this seems to be the default windows 10 setting for my internal soundcard. does it make any difference to RB or BIAB?
i admit my ignorance and understand what it means literally but have not had any problems.

also i presume the setting gets bypassed wheni use my usb interface with its dedicated asio driver

should i jsut uncheck it anyway?

Internal motherboard sound chips, usually Realtek, are fine for watching videos but are not designed to be used in music production. So yes disable the internal sound chip in the device manager. This way you know for sure that you are using your USB interface.

1-right click on start and select device manager.
2-click on sound video and game controllers
3-deactivate Realtek by right clicking on it and selecting disable

Note in the past I had both the Realtk and USB interface activated and a Win 10 update turned off my USB; it assumed that I wanted the Realtek, probably because most computer users do use the internal sound chip.

Note this is my Internet computer so Realtek drivers are not disabled. On my music computer they are disabled.

Bob.
as well as marios nice pics, there is lots of optimisation pc guides on the net.
eg
https://audient.com/tutorial/optimise-your-windows-pc-for-audio/

https://support.focusrite.com/hc/en-gb/articles/207355205-Optimising-your-PC-for-Audio-on-Windows-10

and many others if you peruse you tube.

best
om

One other tip: After you get everything set as you want it, look out for changes made by Windows update. They frequently reactivate disabled devices.

thanks - the internal soundcard is a soundblaster audigy - new for this new machine - the usb interface is not always plugged in so i use the speakers and the soundblaster (and sometimes headphones for rough mixing.

the ASIO driver nomally takes over fine.

Bob, I'm not sure we addressed your question.

The purpose of this setting, which can be set for each audio device, is to allow, or not allow, other sounds on your Windows system to play while using this device. For example, while in BIAB, you might do something that would normally generate a beep warning from Windows. Do you want to hear that beep? In most cases, I don't think it does any harm. However, if you are recording, then it might be a good idea to turn off any other possible sounds, so yes, do allow the device to take exclusive control.

In your case, even when you connect your USB audio interface, the Windows system sounds like beeps may still play through the Soundbaster. You can change that in Control Panel if you wish, or even do what some audio guides recommend: turn system sounds OFF. Me? I leave the system sounds on but set them to play at half volume. I hate having a booming beep** occur when I have the volume of my music turned up.

Does that help?

** booming beep would be a good name for a band

When an application requests exclusive control of the sound card, that means no other app can play sound on that device. This can sometimes provide lower latency as Windows no longer has to mix audio from different apps, but it may also bypass any "enhancement" from the driver (bass boost, stereo expander, etc). This can be both good and bad.

There's a good write-up on how the different driver types work here: https://github.com/dechamps/FlexASIO/blob/master/BACKENDS.md

That is interesting, thanks, Simon. The only statement I could find that seems to relate here is this one:

WASAPI can be used in two different modes: shared or exclusive. In FlexASIO, the wasapiExclusiveMode option determines which mode is used. The two modes behave very differently; in fact, they should probably be seen as two separate backends entirely.

As relates to BIAB, does that mean that the WAS driver choice in BIAB, which has never worked for me, might work if I 'allowed my soundcard driver to take exclusive control'? I might try it and see.

It might just get it working, give it a shot!

The FlexASIO driver also might get it working too, I find it quite stable. Keep in mind though that there's no GUI for settings, those are all controlled by editing a config file in Notepad.

leave the boxes ticked! here's the title of the post which described what went wrong when i unticked the boxes!

audacity has stoppped recording soundblaster (audigy fx speakers) loopback [Resolved]

https://www.pgmusic.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=postlist&Board=93&page=1

Creative is the only company I've seen where disabling exclusive mode changes things in that way. For the most part, we find BIAB and other apps work better with exclusive mode disabled, and it is regularly a resolution to customer problems.

I find that very interesting. If you wanted to share examples, I'm listening. If nothing else, the more of us who understand this, the more we might be able to assist users in the forum.

This typically comes up when a customer has no sound from one of our programs, and disabling "allow applications to take exclusive control of this device" often gets it working.

Allowing applications exclusive use of the sound card means that no other program can use the sound card. We haven't identified every program that can do this (of course), but it can be anything from a browser/plugin to a video game to another DAW. I'm fairly certain there are some sound card "enhancement" apps that do this.

Disabling "allow applications to take exclusive control of this device" means that the sound card is always in shared mode, and sound typically goes through the Windows mixer. I personally have never seen any ill effects of disabling that option up until today.

Thanks for the tip on that Simon!

That’s helpful. Thank you Simon.

sound continued to work on all applications but the creative control panel stopped working and audacity couldn't find the loopback on the creative card for recording. the audacity error message was 9996 'invalid device'.

i can't be the only one with a soundblaster sound card although i use a uphoria usb device for recording and monitoring but often mix using the soundblaster and headphones or speakers

You're welcome guys, always happy to elucidate.



You're not the only one with a Soundblaster card, but you're definitely one of a very small few. Rather than using the occasionally disappearing Creative loopback, perhaps try using a hardware-agnostic driver like Virtual Audio Cable or VoiceMeeter.

thanks Simon. i was brought up in the days when creative was the gold standard of sound cards and soundblaster the name we all wanted (who else remembers config.sys and autoexec.bat?).

maybe i've been left behind but as everything is working i'm quite happy. Incidentally my office pc which is not used for music (but is occasionally for spoken word for recording meetings) has onboard sound and by default the recording input is the same as the main sound output 'looped'.

seems that is audacity's standard way of finding an input.

Bob, I certainly remember config.sys and autoexec.bat! I still use them from time to time running certain ancient programs on Dosbox, and occasionally actually booting into DOS to run a hardware utility of some kind.

I still fondly remember making music with the FM synthesis on early ISA Soundblasters, certainly takes me back. Thankfully all that old stuff can be emulated rather faithfully.