Santa brought me a Radial KL-8 Mixer for Christmas. Whooo Hoooo!
I downloaded the latest KL-8 driver and ASIO4 ALL V2 driver for Windows.
Instead of using the built-in headphone out as my audio output, I am now hoping to use the KL-8 has the audio interface. But now, with the KL-8 selected as the Audio Device, I have noticed that the only Buffer Sizer that GigPerformer will give me is 800 Samples (18.1 ms).
Before using the KL-8, I was using ASIO4 ALL V2 as the Audio Device and I could select a buffer size ranging from 2032 Samples-to-64 Samples. I found a buffer size of 288 Samples seemed to work well for me.
Question: Why am I given one choice of buffer size setting (800 samples) when using the KL-8? Is this a limitation of the Radial Driver? If so, I’m afraid I’ll have to return this back to Santa: 800 Samples is just way too much latency.
It seems odd that an expensive device like this recommends using asio4all and hasn’t developed their own drivers. But their website was strange as they instruct you to install both their own driver as well as asio4all.
What I don’t understand… is that in June 2019, there was an article in Sound On Sound reviewing the KL-8 and the reviewer (Hugh Robjohns) mentioned that “unfortunately, when the KL-8 is connected to a Windows machine, [he] found the [Radial] Xmos driver demanded a buffer size of 1700 samples with an 18ms latency.” And that, “the Radial web site recommends installing the ASIO4ALL driver after the [Radial] Xmos driver and, using that instead. [He] was able to obtain reliable working with a buffer size of 128 samples."
This verbage seems a bit confusing. I’ll be contacting Radial Support once their holiday season is over.
So, I axed the KL8 and returned it. It doesn’t work well with the ASIO driver… But, a friend of mine is running GP on a Mac M2 and the KL8 works perfectly down to 32 samples with no issues.
I’ve got a lot invested on a windows system. I don’t think I am able I spend $$ on Mac and $$ on duplicating all my VST plugs for Mac right now.
I recently bought the Radial Key Largo (original). I’m having problems running with Windows as well. I’ve installed both the Radial (XMOS) driver as well as the ASIO4ALL driver but I get no output from Gig Performer. Really frustrated as I’ve been waiting for a long time to start migrating to a computer based rig.
What I learned about the Key Largo from the experience from other users on Facebook and this forum is that it is robustly designed and works very well on Mac computers. Windows drivers, however, are poorly designed and cause lots of headache.
I was just thinking of spending money on Key Largo, but now I’m hesitating since I’m on Windows. Does anyone know any good alternative that will at least combine a sound card and at least 3 stereo channel inputs with balanced stereo outputs (basically the same as radial)? The idea was to combine hardware devices with vst output from GP. Thanks in advance.
If an audio interface would do: I use a Behringer umc1820. It has no stereo inputs or outputs, but 8 inputs and 10 outputs. This works well enough with Windows. It isn’t a mixer, however.
Focusrite has also several audio interfaces that work well with Windows, but their price point is higher.
The usb connection is only 2 channels in and 2 channels out. I suggest you first download the manual to see whether you can route the audio the way you want.
I just need two channels out (of PC) combined with three stereo minimum (hardware devices) so it ticks all the boxes for me, but the question is how it works with Windows PC (if anyone tried it before)?
