Settings — Audio

Settings → Audio is where you trade latency against stability. The defaults are right for most setups — read this page when you want lower latency, or when crackling tells you the current trade is too aggressive.

Driver Mode

How Aura Mixer talks to your audio devices:

• WASAPI Shared (default) — plays nice: Windows keeps mixing other apps' sound into the same devices alongside Aura Mixer. The cost is a Windows-enforced floor of about 10 ms of buffer.
• WASAPI Exclusive — Aura Mixer takes the device for itself; other apps can't play to it directly. In exchange, the OS floor disappears and small buffers (lower latency) become possible.
• ASIO / WDM — listed but unavailable in this version.

Windows and Aura Mixer

While the engine plays, Aura Mixer is the one in charge of the sound, so it also takes charge of the Windows settings that would otherwise get in its way. Press ⏹ — or close the app — and Windows is yours again.

Device levels

Windows keeps its own volume for every playback and recording device, and that level is applied on top of everything Aura Mixer does. With your speakers at 50% in Windows, a fader at 0 dB reaches them at half scale; a microphone at 30% reaches the mixer at 30%, and no meter inside Aura shows why.

While the engine runs, Aura Mixer sets each device it uses to 100% in Windows and keeps it there:

• the devices of your Hardware and Virtual input channels,
• Main L+R — the Windows default playback device when you haven't picked one,
• the devices of any extra outputs.

The level is then yours to control in Aura alone — faders, gain, the Main fader. Your own Windows levels come back when you stop the engine or close Aura Mixer (they stay raised while the engine is in stand-by, waiting for its output device); if Aura ever crashes, they are restored the next time it starts. A device that is unplugged at that moment gets its level back when it returns.

Loopback (system audio) channels aren't touched. Virtual cables that have no Windows volume are skipped.

System sound through a cable

If you set up Aura Mixer to take your PC's sound through a virtual cable (the system audio option in the Gaming setup), the cable is Windows' default output only while the engine plays:

• start the engine and the cable becomes the default; press ⏹ and your normal speakers or headphones are the default again about a second later, so Windows keeps its sound without Aura Mixer running;
• if the engine can't start because its output device isn't there (headphones unplugged, a scene that uses them), it goes into stand-by instead of stopping: the cable stays the default, so your PC doesn't suddenly start playing through the speakers, and the engine starts by itself when the device returns. The missing-device window offers Skip — that cancels the wait and gives Windows its sound back;
• if you press ▶ while the output device is still missing, the engine goes back to stand-by and the missing-device window appears again (Keep waiting, Skip, or choose another output) — a failed start never leaves the PC silently stuck;
• if the engine itself crashes and doesn't come back within about 15 seconds, the cable stops being the default and your speakers or headphones take over again, instead of leaving the PC silent;
• a short engine restart (device change, automatic recovery) doesn't switch anything back and forth;
• if Windows moves the default by itself — plugging in headphones is the usual cause — Aura Mixer puts the cable back within a moment and shows a message saying so. To hear the new headphones, choose them as the output in Aura Mixer instead.

When Windows gives a device a new identity

Windows tells devices apart by an internal id, and for some it makes up a new id every time the device is detected again — typically a monitor's speakers (HDMI / DisplayPort) behind a docking station or on a different port. The name stays the same; the old entry just lingers in Windows as "unplugged".

Aura Mixer follows the name you picked: when a device it remembers isn't there under the old id, but exactly one active device has the same name, it quietly re-links to it — for Main L+R, output buses and hardware / virtual / loopback inputs. You don't have to re-pick it, and scenes saved before the id changed keep working.

Two devices with the same name are never guessed between (Windows normally tells identical devices apart with a "2- " prefix); in that case the device shows as disconnected until you pick it again.

Buffer Size

The engine processes audio in chunks; the chunk size sets the latency and how tight the CPU's deadline is (why):

(In Shared mode, values below 480 would be absorbed by the Windows floor anyway, so they're not offered.)

Tuning recipe: chasing latency — step down one size, restart, then watch Ovr/Und in the status bar under a real workload; if they climb or you hear crackles, step back up. Chasing stability — go straight to 1024 and enjoy the calm; 21 ms is still fine for everything except monitoring your own live performance.

Sample Rate

Fixed at 48,000 Hz — the engine's native format, no decision to make. Devices at other rates are converted automatically.

Active Engine Settings

Read-only dashboard: the buffer actually in force and the engine's running/stopped state — useful for confirming a restart picked up your changes.