiming in here, but I got so frustrated yest., I had to put it all away overnight. This am, I uninstalled/reinstalled the software...and part of it works. Speaker Settings is now available, but no CMSS option at all, it's not there this time. Also, I don't see line in/mic in or Rec line in/mic in under Surround Mixer. So some progress, but still messing up unfort.


I hope the whole process isn't this painful

Thanks again guys,
Fore

Well, I tried uninstalling and reinstalling several times, lost whatever functions I had when I posted the note above. It's ridiculous the inconsistencies and total lack of function at this point. Especially when Creative states this device is compatible with Vista! I'm pretty furious to be honest. May just ditch this whole project and give up.

I'm not sure if anyone's paying attention or who cares hehe...but I tried the SBLive on my desktop/XP Home and it loaded everything perfectly the first time. All controls and Creative applications now open fine.

Since this is a relatively new computer, and I have a purchased copy of Windows XP Home, I'm going to scrap Vista. Complete reformat hd and start from scratch. It'll take a day I bet. Anyway, Creative should be sued for falsely stating this thing works with Vista imo!!!

Thanks for the help all!
Fore

[JohnM]

Very disappointing and frustrating when things that should just work don't. All the same, Creative's unwillingness to update their software to run under Vista isn't necessarily a reason to ditch Vista itself, though there may be other reasons. Hope things progress a little more smoothly for you now.

I wish, you simply can't downgrade easily to XP from Vista....having to do alot of research to just do this. Aargh! And it is worth downgrading to me, I got this laptop to do this audio stuff in the front room.

[JohnM]

Did you try Brent's suggestion in post #8, i.e. only load the drivers for the card, don't try installing the Creative software and use the Windows mixer controls? Seemed to work for him.

Thanks John, I didnt' try that as I really wanted to have all the Creative software. But the good news is I'm typing this using XP Home! Got all drivers right, and the Creative is working perfectly. XP is a bit 'simple' user interface comp. to Vista, but I can live with it. Now, to start again.
Thanks again for everyones help!
Fore