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<h1 id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading" lang="en">ASIO Audio Interface</h1>
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<div id="bodyContent" class="mw-body-content">
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<div id="siteSub">From Audacity Development Manual</div>
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<div id="jump-to-nav" class="mw-jump">Jump to: <a href="#column-one">navigation</a>, <a href="https://alphamanual.audacityteam.org/man/ASIO_Audio_Interface#searchInput">search</a></div>
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<div id="mw-content-text" lang="en" dir="ltr" class="mw-content-ltr"><div class="intro">The proprietary <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audio_Stream_Input/Output">ASIO</a> interface standard is useful on Windows for low <a href="glossary.html#latency" title="Glossary">latency</a> recording and playback. It is also usually the best way of making <a href="multi_channel_recording.html" title="Multi-channel Recording">Multi-channel recordings</a> on Windows.
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<ul><li>Licensing restrictions prevent us including ASIO support in released versions of Audacity, but Audacity can be compiled with ASIO support for private, non-distributable use. </li>
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<li>This page summarizes ASIO licensing issues and steps to compile Audacity with ASIO support. </div></li></ul>
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<p><br />
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</p>
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<div id="toc" class="toc"><div id="toctitle"><h2>Contents</h2></div>
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<ul>
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<li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-1"><a href="#Latencies_on_Windows.2C_Linux_and_Mac"><span class="tocnumber">1</span> <span class="toctext">Latencies on Windows, Linux and Mac</span></a></li>
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<li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-2"><a href="#Audacity_and_ASIO"><span class="tocnumber">2</span> <span class="toctext">Audacity and ASIO</span></a></li>
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<li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-3"><a href="#Non-distributable_ASIO_support_in_Audacity"><span class="tocnumber">3</span> <span class="toctext">Non-distributable ASIO support in Audacity</span></a></li>
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<h2><span class="mw-headline" id="Latencies_on_Windows.2C_Linux_and_Mac">Latencies on Windows, Linux and Mac</span></h2>
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<p>ASIO is a proprietary audio interface standard in use on Windows which bypasses the operating system's mixing kernel, so providing lowest latency direct communication between computer audio software and hardware.
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</p>
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<ul><li> ASIO supports 24-bit sampling which is only otherwise available under <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/coreaudio/wasapi?redirectedfrom=MSDN">Windows WASAPI</a>. 24-bit sampling allows greater dynamic range, lower theoretical <a href="glossary.html#noise_floor" title="Glossary">noise floor</a> and greater resolution at lower audible volumes.</li>
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<li> An unmixed ASIO output is "bit identical" to the original source. </li>
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<li> Multiple physical input and output channels of the hardware are accessed over one single device.</li></ul>
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<div class="note">Audacity includes support for Microsoft's Windows <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DirectSound">DirectSound</a> interface protocol. To use it, select "Windows DirectSound" as host in <a href="audio_setup_toolbar.html" title="Audio Setup Toolbar">Audio Setup Toolbar</a>. This will give support for multi-channel recording on some sound devices, but not the very low latencies that are possible on ASIO.</div>
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<p>On Linux, the standard <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.alsa-project.org/">ALSA</a> audio <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Application_programming_interface">API</a> typically provides lower latencies than Windows under MME or Windows DirectSound. However, many Linux distributions now use <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.pulseaudio.org/">PulseAudio</a> by default for audio routing and mixing. PulseAudio sits between the sound source and the Linux kernel and thus has somewhat higher latency than direct use of ALSA. For lowest latencies, you can use the <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://jackaudio.org/">JACK</a> API that provides both low latency audio communication and audio routing between applications. Current Audacity supports JACK fairly well, but with some limitations.
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</p><p>On Mac, <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Core_Audio">Core Audio</a> is the standard API and is fully supported by Audacity. Core Audio also has lower latencies than Windows under MME and Windows DirectSound but <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.jackosx.com/">Jack OS X</a> can be used for lowest latency.
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</p>
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<h2><span class="mw-headline" id="Audacity_and_ASIO">Audacity and ASIO</span></h2>
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<p>The ASIO technology was developed by German company <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.steinberg.net/de/home.html">Steinberg</a> and is protected by a licensing agreement which prevents redistribution of its source code.
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</p><p>Audacity, as an open source program licensed under the <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.gnu.org/licenses/licenses.html#GPL">GPL</a>, is therefore currently unable to support ASIO, despite being ASIO-capable (providing the user's sound device is similarly capable). If ASIO support were distributed in Audacity builds this would either violate Steinberg's licence agreement if the code were included, or conversely would violate Audacity's GPL Licence if the code were withheld. There are persistent rumours of Steinberg opening up licensing, but without any apparent movement. Anyone who cares about this issue is invited to make their views known to Steinberg via their <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.steinberg.net/en/support/support_contact.html">Contact page</a>.
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</p>
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<div id="asio_support"></div>
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<h2><span class="mw-headline" id="Non-distributable_ASIO_support_in_Audacity">Non-distributable ASIO support in Audacity</span></h2>
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<p>Audacity provides ASIO support on Windows for individuals who are prepared to compile Audacity from source code using the optional Steinberg ASIO SDK.
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</p><p>ASIO support is provided strictly on the basis that it is <b>NON-DISTRIBUTABLE</b>, that is, you may <b>NOT</b> copy or distribute builds including ASIO support to anyone else. The build is strictly for your own personal (private or commercial) use. For the same reasons, <b>the Audacity team cannot distribute builds of Audacity including ASIO support</b>.
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</p><p>The following is an overview of compiling Audacity from source code including ASIO support. Follow the instructions in the <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://github.com/audacity/audacity/blob/master/BUILDING.md">BUILDING.md</a> for more detailled steps.
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</p>
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<ol><li> Download and install the free <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/vs/">Microsoft Visual Studio Community Edition</a>.</li>
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<li> Download and install <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://cmake.org/download/">CMake</a> and <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://www.python.org/downloads/windows/">Python</a>.</li>
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<li> Install conan via <code>py -m pip install conan</code>.</li>
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<li> Download and install the <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://www.steinberg.net/en/company/developers.html">ASIO SDK</a> from Steinberg.</li>
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<li> Download the source code of the latest Audacity release from <a rel="nofollow" class="external free" href="https://github.com/audacity/audacity/releases">https://github.com/audacity/audacity/releases</a>. </li>
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<li> In CMake,
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<ol><li> Set the ASIOSDK_DIR <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environment_variable">environment variable</a> to the directory where you installed the ASIO SDK. Reboot the computer.</li>
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<li> Configure, then Generate, then Open Project</li></ol></li>
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<li> Build Audacity using Visual Studio. </li></ol>
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<p><br />
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</p>
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<div class="note">If you need help, please ask on the <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://forum.audacityteam.org/viewforum.php?f=19">Compiling Audacity</a> board on the Audacity <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://forum.audacityteam.org/">Forum</a>.</div>
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<div align="center"><ul id="f_list"><li>This version created on 2025-12-04 - <a href="https://alphamanual.audacityteam.org/man/ASIO_Audio_Interface">Check current version of this page (development Manual)</a></li></ul></div>
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