If you have more than one soundcard, you can choose the soundcard you want for playback in the Playback device drop down at the top of window.
If you select Use Best Quality, Mixcraft will always use the best sound format in the session as the default sound format. Choosing this option will ensure that you don’t have any sound degradation.
You may, instead, choose to use a specific format. Wave formats have the following characteristics:
· Sample Rate
Sample rate simply means the number of times per second that the computer plays or records a snapshot of the sound. Faster sample rates catch faster frequencies. You may set the format to the following sample rates : 11,025 , 22,050, and 44,100, or you may type in a sample rate.
· Bits Per Sample
This determines the quality of each snapshot. The more bits, the better. You may set the format to either 8, 16 or 24. (8 has a tendency to sound fuzzy) 24 bit playback is new to version 1.1. Note that not all soundcard’s will support 24 bit playback.
· Number of channels
Is it stereo or mono? Setting the format to mono, will essentially disable panning.
The advanced section allows you to change the number of buffers and buffer size. Without getting too complicated, you use these options to find a balance between audio discontinuity and playback latency.
Latency is the amount of time it takes from the time you press the Play to the time you hear the sound. If you feel the latency is to big, try reducing the number of buffers or the buffer size.
Audio discontinuity is sometimes described as "popping" or "static". The audio will drop in and out. If you have audio discontinuity problems, try increasing the number of buffers and/or the buffer size.