New FlexASIO Control Panel

[AustinJerry]

John:

I can open the FlexASIO Control Panel and select my input and output devices, but there doesn't seem to be a way to close the Control Panel to preserve the settings. The ojnly way to close the window is to click the "X", after which the selections are not shown in the Preferences drop-downs. I have read the Help File section, but evidently I am not understanding something. Your advice, please.

My settings:

 

[John Mulcahy]

Those are the equivalent of selecting a device in the ASIO4All panel. The preferences drop downs show the inputs and outputs of the selected devices, usually with generic names like "IN 0". Unlike ASIO4All, the device name does not appear in the input or output name.

 

[AustinJerry]

OK, I understand that. However, in the output drop-down, I only see two options listed. With ASIO4All, I am used to having eight options to measure a full 7.1 configuration. Am I not doing something right, or is FlexASIO limited to two channel measurements?

 

[John Mulcahy]

No, it isn't limited to two channels, but the choice of Windows backend may affect what is offered. Try DirectSound.

 

[AustinJerry]

OK, by selecting driver type “Windows DirectSound” I am able to see all eight outputs. I still think it is confusing not to have a “Close” button on the Control Panel.

Now I am facing a different issue. The sweep output is unusually low. With AVR master volume at unity, the sweep level is only 83dB. When using ASIO4All, a MV setting of -10 produces a 90dB output. Am I missing a level adjustment somewhere?

Edit: Sweep level in REW is -12dBFS.

 

[John Mulcahy]

The windows volume controls are probably active with DirectSound, so check those.

 

[John Mulcahy]

I still think it is confusing not to have a “Close” button on the Control Panel.

I haven't seen close buttons on any other ASIO control panel, but I have added one anyway.

 

[AustinJerry]

OK, some progress to report, but some outstanding issues remain.

First of all, you are correct--Windows audio volume settings affect the level of the REW sweeps. So I made sure that the Windows volume was maximized.

I checked the Mixer settings as well.

However, even after making these changes, the REW sweep level at -12dBFS is still lower than I would like.

The second problem that I have encountered, even though I see all eight output channels in the REW Preferences Output drop-down, I can only output to the Left, Right and Subwoofer channels (as if FlexASIO is only seeing a 2.1 configuration). I checked the speaker configuration in Windows, and it is clearly set to 7.1.

Any suggestions WRT being able to route measurements to all 8 channels?

 

[John Mulcahy]

Could open the Sound Control Panel and see what the default format is set to on the Advanced tab of the device properties, and see what Configure... shows for that device and its channel setup. I can't claim any special expertise in FlexASIO though.

 

[AustinJerry]

I tried a second laptop, and still can only get 2.1 audio output. In Windows Audio, I tried running the Speaker Test:

I can only output the test tone to the Left, Right and Sub channels, leading me to believe there is a Windows setting I am missing somewhere. I have opened a case on Github, so perhaps Dechamps will provide some direction to resolve the issue. If I am able to fix it, I'll report my findings here.

BTW, thanks for adding the FlexASIO Control Panel to the latest REW beta--it is very useful.

 

[AustinJerry]

I received a response from Etienne Deschamps, who recommended that I try setting the FlexASIO backend to WDM-KS, as well as checking to see if there is an updated driver for my laptop audio (Intel Display Audio). WDM-KS did not resolve the issue--still only 2.1 audio support. And no updated audio driver is available.

I had hoped to be able to recommend FlexASIO as an alternative, but it seems it has issues as well.

 

[AustinJerry]

After repeated attempts, FlexASIO suddenly started working properly. I didn't do anything different, just rebooted the laptop several times during the troubleshooting. My experiences with ASIO4All have been similar--doesn't work at first, but a couple of reboots and it just mysteriously starts working. I am confident that FlexASIO can be offered as an alternative to ASIO4All, which is a good thing.

 

[andyc56]

Hi Jerry,

I subscribe to the GitHub FlexASIO mailing list, and I read the conversation you had with Etienne. This part:

Thinking this might be a Windows Audio issue, I verified that the audio interface was configured for 7.1. However, when the "Speaker Test" on the Windows Audio Speaker Setup screen, only the left, right and sub channels will output the test signal. This leads me to believe that the issue is with Windows Audio, not FlexASIO. The same Windows 10 laptop has been working properly with ASIO4All/REW, so I am not sure why it is not working with FlexASIO, unless I am missing a setting somewhere.

seems to suggest a possible HDMI audio driver issue, since you can't ping all channels in Device Manager even without using FlexASIO. It's weird that ASIO4All works though. Anyway, if I recall correctly, you have an Acer laptop that's similar to mine. On mine, I went into Device Manager and right-clicked on "Intel Display Audio" under "Sound, video and game controllers." When I chose to update the driver, it told me I already had the latest one. But it seems Windows doesn't do such a great job of finding the latest drivers. After doing some searching, I ended up going to this page to try to find the latest driver. I wasn't sure if that was the correct one for my hardware though, but at the top of the page, there was a banner saying "Automatically update your drivers" with a "Get Started" button. Choosing this downloads the Intel "Driver & Support Assistant" application.

