RME Audio Fireface 802, User Manual

Page: 18 / 112

18 User's Guide Fireface 802 © RME
8. Operation and Usage
8.1 Playback
In the audio application being used, Fireface must be selected as output device. This can often
be found in the
Options, Preferences
or
Settings
menus under
Playback Device, Audio Devices,
Audio
etc.
We strongly recommend switching all system sounds off (via >
Control Panel /Sounds
<). Also
Fireface should not be the
Preferred Device
for playback, as this could cause loss of synchroni-
zation and unwanted noises. If you feel you cannot do without system sounds, you should con-
sider buying a cheap Blaster clone and select this as
Preferred Device
in >
Control Panel
/Multimedia /Audio
< or >
Control Panel /Sound /Playback
<.
The screenshot shows a typical configuration dialog of a (stereo) wave editor. Audio data is
sent to an analog or digital port, depending on which has been selected as playback device.
Increasing the number and/or size of audio buffers may prevent the audio signal from breaking
up, but also increases latency i.e. output is delayed. For synchronized playback of audio and
MIDI (or similar), be sure to activate the checkbox ‘Get position from audio driver’.
Note on Windows Vista/7/8:
Since Vista the audio application can no longer control the sample rate under WDM. Instead the
user has to work himself through numerous settings (16 with the 802!), and to set the sample
rate to the same value per stereo device.
Therefore the driver of the Fireface 802 includes a workaround: the sample rate can be set
globally for all WDM devices within the Settings dialog, see chapter 7.1.