Question

Hi I'm very new to music production and using ableton and have just started buying more music gear so apologies in advance for my lack of knowledge.

When I first got it and plugged it into my computer through the USB-A to USB-C cable (computer is older and doesnt have USB-C input) the blue light indicating that the hardware was connecting with my computer came on.

I then downloaded Universal Control as I did not have an ASIO driver and was using the direct X driver on my PC.

When I downloaded Universal Control and restarted my PC and opened up ableton to change the driver settings, the blue light on my hardware did not come on and went red.

I looked online and saw that some users had been having issues with their USB-C to USB-C cables and thought i should try getting a new cable as that seemed to sort out everyone elses issue.

This didnt work so I tried uninstalling Universal Control from my PC and when i restarted it- the blue light came back on and it worked with the original cable.

I then tried downloading another ASIO driver (asio4all) and while that worked- i found the sound quality worse than when I used the PC's inbuilt driver..

so I uninstalled it and then tried installing an older version of Universal Control and while the blue light stays on now with the software installed- I cant seem to get Universal control to recognize the device and when I go into ableton and click the ASIO driver in the audio settings, none of the available devices work.

Does anyone know how to fix this issue?

Answer 1

The problem may be that you're setting your buffer size lower than your system can handle. 

The custom driver from the vendor like PreSonus Universal Control will install an ASIO driver to give you access to lower latency, however using ASIO must be used with discretion as not all systems can handle low latencies without distortion or pops and clicks. 

This is a great article on Latency and how it affects system performance. 

https://www.presonus.com/learn/technical-articles/Digital-Audio-Latency-Explained

There are more articles found under the Learn area of the website: 

https://www.presonus.com/learn/technical-articles/getting-started-guides

A note about ASIO4ALL, Only use ASIO4ALL if the product didn't come with it's own custom ASIO driver. ASIO4ALL takes the windows driver (WDM) and puts it into an ASIO wrapper to give you ASIO access to an application like Studio One that uses ASIO to provide low latency support. 

Answer 2

When I first got it and plugged it into my computer through the USB-A to USB-C cable (computer is older and doesnt have USB-C input) the blue light indicating that the hardware was connecting with my computer came on.

I then downloaded Universal Control as I did not have an ASIO driver  and was using the direct X driver on my PC. appvalley tutuapp tweakbox

When I downloaded Universal Control and restarted my PC and opened up ableton to change the driver settings, the blue light on my hardware did not come on and went red.

had the same issue!