When you run this app, it launches your browser, goes to their website and scans your system, telling you the Intel drivers that need updating. For each such driver, it shows a "Download" button. If you click that, it has this obnoxious behavior of downloading some unknown installer file to an unknown location, then executing it. I hate that kind of "behind the scenes" operation, but there is a workaround. You can click the down-facing caret in the driver description, and this reveals a previously-hidden "view details" link. I right-clicked that to open it up in a new browser tab. This took me to a page that showed the actual driver install file, which could then be downloaded and run manually. I like that approach much better, as it gives the ability to save the file where I want, and know what I'm downloading. I just had to make sure to choose the 64-bit version, as both it and the 32-bit drivers are shown on the page.

Anyway, the Driver & Support Assistant found a more recent video driver that Windows couldn't find. According to the Intel docs, the HDMI audio driver is contained within this video driver (see here and here.) They're not separate like with AMD. This successfully updated my driver, but I can't test it with REW, as I don't use an AVR or pre-pro in my system. My system uses an 8-channel USB device (Tascam US-16x08). I use FlexASIO with it, and all channels are accessible. I did hook up a spare HDMI monitor to my laptop and got sound out of it with the newly-installed driver, but that's all the testing I was able to do.

Interestingly, when I go to the Acer web page that has the drivers for my laptop, there isn't even any Intel video driver listed there. There may be some default one that comes with Windows, and Windows apparently isn't able to find a newer one for some reason.

Might be worth a try. The Intel Driver & Support Assistant seems pretty handy.

 

[AustinJerry]

Hi Jerry,

I subscribe to the GitHub FlexASIO mailing list, and I read the conversation you had with Etienne. This part:



seems to suggest a possible HDMI audio driver issue, since you can't ping all channels in Device Manager even without using FlexASIO. It's weird that ASIO4All works though. Anyway, if I recall correctly, you have an Acer laptop that's similar to mine. On mine, I went into Device Manager and right-clicked on "Intel Display Audio" under "Sound, video and game controllers." When I chose to update the driver, it told me I already had the latest one. But it seems Windows doesn't do such a great job of finding the latest drivers. After doing some searching, I ended up going to this page to try to find the latest driver. I wasn't sure if that was the correct one for my hardware though, but at the top of the page, there was a banner saying "Automatically update your drivers" with a "Get Started" button. Choosing this downloads the Intel "Driver & Support Assistant" application.

When you run this app, it launches your browser, goes to their website and scans your system, telling you the Intel drivers that need updating. For each such driver, it shows a "Download" button. If you click that, it has this obnoxious behavior of downloading some unknown installer file to an unknown location, then executing it. I hate that kind of "behind the scenes" operation, but there is a workaround. You can click the down-facing caret in the driver description, and this reveals a previously-hidden "view details" link. I right-clicked that to open it up in a new browser tab. This took me to a page that showed the actual driver install file, which could then be downloaded and run manually. I like that approach much better, as it gives the ability to save the file where I want, and know what I'm downloading. I just had to make sure to choose the 64-bit version, as both it and the 32-bit drivers are shown on the page.

Anyway, the Driver & Support Assistant found a more recent video driver that Windows couldn't find. According to the Intel docs, the HDMI audio driver is contained within this video driver (see here and here.) They're not separate like with AMD. This successfully updated my driver, but I can't test it with REW, as I don't use an AVR or pre-pro in my system. My system uses an 8-channel USB device (Tascam US-16x08). I use FlexASIO with it, and all channels are accessible. I did hook up a spare HDMI monitor to my laptop and got sound out of it with the newly-installed driver, but that's all the testing I was able to do.

Interestingly, when I go to the Acer web page that has the drivers for my laptop, there isn't even any Intel video driver listed there. There may be some default one that comes with Windows, and Windows apparently isn't able to find a newer one for some reason.

Might be worth a try. The Intel Driver & Support Assistant seems pretty handy.

Hi Andy,

Thanks for the tips. I downloaded and ran the Intel Driver & Support Assistant. It recommended a video driver with a more recent date than the one installed on my laptop. However, when I downloaded the driver and tried installing it, I received an error stating that only drivers from the Acer download library could be installed on my computer. So, I downloaded the latest driver from the Acer web site, but it was the same version already installed on the laptop. So, nice try, but no joy.

