You want to start making music with your computer, So you get yourself some software and a music keyboard with a MIDI connection to your computer. But when you start to play that keyboard you suddenly realise that when you play the note on the keyboard it doesn’t play the note on the computer until a second later because of a delay caused by the latency of the card. This is what happened to me years ago when I started making music with a computer, I had a SoundBlaster Live back then which came with the computer and the MIDI latency was around 130ms which makes playing a MIDI controller pretty unplayable. So I thought there was nothing else I could do but go and buy a brand new soundcard.

That’s when I first came across The KX Project. A set of drivers that "Expands The Potential" of any EMU10K1 and EMU10K2-based soundcards such as the SoundBlaster Live. Anyway I gave them a try and uninstalled the ones that came from Creative Labs.

I could not believe what a difference a set of drivers could do to my system. Suddenly my soundcard could cope with 5.33ms latency. I couldn’t believe it. It was as if the manufacturer had purposely slowed down the card to sell other more expensive "musician" cards.

Anyone starting out who can’t afford to buy a top of the range sound card and all you need is good latency and only a couple of inputs and you have one of the supported cards. I would suggest giving The KX Project Drivers a try. You might just be amazed like I was.

Article written by Edward Cufaude for Rhythm Creation.