# Important Hints to the UCON CX driver version 1.09 for Windows™ XP

1. System Requirements
2. New Installation
3. Driver Update

4. What's new
5. MME, WDM-Audio, DirectSound and "Classic MME"
6. Software Sampler and Synthesizers

## 1. System Requirements

- Microsoft Windows XP SP1a with Microsoft USB patch „WinXP-KB822603-X86-ENU.exe“

> OR

- Microsoft Windows XP SP2
- Microsoft DirectX 9b

## 2. New Driver Installation

- Logon using administrator privileges.
- Insert the supplied CD in your CD-ROM drive, if it is the first installation.
- Ensure you have switched on the UCON CX.
- Windows automatically recognizes at startup the newly installed device and starts the Hardware Wizard.
- Enable the option „Install Software automatically“ and confirm by clicking „Next“.
- Ignore the next message "... has not passed the Windows Logo testing" and click „Continue Anyway“
- Windows copies the driver files and installs the UCON CX.
- After finishing the installation the UCON CX is ready to be operated without having to restart the system.

## 3. Driver Update

- Ensure you are logged on with administrator privileges
- Unzip the driver update package ("uccx-nt5-en-109.zip") to any folder.
- Uninstall the driver software by using the program "uc_nt5_ui.exe". You can find the current version of this program in the driver setup folder or in "\windows\system32".
- Restart Windows
- Logon with administrator privileges again.
- Ensure you have switched on the UCON CX. Now, the Windows Hardware Wizard starts with a "New hardware found" dialog.
- Do NOT use the option "Install software automatically". Use the option "Install from list a specified location"
- Click "Next" and choose the folder where you have unzipped the driver update package.
- Follow the instructions of the Windows Hardware Wizard until the end of the installation process. When the Hardware Wizard states "... has not passed the Windows Logo testing" then click „Continue Anyway“
- Depending from the firmware version of your UCON CX it may occur that this firmware version is not compatible with the new driver version. In this case you will get an appropriate error message and the driver loads the matching firmware into the UCON CX automatically.

## 4. What's new

### Version 1.09:

- New Firmware:
  - Supports the new revision of the Ucon CX USB Controller (FX)
  - Stability of transfer increased even when running with very short USB latencies
  - Taskbar Bubble sometimes signaled accidentally a drop out. Solved.
  - On some systems minor sample value errors could occur. Solved.
- Firmware Update Procedure revised
- Ucon CX Manager:
  - New: Digital Clock Status Display (see Manager Menu | State) displaying the sample rates and lock states of the individual clock sources. The active clock source appears white with a thick, black border. A clock source, automatically or manually set as active clock source, which does not carry a valid clock signal, appears with white with a red border.
  - New: "Setting | Audio Options | ASIO: Initial Clock Source". Some ASIO applications do not allow to determine the clock source for an audio setup. In that case you can set the desired clock source here before you start such kind of application. With respect on the multi client capabilities of the Ucon CX driver it is not possible to change the clock source here for running ASIO applications.
  - Clock Option "External Clock Source is synchronized with active Clock Source" removed. From now, the driver software assumes that any external clock is synchronized with the active clock.
  - New: Expert Mode for setting the USB Latency (see Settings| USB)
  - New: USB System Information Display (see Settings| USB)
- ASIO: Included a so called "Unhandled Exception Handler" for ASIO applications which do not handle their own exceptions (e.g. program faults). This piece of code will stop any ASIO transfer to avoid upcoming problems after an application fault.
- ASIO: The settings made in the ASIO Device Setup Dialog are now stored also for applications started at the command prompt.
- New driver interface to support the GSIF "Low Latency MIDI" for TASCAM GigaStudio 3. Thus, MIDI latency and MIDI jitter becomes reduced clearly.

### Version 1.08:

- Output Control - AUX Routing now works correctly and AUX Routing buttons now have the correct label.

### Version 1.05:

- The GSIF settings now contain an option to determine the clock source for GigaStudio.
  (See UCON CX Manager | Settings | Audio Options).
- Audio Device Names are now shown correctly within GigaStudio 3.

### Version 1.04:

- Automatic firmware detection and upload
- If the USB cable connection gets disconnected during recording/playback, the outputs of the UCON CX will now be muted. Like already in the previous version, the recording/playback continues automatically when the USB cable is connected again. (ASIO, GSIF, Classic MME), In case of Standard MME (WDM) or DirectSound, recording/playback must be stopped and restarted inside the audio application.
- When operating in non-adat-mode, the output functions "Routing", "Mute" and "Volume" worked not with analog channel 1 and 3. Solved.
- When setting the default sample rate (see Manager | Settings | Synchronisation), sample rates greater than 48 kHz were not set correctly directly after closing the settings dialog. Solved.
- Stopping recording/playback could cause a "hanging" audio application. Solved.
- Changes on the ASIO settings could also cause changes on the USB settings (latency, boost). Solved.
- Loading mixer/output setups (see Manager | Load Setup ...) could possibly cause an error message. Solved.