BTW, I don't know if you saw the last update that I posted. FlexASIO started working after several reboots, without a clear understanding of why it wasn't working at the outset. so, it looks like i have an alternative to ASIO4All to recommend to REW users. Thanks again for your response.

 

[andyc56]

I downloaded and ran the Intel Driver & Support Assistant. It recommended a video driver with a more recent date than the one installed on my laptop. However, when I downloaded the driver and tried installing it, I received an error stating that only drivers from the Acer download library could be installed on my computer. So, I downloaded the latest driver from the Acer web site, but it was the same version already installed on the laptop. So, nice try, but no joy.

Wow, that's some intrusive software! I think my machine is older than yours, before they had that policy.

BTW, I don't know if you saw the last update that I posted. FlexASIO started working after several reboots, without a clear understanding of why it wasn't working at the outset. so, it looks like i have an alternative to ASIO4All to recommend to REW users. Thanks again for your response.

Yes, I did see that, but I was hoping to do better and have it work every time. Oh well.

 

[fredphoesh]

I can open the FlexASIO Control Panel

Hi Peeps,
I have been searching the Github and here but cannot find a link to the Flex ASIO control panel.
Please could you post that, or PM me if links are not allowed.
Thanks!
Mark

 

[AustinJerry]

Hi Peeps,
I have been searching the Github and here but cannot find a link to the Flex ASIO control panel.
Please could you post that, or PM me if links are not allowed.
Thanks!
Mark

The FlexASIO control panel is opened by pressing a button on the REW settings page, just like the ASIO4All control panel was opened.

 

[fredphoesh]

The FlexASIO control panel is opened by pressing a button on the REW settings page, just like the ASIO4All control panel was opened.

AAH
Thanks, I could not find the settings but then saw that REW had made some Java driver the default driver (REW installation made me install Java before it completed)
REW looks amazing, waaaaaay OTT for me. I hadn't considered PC being used for high end sound reproduction, I have had dozens of PCs and all have had sound anomalies, scratching when moving the mouse, crackles, etc etc... Are most the people on this site using dedicated hardware IO devices on their PCs or getting optical outputs to a DAC? I'd love to get clean sound that was also not restricted to one app at a time (which is why I am using FlexASIO, so I can use my DAW, YouTube, IPTV, whatever simultaneously)
Cheers, glad I found this forum
Mark.

 

[AustinJerry]

I assume you have found the FlexASIO Control Panel by now?

 

[AustinJerry]

AAH
Thanks, I could not find the settings but then saw that REW had made some Java driver the default driver (REW installation made me install Java before it completed)
REW looks amazing, waaaaaay OTT for me. I hadn't considered PC being used for high end sound reproduction, I have had dozens of PCs and all have had sound anomalies, scratching when moving the mouse, crackles, etc etc... Are most the people on this site using dedicated hardware IO devices on their PCs or getting optical outputs to a DAC? I'd love to get clean sound that was also not restricted to one app at a time (which is why I am using FlexASIO, so I can use my DAW, YouTube, IPTV, whatever simultaneously)
Cheers, glad I found this forum
Mark.

What does high-quality sound reproduction have to do with the topic of this thread, which is FlexASIO and REW?

 

[phofman]

Hi,

Continuing with this relevant thread...

John, please would it make sense to not write the config file upon closing the FlexASIO control panel, and do so only upon clicking the "Close panel and update config file" button? My setup works without glitches only with FlexASIO WASAPI set to exclusive which is stored in that config. Upon opening and closing the control panel the extra configs are lost. Perhaps closing the panel window with the "close" window button could work as Cancel.

Or another option would be opening the FlexASIO GUI instead which was already mentioned here before.

Thanks a lot for considering this change.

Best regards,

Pavel.

 

[John Mulcahy]

John, please would it make sense to not write the config file upon closing the FlexASIO control panel, and do so only upon clicking the "Close panel and update config file" button? My setup works without glitches only with FlexASIO WASAPI set to exclusive which is stored in that config. Upon opening and closing the control panel the extra configs are lost. Perhaps closing the panel window with the "close" window button could work as Cancel.

I have made that change for the next build.

 

[phofman]

Thanks a lot,

Pavel.

 

[Sonnie]

I've been using FlexASIO for a while now. My laptop automatically adjust to whatever I have connected to it. If I have the HTP-1 connected, I get the 8-channels available... and HTP-1 shows up in FlexASIO. When I have the SHD connected, it shows up and I only have two channels (L and R) to choose from. If I change what I'm connected to, I do have to change the selection in FlexASIO, but if I used the HTP-1 last and reconnect it, it already selected in FlexASIO. Either way, I've never had any issues. This is a rather new laptop and that might have something to do with it... not sure.