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Setting up your system
Using the built-in audio hardware of the
Macintosh
As of this writing, all current Macintosh models provide at
least built-in 16 bit stereo audio hardware. For detailed in-
formation, refer to the documentation describing your com-
puter.
Depending on your preferences and requirements, using
the built-in audio hardware may be sufficient for use with
Sequel. It is always available for selection in Sequel – you
don’t need to install any additional drivers.
About drivers
A driver is a piece of software that allows a program to
communicate with a certain piece of hardware. In this
case, the driver allows Sequel to use the audio hardware.
For audio hardware, there are different cases, requiring
different driver configurations:
If the audio hardware has a specific ASIO driver
Professional audio cards often come with an ASIO driver
written especially for the card. This allows for communica-
tion directly between Sequel and the audio card. As a re-
sult, audio cards with specific ASIO drivers can provide
lower latency (input-output delay). The ASIO driver may
also provide special support for multiple inputs and out-
puts, routing, synchronization, etc.
Audio card-specific ASIO drivers are provided by the card
manufacturers. Make sure to check the manufacturer’s
web site for the latest driver versions.
If the audio card communicates via DirectX (Windows
only)
DirectX is a Microsoft “package” for handling various
types of multimedia data under Windows. Sequel sup-
ports DirectX, or to be more precise, DirectSound, which
is a part of DirectX used for playing back and recording
audio. This requires two types of drivers:
• A DirectX driver for the audio card, allowing it to communicate
with DirectX. If the audio card supports DirectX, this driver
should be supplied by the audio card manufacturer. If it isn’t
installed with the audio card, please check the manufacturer’s
web site for more information.
• The ASIO DirectX Full Duplex driver, allowing Sequel to com-
municate with DirectX. This driver is included with Sequel, and
does not require any special installation.
If the audio card communicates via the Generic Low
Latency ASIO driver (Windows Vista only)
If you are working with Windows Vista, you can use the
Generic Low Latency ASIO driver. This is a generic ASIO
driver that provides ASIO support for all audio cards sup-
ported by Windows Vista, thus allowing for low latency.
The Generic Low Latency ASIO driver provides the Win-
dows Vista Core Audio technology in Sequel. No addi-
tional driver is needed.
Ö Though the Generic Low Latency ASIO driver pro-
vides low latency for all audio cards, you might get better
results with on-board audio cards than with external USB
audio devices.
Installing the audio hardware and its driver
1. Install the audio card and related equipment in the
computer, as described in the card’s documentation.
2. Install the driver for the card.
Depending on the operating system of your computer, there are different
types of drivers that could apply: card-specific ASIO drivers, DirectX
drivers (Windows) or Mac OS X (Mac) drivers.
Even if the drives are included with the card, you should
always make sure to check the manufacturer’s website for
most recent drivers.
Testing the card
To make sure the audio card will work as expected, perform
the following two tests:
• Use any software included with the audio card to make
sure you can record and play back audio without problems.
• If the card is accessed via a standard operating system
driver, try playing back audio using the computer’s standard
audio application (e.g. Windows Media Player or Apple
iTunes).
!
Some Macintosh models have audio outputs but no
inputs. This means that you can only play back audio
– recording is not possible without additional audio
hardware.
!
If your audio hardware comes with a specific ASIO
driver we strongly recommend that you use this.