ASIO - Audio Stream Input/Output Technology
ASIO and drop outs
- Go to Windows Start menu, select “Control Panels”
- There, start “System”
- In the window “System Properties” select the tab “Advanced”
- Click on “Settings” in the section “Performance”
- In the window “Performance Options” select the tab “Advanced”
- There you find the “Processor scheduling” options, set it to “Background services”.
Your system is now ready to work with low latency ASIO drivers without drop outs.
ASIO is a protocol to be able to digitally process audio input (from your musical instruments) through your audio interface, with a imperceptibly low latency -i.e. a delay in transmission between input (playing a string) and output (the sounding of it in your speaker system) down to a few milliseconds.
The ASIO standard is developed by Steinberg to adress the need of musicians for responsive sound cards for their musical instrument, to be able to process input from their instrument by software - amp or effects emulators - with a latency comparable to what you would get if your audio was processed by dedicated hardware - your amps and effects. That is an imperceptibly low latency, and that means a latency of just a few milliseconds. Latencies higher than 6 ms can be disturbing. You may be able to reduce it by updating your drivers and insure that you've selected the correct driver.
When you plug your musical instrument into your computer, you'll always get some latency, however. But the more the input is processed - the higher the latency. But with sound cards
With ASIO And that's what audio sound card that supports ASIO can do.
Consumer-grade soundcards usually does not have built in support for ASIO.
AUDIO CARDS ASIO support
This is very important if you want a sound card
So, ASIO makes audio cards capable of stream input audio AND process with a very low latency.
It means that if your have a good soundcard that supports ASIO (ASIO 2.0), input from you instrument can be prosessed and outputed with a very low latency. You can plug your guitar into you sound card, run the input throught software based virtual amps, guitar setups, and VST effects plugins, and output it back to the output of your soundcard without troublesome delay.
From Wikipedia - The Free Encyclopedia:
Audio Interfaces native ASIO drivers or Asio4All
Getting guitar software - like Guitar Rig, Amplitube, ReValver Mk II, or GuitarFX 3 - to work on your machine, you may need a new soundcard with ASIO support (i.e. low latency) with native ASIO drivers.

If this doesn't work, you need a new audio interface.
External links
- asio4all - a free driver for 32 and 64-bit Windows, that brings ASIO support to users of consumer-grade soundcards.
- ASIOTestSigGen - a simple, free Audio Test Signal Generator utility to test ASIO setups
- The kX Project - third party WDM audio drivers for EMU10K1 and EMU10K2-based sound cards (ie. SoundBlaster Live or SoundBlaster Audigy 1/2 cards)
- ASIO SDK Steinberg ASIO Developer Information Area