KVR Audio

Slug (37,2°) · Post by **Slug (37,2°)** » Fri Feb 12, 2021 10:39 am

hi,

it's been a while since I made sound with a Windows machine, but I recently started anew.

I now use Windows 10 64bit with an ASIO4ALL V2 driver. I noticed that it seems impossible in my current config to have multiple applications use the driver at the same time (for instance Ableton and Foobar or Ableton and sound in my browser. Let's say I played a file in Foobar. I order to be able to playback sound in Ableton, I need to shutdown Foobar first and then fire up Ableton.

This used to be different. In my old Windows XP setup access to the soundcard by multiple applications was definitely possible (although this was not with an ASIO-driver I think, but with the normal soundcarddrivers. That path does not seem to offer a solution here). I am certain that I was able to play exported wav's in, say, Foobar without having to shutdown my DAW before starting Foobar. I think it was even possible to actually playback (as opposed to having mere access) sound from two sources at the same time.

Long story, sorry. My question is: am I right that in Windows 10 64bit it is not possible with ASIO4ALL or another solution to have access to (let alone playback) the soundcard by two applications?

Any suggestions as to how to avoid and improve my current timeconsuming and impractical setup? FlexAsio did, as yet, not provide a solution.

Kind regards, Slug (37,2°)

donkey tugger · Post by **donkey tugger** » Fri Feb 12, 2021 10:46 am

Download the demo of FL Studio. There's an option to install 'FL Studio Asio', which is a generic, and importantly, multi-client driver. Not great latency wise (if that bothers you - 256 samples minimum), but you should be able to switch to it anyway to avoid closing programs etc, then switch back to ASIO4ALL when required.

https://www.image-line.com/fl-studio-le ... StudioASIO

Slug (37,2°) · Post by **Slug (37,2°)** » Fri Feb 12, 2021 4:30 pm

Hi donkey tugger,thanks a bunch for your swift reply. I downloaded and installed as you suggested. When using FL Studio ASIO I am able to even use FL Studio and Ableton at the same time (this hogs my cpu however, so I will not continue this path

). This was very helpful.

To me it remains a question why this works with FL ASIO and not with ASIO4ALL. If I try to use FL Studio and Ableton simultaneously on ASIO4ALL I get errorcode:-2004287478 ('cannot render in shared mode). I also get a mute when I switch one of the DAWs to ASIO4ALL leaving the other on FL ASIO.

How am I to understand the cause of this problem?
Would this be possible to resolve (esp. since FL ASIO has quite a large latency)?

Kind regards, Patrick

donkey tugger · Post by **donkey tugger** » Fri Feb 12, 2021 4:40 pm

Slug (37,2°) wrote: ↑Fri Feb 12, 2021 4:30 pm Hi donkey tugger,thanks a bunch for your swift reply. I downloaded and installed as you suggested. When using FL Studio ASIO I am able to even use FL Studio and Ableton at the same time (this hogs my cpu however, so I will not continue this path ). This was very helpful.

To me it remains a question why this works with FL ASIO and not with ASIO4ALL. If I try to use FL Studio and Ableton simultaneously on ASIO4ALL I get errorcode:-2004287478 ('cannot render in shared mode). I also get a mute when I switch one of the DAWs to ASIO4ALL leaving the other on FL ASIO.

How am I to understand the cause of this problem?
Would this be possible to resolve (esp. since FL ASIO has quite a large latency)?

Kind regards, Patrick

I'm no expert (someone who is will hopefully explain..), but it's how it's coded. Just looking, there's also this;

https://github.com/dechamps/FlexASIO/releases

Never tried it mind.

whyterabbyt · Post by **whyterabbyt** » Fri Feb 12, 2021 4:41 pm

Slug (37,2°) wrote: ↑Fri Feb 12, 2021 10:39 am I noticed that it seems impossible in my current config to have multiple applications use the driver at the same time

In my old Windows XP setup access to the soundcard by multiple applications was definitely possible (although this was not with an ASIO-driver I think, but with the normal soundcarddrivers.

You've already identified what's going on. ASIO was actually designed with the expectation that only one application would be using it at a time. Multi-client ASIO is newer, and much rarer.

ASIO4all is a clever hack that works 'on top' of the regular Windows soundcard drivers, and its not multi-client, so its 'taking over' the output for ASIO use.

Slug (37,2°) · Post by **Slug (37,2°)** » Sat Feb 13, 2021 8:56 pm

Thanks to both of you. I figured ASIO4ALL would enable rather than prohibit multiple access (hence it's name).

