Compiling Audacity with ASIO support, Windows 7

Hello,
I’ve recently managed to compile Audacity with ASIO support on Windows 7.
Anything built fine, with no errors, and I have usable application with on exception:
The Input Volume slider is disabled, and gives the following hover-over info;
“Input Volume Unavailable(Use system mixer)”.
Is this a known issue? As I stated above, I can use the system, and get by as is, but would like to fix this if possible.
BTW, using ASIO is a great enhancement to avoid latency issues.

ASIO is a great enhancement to avoid latency issues.

We agree. If it was useless, they’d be giving it away with no restrictions.
Koz

Does anyone have any idea what could be causing the issue I stated in my original post?
Many thanks,
Mark.

This is probably nothing to do with compiling with ASIO support, unless your device doesn’t support audio programs manipulating its volume under ASIO, or PortAudio won’t manipulate it under ASIO.

The behaviour is noted in the Manual . If the Audacity input slider can’t move the hardware slider in the system as is the case here, then all it could do is apply software gain. This would mean that if the system input slider was at distortion level, all the software gain could do is to make the distortion quieter.

That’s dangerous for the quality of the audio, so Audacity greys out the slider in this case and asks you to use the system slider instead.


Gale

Hi Markho,

Which version of Audacity did you compile with the ASIO drivers for Windows 7?

My church has been using an old version (1.3.13) on Windows XP because that was supposed to be the highest version that allowed compiling ASIO. However, now I see your post from last December.

Also, is that Windows 7 on a 32bit or 64bit platform?

Thanks!!

Robert

That’s incorrect.
Audacity 1.3.13 is obsolete and no longer supported.
The current 2.0.5 version of Audacity can be built with ASIO support (for your own use - Audacity may not be distributed with ASIO support compiled in).
More information here: http://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/ASIO_Audio_Interface

Note that Audacity does not usually require ASIO support. The main reason that you may need ASIO is that some multi-channel sound cards may require ASIO for full functionality. Most sound cards will work perfectly well with standard Windows drivers, “Latency” considerations are irrelevant unless you are making “overdub” recordings and the hardware does not provide direct (zero latency) monitoring.

Almost no users read the Forum regularly and probably won’t be following their topic after several months. :wink:

Please be careful with Windows XP. Microsoft are no longer officially supporting it, so it will be unpatched against any new security vulnerabilities that appear.

Make sure you have XP Service Pack 3. You can still download Service Pack 3 from Microsoft if necessary: Windows XP support has ended - Microsoft Support .

Ensure you have a good third-party anti-virus application. Be aware though that this will not give you complete protection against a previously unknown attack.

For some extra protection you can install http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/security/jj653751 .

If it is not practicable for you to update to the much more secure Windows 7 or Windows 8, you can consider installing a Linux operating system instead. Most versions are free and all are very secure.


Gale

Thanks for your concerns Gale. I’m well versed in the issues of continuing to run XP vs. going to another Windows version. Personally, I run Ubuntu Linux at home. But, it’d probably be just beating my head against the wall trying to get others at church up to speed on Ubuntu for the once every few weeks they operate it during the rotation.

We have updated to a newer machine running Windows 7. At the same time I went from running the old MBox, which doesn’t run under W7, to a used E-MU 1212m pci card (which has introduced other issues in of itself).

I will probably try and compile ASIO into the latest version of Audacity today so wish me luck as I haven’t compiled too many programs over the years.

Later,

Robert