Once the session is running, make sure your master (or monitor, if it is enabled) is sending to the right device through the audio connections window (Window -> Audio Connections from the menu bar or ALT+P). If you close this configuration window you can at any time re-open it using the icon found in the notification area of the Windows Taskbar-as long as Ardour is still running. Make sure the ASIO buffer size is set accordingly as well. If ASIO has been selected (ASIO4ALL should be the default playback/input if no other ASIO drivers are available) you can then use the “Device Control Panel” button to open the ASIO4ALL configuration interface and select the devices you’d like to make available to Ardour accordingly. Configuring Ardour to use ASIO & Configuring ASIO4ALLĪfter starting Ardour and choosing a session a “Audio/Midi Setup” window will appear (Window -> Audio/Midi Setup from the menu bar in existing sessions), select ASIO from the “Driver” drop-down list and a low buffer size-I recommend starting off with the lowest amount of samples available and increasing the buffer size as you encounter xruns or “clicks” and “pops”. Note that ASIO4ALL spawns a new instance per-application. It requires a running ASIO-capable application to be using ASIO4ALL as a specified input/output in order for the configuration interface to be available.

ASIO4ALLĪSIO4ALL is a driver that includes a configuration interface for itself. In many cases this allows for drastically reduced buffer sizes and latencies. ASIO & ASIO4ALL ASIOĪSIO (Audio Stream Input/Output) is a driver protocol designed by Steinberg that bypasses the inefficient audio path a signal would normally take to get to hardware on Windows. In order to bypass these layers, a different driver and protocol should be used so that Ardour can talk directly to a system’s audio hardware. Foremost it is important to understand that by default Ardour uses Windows’ MME to talk to audio devices, this can cause many problems for some users (such as being restricted to very high latencies) as the signal goes through some layers of Windows software before reaching their audio hardware. Several things may need to be done depending on your current audio environment. The software detailed in this manual can be easily found using many popular search engines. It does not contain third-party links but does include various free third-party applications and drivers as well as brief explanations of their capabilities and use.

It is not a step-by-step set of instructions and assumes some basic level of technical understanding from the reader. This is a basic configuration manual based on my current environment designed for new Ardour for Windows users.

Ardour audio connection setup