Quick Start
This walkthrough takes you from a fresh install to a working mix: your microphone and your music app on separate faders, both playing through your headphones. No prior mixing experience needed.
Ran the first-run setup wizard? Then your mic and output are already chosen — skim Steps 2–3 to confirm. Skipped it (or came from a Factory Reset)? Steps 2–3 set them up now.
Flip to Simple mode — the Simple button in the menu bar — and add your sounds on friendly faders instead. This Quick Start uses the full Advanced console; see Simple mode for the easy view.
Step 1 — Start the engine
Look at the monitor bar (the strip near the top of the window). At its right end:
- Press ▶. The dot next to it turns green.
- The status bar at the very bottom now reads
Running | 48000 Hz | Latency: 10.0 ms | …
The engine is the part that actually moves audio. Faders and meters only come alive while it's running.
Step 2 — Send the main mix to your headphones
The master output is the Main L+R bus — the strip on the right. The wizard already pointed it at a device; to check or change it:
- Click SELECT on the main bus strip. The configuration screen opens below the mixer.
- Open the SETUP tab.
- Under Output Device, pick your headphones or speakers from the list.
If you play any sound now (a YouTube video, for instance) you won't hear it through Aura Mixer yet — Windows is still playing it directly. That's what the next steps fix, source by source.
Step 3 — Set up your microphone
Your starter layout already includes a Microphone channel — the wizard set its device, so there's nothing to add:
- Click SELECT on the Microphone strip (left side of the mixer).
- Open the SETUP tab and, under Physical Input, confirm or change the device.
Say something — the channel's VU meter (the green bars next to the fader) should dance along. You're now hearing yourself through the main bus.
That's normal when monitoring a mic over speakers — use headphones, or drag the mic channel's fader down for now.
Step 4 — Add a music app (no virtual cables!)
This is the trick that usually requires extra driver software elsewhere. Aura Mixer captures a single application directly:
- Open Channels in the menu bar, set the type to 🎯 APP — application loopback, click + Add.
- SELECT the new channel → SETUP tab.
- Under Application Process, pick your music player (e.g. Spotify) from the dropdown. If it's missing, make sure the app is running and click ↺ to refresh.
Play some music. It now flows through its own channel — its own fader, its own mute button, its own EQ if you want one.
App capture requires Windows 10 build 20348+ or Windows 11. On older builds, use a LOOP channel instead — it captures an entire output device.
Step 5 — Mix, then save the moment
You now have two faders. This is the whole point of a mixer:
- Drag a fader to balance music under your voice. Double-click it to jump back to 0 dB.
- M mutes a channel; S solos it (mutes everything else). CLR SOLO in the monitor bar clears all solos.
- Watch that meters stay out of the red — if the CLIP counter on a channel's HOME tab climbs, pull the fader or gain down.
Happy with the balance? Make it a scene:
- Click Scenes in the menu bar.
- Type a name (say,
Everyday) in the field at the bottom and press SAVE.
The scene chip 🎬 appears in the monitor bar. From now on, one click in the Scenes window restores this exact setup — handy once you build separate layouts for streaming, gaming or work.
Where to go next
- Simple mode — the easy, mostly-automated view of the same mixer
- Interface Tour — what every part of the window does
- How Audio Flows — the mental model behind routing
- Clean up your microphone (how-to, coming soon) — gate, EQ and compression in 10 minutes
- Something silent? → No sound? Start here