Now that we're talking about ASIO: the quality in sound (detail, high frequencies) change quite a bit when switching from FL Studio to ASIO4ALL (both not so good) to default Windows drivers (good). That is probably a well known fact, but I am figuring this out all anew

.

Kind regards, Slug

BertKoor · Post by **BertKoor** » Sat Feb 13, 2021 10:44 pm

You know, quality is a very subjective thing. We all have different expectations of what "better" really means.

Last time I checked out the default Windows audio system, when I played percussion hard-panned left, to my surprise I heard it from the right can as well, but a fraction of a second later.

Windows comes with a whole arsenal of soundgoodizers to enhance bass, enhance stereo, enhance softer details. The good thing is you can switch them all off - if you know where to find it. Because as a music producer I need to hear things as they truely are. Not tempered by some dsp algos endorced by DrDre.

What a good ASIO driver does, is provide music software with a direct path to the audio outputs. It skips all the extras in Windows, including the mixer which mixes audio from several applications. So you lose something (mixing) but also win something (latency). And then we have not yet touched the subject of sample rate conversions yet.

So you found the default windows drivers serve you better. Good for you. Given you use built-in sound chip and not a posh audio interface, you're probably better off that way than with the hack which Asio4All really is.

Once you invest in a proper audio interface, I expect the tables will turn.

Slug (37,2°) · Post by **Slug (37,2°)** » Tue Feb 23, 2021 11:17 am

dank je (thank you

) Bert!

roman.i · Post by **roman.i** » Tue Feb 23, 2021 11:54 am

Slug (37,2°) wrote: ↑Fri Feb 12, 2021 10:39 am Long story, sorry. My question is: am I right that in Windows 10 64bit it is not possible with ASIO4ALL or another solution to have access to (let alone playback) the soundcard by two applications?

I can play a project in Ableton and a video in the browser at the same time.
With the soundcard's ASIO driver in Ableton.
This requires a special configuration in Windows, go to the output driver settings and
disable option called "Allow applications to take exclusive control".

BrokenTrance · Post by **BrokenTrance** » Thu Feb 25, 2021 9:00 pm

To OP. Make sure sample rate and bit depth is the same in Windows and the DAW. It should work or i might be wrong.

ajdz · Post by **ajdz** » Tue Mar 02, 2021 1:06 am

That's exactly why I switched to Mac for Music stuff, although I otherwise like Windows more. I e.g. never could manage to have a DAW up and running and watch a Youtube video at the same time in Windows. Not to speak of runnig two ASIO hosts in parallel. In Mac this all works naturally without even installing a driver, and this all at low latency system side. It was such a liberating experience. Windows is a great system, but it's not made for audio really. You CAN make it an audio system, but it's complicated.

resynthesis · Post by **resynthesis** » Tue Mar 02, 2021 1:39 am

Maybe have a look at the VoiceMeeter (yes that is correct spelling) mixers on vb-audio.com. Never used them but they seem pretty flexible.

ajdz · Post by **ajdz** » Tue Mar 02, 2021 8:39 am

Maybe this helps:
https://www.pgmusic.com/forums/ubbthrea ... ber=237170

Slug (37,2°) · Post by **Slug (37,2°)** » Sat Mar 06, 2021 11:26 am

thanks for all the replies, very nice indeed!
I'll start with roman.i 's suggestion to switch off exclusive usage and adjz's link. We'll see where it will bring me.
regards!

danryu · Post by **danryu** » Mon Jul 26, 2021 5:44 pm

AUTO-ADMIN: Non-MP3, WAV, OGG, SoundCloud, YouTube, Vimeo, Twitter and Facebook links in this post have been protected automatically. Once the member reaches 5 posts the links will function as normal.

Old thread I know - but for anybody interested in a universal multi-client ASIO driver (also free and open-source) with a simple configuration GUI - there is one available now at https://github.com/koord-live/KoordASIO (https://github.com/koord-live/KoordASIO)

Installer here: https://github.com/koord-live/KoordASIO ... _win64.exe (https://github.com/koord-live/KoordASIO/releases/download/v1.7a-k01/KoordASIO_1.7a-k01_win64.exe)

KoordASIO is a rebuild of FlexASIO for general users. It uses WASAPI mode in both Shared (multi-client) and exclusive mode, buffer setting from 32 to 2048 samples. Give it a go!

ASIO and multiple applications