I have an SBLIVE, and a Delta44.  Csound writes realtime through alsa just fine
on the soundblaster device, but when I try the Maudio Delta44, I get:

 *** Unable to set requested sample format on soundcard
Failed to initialise real time audio output


I used envy24control to see that the base rate of the card is 44100 which
is what just about all of my audio is in.  Alsa aplay does not complain, using
the same device, 2,0 and makes sound:

card 2: M44 [M Audio Delta 44], device 0: ICE1712 multi [ICE1712 multi]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

I get the error doing:

csound -b128 -+rtmidi='alsa' -+rtaudio='alsa' -B256 -Mhw:1,0 -odac:hw:2,0

Thanks for any help.

Tobiah

> An alternate, even if possibly not optimal solution is using plughw:2,0
> instead of hw:2,0; the plughw devices can convert the sample format automatically
> to whatever is actually supported by the card.


plughw did it fine.  I did try long samples as well, which got past the
warning about format, but then csound complained about the number of
channels.  I think the Delta series wants like 10 channels no matter
what.  The unused channels are left zero.