Really NOT understanding processing Windows audio through Cubase...

[kenny saunders]

I have been unsucessfully trying to process windows audio through cubase in real-time.

The reason: to bring windows audio into the DAW arena to try to tame the ridiculous dynamic range of movies. I mean I am constantly going from not being able to hear dialogue to vibrating the entire building with loud noises from one movie scene to the next.

After utterly failing to get the stereo mix to work from the motherboard soundcard, I dug out my old UR22mkII as 'loopback' seemed to be the way, but although it does push the sound to Cubase, it also has the sound from windows and so when I monitor the sound from Cubase it has that feedback sound.

How can I set this up so I can transfer NOT duplicate the windows sound to cubase?

[sjm]

I don't know the UR22mkII, so maybe there's a better way to do this on an the interface itself. But presuming I'm there isn't.

If you have an audio interface like you do, the easiest way is probably just to plug the line out of your onboard soundcard into the input on the audio interface. ASIO complicates things because it's independent of Windows audio and completely bypasses it. There are a million ways to achieve what you want (it's not Cubase-specific), but they all invariably involve fiddling around with various pieces of software. And a lot of them aren't exactly intuitive.

Plugging your line out into your audio interface is just a question of having the right cables. I've been using the onboard chip for Windows Audio going into a mixer/audio interface for years. I don't know the UR22mkII, so I don't know if you can hear the sound without a DAW; but with my mixers it was never an issue.

If you want to go the software route, you'll need to find something that can hook into the audio output in Windows and provide that as an input in your audio software. I haven't done this in a while, but back in the day I'd do this with "virtual audio cables" that would add various sound devices to Windows that were not hardware-related. You could just choose them as inputs/outputs in your software. You might be able to do this with Voicemeeter Banana - a lot people use that to go from ASIO to Windows audio so that they can stream their DAW or record video of the session.

Another alternative is to look for something that will hook into the Windows audio chain itself and allow you to apply compression. I have no recommendations, but I know these things do exist.

I'm assuming you want this for things like Netflix, not video files per se. VLC has a built in compressor if all you are doing is playing back files.

[kenny saunders]

I don't know the UR22mkII, so maybe there's a better way to do this on an the interface itself. But presuming I'm there isn't.

If you have an audio interface like you do, the easiest way is probably just to plug the line out of your onboard soundcard into the input on the audio interface. ASIO complicates things because it's independent of Windows audio and completely bypasses it. There are a million ways to achieve what you want (it's not Cubase-specific), but they all invariably involve fiddling around with various pieces of software. And a lot of them aren't exactly intuitive.

Plugging your line out into your audio interface is just a question of having the right cables. I've been using the onboard chip for Windows Audio going into a mixer/audio interface for years. I don't know the UR22mkII, so I don't know if you can hear the sound without a DAW; but with my mixers it was never an issue.

If you want to go the software route, you'll need to find something that can hook into the audio output in Windows and provide that as an input in your audio software. I haven't done this in a while, but back in the day I'd do this with "virtual audio cables" that would add various sound devices to Windows that were not hardware-related. You could just choose them as inputs/outputs in your software. You might be able to do this with Voicemeeter Banana - a lot people use that to go from ASIO to Windows audio so that they can stream their DAW or record video of the session.

Another alternative is to look for something that will hook into the Windows audio chain itself and allow you to apply compression. I have no recommendations, but I know these things do exist.

I'm assuming you want this for things like Netflix, not video files per se. VLC has a built in compressor if all you are doing is playing back files.

Yeah I've tried equaliser APO with Peace and that is a way you can use vst2 plugs on the windows output but it doesn't have any metering. I have looked at banana and vbaudio cable but its seems unneccesarily complicated. I think your suggestion to just plug one soundcard into another is the simplest way.

But then again its complicated further by the fact that I use hdmi to an AV receiver to send to my TV for movies, etc which means I have to use the AMD GPU output.