Howto: reset Reason / Essentials ASIO driver settings for an RP255 guitar pedal audio interface
So I've got this really cool Digitech RP255 guitar pedal. It's even got an embedded audio interface, so I can plug it into the computer using a USB cable and record straight into Reason Essentials with very low latency. It's awesome.
The only problem is that every so often, I try and tweak the latency because I'm getting slight lag... and the ASIO control panel for the audio interface mistakenly allows the latency to be set as low as 1 sample, 0 milliseconds.
Of course, once you slide that slider all the way to the left, the changes immediately get applied, and the burden of constantly servicing the audio interface causes Reason to take 100% of one CPU, and the driver (which runs as part of the kernel) to take 100% of the other CPU, so the computer almost completely locks up. Launching Task Manager takes about ten minutes, and as far as I can tell it's not even possible to hard-kill Reason via Task Manager, even after waiting half an hour for it to get the message and die. The only recourse is to hard reboot.
So that's annoying. But the really big problem is that Reason won't allow me to launch the ASIO control panel without actually activating the audio interface, which immediately sends it into death spiral mode.
The solution for this is twofold - first you need to delete Reason's own profile, then you need to delete the RP255 driver's cached audio settings.
The former is found (on Vista/Windows 7) at:
C:\Users\[user name]\AppData\Roaming\Propellerhead Software\Reason
If AppData does not appear in the user folder, this is because Windows is helpfully hiding it. If that is the case, go to:
Organize > Folder & Search Options > View and select 'View hidden files'
The latter are in the registry and require regedit to purge. I uninstalled the RP255 driver first - I'm not sure you actually need to do this, but it doesn't hurt (the uninstall/reinstall is very quick).
Once you've uninstalled the RP255 driver, launch Regedit by hitting Windows+R then typing regedit. Click through the various warning/permissions dialogs that open up.
In the tree pane to the left, navigate to:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\DigiTech\RP255 ASIO driver\Reason Essentials.exe
Right click on the Reason Essentials.exe "folder" and select Delete, then click Yes.
Now reinstall the RP255 driver.
Once you relaunch Reason, hopefully your driver settings should be back to normal!
The only problem is that every so often, I try and tweak the latency because I'm getting slight lag... and the ASIO control panel for the audio interface mistakenly allows the latency to be set as low as 1 sample, 0 milliseconds.
Of course, once you slide that slider all the way to the left, the changes immediately get applied, and the burden of constantly servicing the audio interface causes Reason to take 100% of one CPU, and the driver (which runs as part of the kernel) to take 100% of the other CPU, so the computer almost completely locks up. Launching Task Manager takes about ten minutes, and as far as I can tell it's not even possible to hard-kill Reason via Task Manager, even after waiting half an hour for it to get the message and die. The only recourse is to hard reboot.
So that's annoying. But the really big problem is that Reason won't allow me to launch the ASIO control panel without actually activating the audio interface, which immediately sends it into death spiral mode.
The solution for this is twofold - first you need to delete Reason's own profile, then you need to delete the RP255 driver's cached audio settings.
The former is found (on Vista/Windows 7) at:
C:\Users\[user name]\AppData\Roaming\Propellerhead Software\Reason
If AppData does not appear in the user folder, this is because Windows is helpfully hiding it. If that is the case, go to:
Organize > Folder & Search Options > View and select 'View hidden files'
The latter are in the registry and require regedit to purge. I uninstalled the RP255 driver first - I'm not sure you actually need to do this, but it doesn't hurt (the uninstall/reinstall is very quick).
Once you've uninstalled the RP255 driver, launch Regedit by hitting Windows+R then typing regedit. Click through the various warning/permissions dialogs that open up.
In the tree pane to the left, navigate to:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\DigiTech\RP255 ASIO driver\Reason Essentials.exe
Right click on the Reason Essentials.exe "folder" and select Delete, then click Yes.
Now reinstall the RP255 driver.
Once you relaunch Reason, hopefully your driver settings should be back to normal!