Can't Record - Also "Error opening Sound Device"

[Gale Andrews]

General consensus is that the software is awful and that installing the ASIO4ALL driver is a good way to reduce latency.

Audacity as shipped won't work with (and probably won't see) ASIO drivers. Steve has said further up this topic that GuitarLink will only work with built-in Windows USB audio drivers. Audacity has got to see a separate WDM driver in the combined WDM/ASIO drivers on http://www.behringer.com/EN/Products/UC ... areContent for those to work. I can't recall anyone saying that Audacity works with any drivers on that page, even Behringer's own "WDM/ASIO" drivers.

I looked at the customised Audacity installation notes - way too complicated for a ordinary non programmer like me.

We did not write them, whatever they are. Are they a PDF - can you upload them somewhere such as http://minus.com/ for us to see?


Gale

[sten]

So ASIO4ALL can be free, but the software that uses it must satsify license?

[steve]

I am not a lawyer, but as I understand it:

Client software support for ASIO, (and ASIO4ALL) requires Steinberg's ASIO SDK, but Steinberg's ASIO SDK is non-distributable.

The GPL license requires that all of the required source code for GPL licensed software is freely available.

Audacity is released under the terms of GPL v2 license, which guarantees that Audacity will always be free software. It also allows Audacity to include other GPL licensed software libraries.

If Audacity is built using Steinberg's ASIO SDK (required for ASIO support) then it would violate the terms of the GPL license if it was shipped without those parts of Steinberg's ASIO SDK that are required, and would violate Steinberg's license if it did include them. In brief, the licenses are incompatible.

Steinberg's license does allow personal use of their SDK, but doe not allow it to be distributed. Downloading Steinberg's SDK requires that you agree to their license conditions.

If you download Steinberg's ASIO SDK and the Audacity source code, then you are allowed to build Audacity linked to the Steinberg SDK for your own use. You will not be breaching either of the licenses provided that you do not distribute the compiled binary. "Distribute" includes giving or selling it to others - personal use only.

ASIO4ALL is not an ASIO client application, and I assume that it does not require Steinberg's ASIO SDK, but whether it does or not has no affect on Audacity because Audacity does not distribute ASIO$ALL.

See these links for more information:
http://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/Featu ... strictions
http://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/ASIO_Audio_Interface

[sten]

These two seem to contrast.

Client software support for ASIO, (and ASIO4ALL) requires Steinberg's ASIO SDK, but Steinberg's ASIO SDK is non-distributable.

ASIO4ALL is not an ASIO client application, and I assume that it does not require Steinberg's ASIO SDK, but whether it does or not has no affect on Audacity because Audacity does not distribute ASIO$ALL.

If ASIO4ALL doesn't require ASIO SDK, Audacity could be made to accept ASIO4ALL, yes?

[steve]

If ASIO4ALL doesn't require ASIO SDK, Audacity could be made to accept ASIO4ALL, yes?

No. To support ASIO4ALL, Audacity must be built with Steinberg's ASIO SDK and so becomes non-distributable.