ASIO Support

Hi there,

I’ve been using Audacity for years and love it. I have just bought a Behringer audio interface and I’ve learnt that it needs ASIO drivers to work. From what I’ve read, I need to compile Audacity myself to add ASIO support. I’ve never done anything like this before though I’m not computer illiterate.

Can anyone give me some further tips on how to go about this? I have Windows 10 Home 64-bit and I’ve been using Audacity 2.4.2.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Which Behringer interface is it? Most of them work fine with standard Windows drivers.

Hi Steve,

Thanks for getting back to me.

It’s a Behringer UM2.

I’m pretty sure that you don’t need to install any drivers for that unless you are using an app that requires ASIO. Audacity does not require ASIO.

You would only need ASIO support for multi-channels (3 or more channels). This UM2 is not considered a multi-channel device.

I’ve never attempted to compile audacity…

It’s surprising that there aren’t “underground copies” on the Internet. I looked a couple of times (just out of curiosity, I don’t need ASIO) and I couldn’t find one. I guess Steinberg is really serious about enforcing their licensing.

There is a “Compiling Audacity” sub-forum and [u]here[/u] is a topic that points you to a link with the code & instructions.

I’ve never done anything like this before though I’m not computer illiterate.

As you may know, compiling is usually done by a programmer. You don’t have to know how to program but a compiler is a “programmer’s tool”.

I’m not an expert programmer but I have done quite a bit of programming over the years. Whenever I’ve installed a new compiler my goal for the 1st day is just to get get it download, installed, and configured to the point where I can compile “Hello World” (the simplest test-demonstration program). There’s always something tricky (or multiple things that are tricky) and it can be frustrating. I doesn’t always take a full day but but it’s usually a pain and big relief when that’s accomplished. The one exception was the IDE (compiler) for the Arduino. I think it took 15-minutes to download & install and get the “Blink LED” example running (there is no built-in display so you can’t run “Hello World”). I couldn’t believe how smoothly that went!

Audacity is a “big project”, there are libraries to install, and I’d guess it would take me 3-days or maybe longer! Once everything is set-up & configured it should be straight-forward, fast, and easy when a new version of Audacity is released and you have to do it again. (Except the switch-over to 64-bit probably wasn’t so easy.)

Thanks everyone for taking the time to respond.

I use Audacity for recording music i write. I’ll often have 5-10 tracks (vocals, instruments, drums) but I only record one track at a time. Is this considered multi-track recording?

Ill get some time today to try recording something using the other driver options.

Thanks again.

I use Audacity for recording music i write. I’ll often have 5-10 tracks (vocals, instruments, drums) but I only record one track at a time. Is this considered multi-track recording?

No, that’s multitrack mixing. :wink: It’s done in software so you don’t need any special hardware or drivers.

In case you don’t know this, Audacity has a [u]Mixer Board[/u].

But the major thing it’s lacking is a master level control. Mixing is done by summation so you can easily end-up clipping (distorting) the mix. One “foolproof” solution is to export as 32-bit Float Wave which won’t clip. Then import the mix an run the Amplify or Normalize effect to bring the level down (or up if you end-up with headroom).

Thanks, Doug. I’m going to give it a go sometime today and see if incan use the interface to record to Audacitt.

I’m pretty familiar with mixing in audacity, using eq and normalise. I’ve done some nice mixes which is why I want to keep using audacity.

Again, I appreciate the help.