## 5. MME, WDM-Audio, DirectSound and "Classic MME"

### 5.1 MME und DirectSound:

Audio applications, who do not use ASIO, GSIF or Direct WDM-Audio (Cakewalk Sonar), communicate with Microsoft Standard MME (MME via WDM-Audio) or Microsoft DirectSound drivers instead of communicate with the MARIAN drivers directly. The Microsoft drivers in turn communicate with the MARIAN WDM-Audio Drivers.
For audio applications, who use these Microsoft drivers, apply:

- They can playback simultaneously using one playback device. The Microsoft Kernel Mixer mixes the playback signals of the applications into one stereo stream and routes it to one physical output device. If playback takes place with different sample rates, the Microsoft Kernel Mixer converts the sample rate of the playback streams to the highest sample rate required.
  Hint: You can improve the quality of this conversion! (See Control Panel | Sounds and Audio Devices | Audio | Sound Playback | Advanced | System Performance)
- The described simultaneous playback of different applications fails, if the output device is already in use by ASIO, GSIF, "Classic MME" or Direct WDM-Audio.
- The number of the available recording and playback devices is limited:
  - under Windows 2000 to 10 devices each (20 channels)
  - under Windows XP to 32 devices each (64 channels)
  This limitation applies to the number of all audio devices installed in the system.
  You can use "Classic MME" or ASIO to walk around this limitation.
- The minimum possible latency is limited to app. 30ms through the Microsoft Kernel Mixer architecture.
  Use ASIO or GSIF to walk around this limitation.
- Some audio applications show additional audio devices with theirs names appended by "(3+4)", "(5+6)" or "(7+8)". This is caused by an anomaly of the Microsoft MME/DirectSound system. Please ignore these devices and do not use them.
- The Microsoft DirectSound or the Microsoft MME devices do not work with the Driver Settings for Start/Stop Synchronization "Synchronous" and "SyncBus". Activate these settings only if you are sure that you work with ASIO, GSIF or "Classic MME" only! Otherwise, the entire Microsoft WDM-Audio System could freeze. This circumstance cannot be influenced by the driver.
  Attention: The Windows System Sounds are working with DirectSound or Standard MME if you do not set a classic MME device as standard playback device!
- Some audio applications require the MARIAN driver because of its additional hardware support functions:
  - Hardware Punch In Monitoring
  - Hardware Pitch Support
  - Hardware Audio Signal Routing
  - Hardware Audio Signal Level Measurement
  These functions are not supported by the Microsoft drivers. Please supply this audio applications with the "Classic MME" devices.

### 5.2 "Classic MME"

The MARIAN driver enables you to use the MME driver interface of the previous driver versions in addition to all other driver interfaces. From now, we call this interface "Classic MME". You can activate "Classic MME" within the Marc 8 Midi Manager settings. If this driver interface is active, then you get additional recording and playback devices with the appropriate device lists. These devices have the name suffix "(MME)".
The "Classic MME" device have these advantages:

- The number of the recording and playback devices available is NOT limited (see above)
- These devices support the MARIAN hardware support functions (see above)
- These devices work much faster and have better latency values than the Standard MME Devices
- These devices ensure correct start/stop synchronization. This is not possible with DirectSound or Standard MME

## 6. Software Sampler and Synthesizers

Software samplers and synthesizers normally supply MIDI output devices for other audio applications who want to use the software sampler as an instrument. If such an application starts, then normally this application opens the MIDI output devices and this in turn causes the software sampler to initialize its audio engine with the configured audio outputs.
THIS OCCURS EVEN IF YOU HAVE NOT STARTED THE SOFTWARE SAMPLER APPLICATION.

In the described situation the software sampler and the other audio application may conflict, if they use the same audio output. You can use the UCON CX with different audio applications at the same time but never the same output device simultaneously.

Therefore this hint:

- First start the software sampler/synthesizer and setup an audio output device which will NOT be used by the other audio application. Start the audio application (sequencer) afterwards.
- If you start an ASIO or GSIF application the first time, then it will use the device "UCON Analog 1-2" for recording and playback.

The Windows Multimedia System also supplies a software synthesizer called "Microsoft GS Wavetable SW Synth". This synthesizer has also a MIDI output port with the same name. Since there is no explicit setup for the output device, the "Microsoft GS Wavetable SW Synth" always uses the standard playback device configured in "Control Panel | Sounds and Multimedia | Audio".

(c) MARIAN Digital Audio Electronics, Leipzig 04-01-2007