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Joey AKA Computer Audio Guy demonstrates ASIO Setup in Ableton Live - PC Audio setup for Windows. For more info on Windows audio setup go to https://www.computeraudioguy.com
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For those of you that are using Ableton Live on the Windows platform, you want to make sure that Ableton is using the proper driver model to get the best performance out of Ableton Live. So what you want to do is you want to load up Ableton Live, then you want to head to the Options. And then all the way at the very bottom of that dialog box, you'd click on preferences in preferences, you will go to the audio tab on the left and you will look at the driver type in the driver type dialogue box.

You want to make sure that you choose the A S I O or asio streaming input, output driver model, not M E or direct X. Once you do that. Check the audio device and make sure the audio device that you choose is one that you own. For me, it's the model. Well, mixer ASIO. Some people, if you're using the built-in audio interface of your computer, you can try the generic, low latency SEO driver, but it usually does not yield very good results.

So for me, I choose the model of mixer, ASIO. Channel configuration and click on the input configuration. And in this dialog box, you want to choose what inputs you would like to use in your Ableton session. When you set this, it'll be for all the sessions. For them, for me, I would choose all of them.

Although I'm using a light version of Ableton in this scenario. So I can't run all of the inputs because it's limited to, I believe eight, but you can choose the mono inputs and stereo inputs. And if they're highlighted yellow, that means that they are configured and ready to go. And then you click.

Okay. And then you also have the output configuration and in this dialog box, you just want to choose which outputs you'd like to use. Next, do you want to click on the hardware setup? And when you click on the hardware setup, it takes you to your devices mixer settings. And in here, you're going to see the buffer size now buffer sizes.

What they do is the lower, the buffer size, the lower latency of Ableton, however, lower latency means putting more pressure on your computer. So you have to play around with this setting to see what kind of latency performance you'd like. And by latency, what I mean by that is if you're using, say. A guitar amplifier and you're plugging your guitar in and you want sound that happens instantaneously with your guitar amplifier plugin.

The latency has to be low so that the computer can spit the process sound out as quickly as possible without any delay incurring. Generally for me, I like to have it at a 64 sample when I'm tracking with plugins. And when I'm mixing, I can raise that buffer all the way up to five, 12 or 10 24. And what that'll do is it'll free up the CPU of my computer to allow me to abuse more plugins while I am mixing my stuff.

Another thing I forgot to mention is when you're choosing your ASIO device you will not see or your device, unless you have loaded the appropriate drivers for your device. So you will need to go to your manufacturer's website to download the latest drivers and install them. Then you will see the drivers for your audio device, getting back to latency.

Like I said, previously, a more powerful computer, you will be able to keep your buffer size down lower for more of the time. So I always tell people to buy the fastest computer that they can afford that way you're not continually going to this setting in your preferences and raising the latency so that your computer can play back.

The track that you're working. The other thing I wanted to talk about is the sample rate. Now for me, I always use 48 killer hurts. However, some people are okay with 44.1 as a general rule, I tend to use other 44.1 or 48. Some people want to use higher sample rates that is up to you. If you can hear the difference in the quality of the sound.

Okay. That's everything for setting up an ASIO driver to be used in Ableton Live, enjoy using Ableton live.

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