SETUP WIZARD

Audio Setup

Select a soundcard driver and optimize the settings

What is a soundcard and driver?

The term 'soundcard' is used rather loosely, you may have a soundcard in your PC, a chip on your motherboard or it may be an external device connected by USB/FireWire/Bluetooth, etc. The soundcard is the device that makes the sound you hear from your PC speakers. The soundcard driver is the software interface between the Windows operating system and the soundcard. The driver tells Windows, and so FL Studio, what inputs, outputs and what sample rates the soundcard can support. Two drivers mentioned frequently in this manual are 'Primary Sound Driver' (the Windows default) and ASIO4ALL (a generic ASIO driver that runs most soundcards).

Soundcard driver selection & settings

Introduction: Watch this video tutorial on the ASIO4ALL driver setup.

  1. Start FL Studio and press the F10 key on your keyboard to open the System Settings. Alternatively choose Audio settings from the Options Menu.
  2. Click the Audio tab (shown below) in the System Settings window.
  3. In the Input / output section there is a drop-down menu with a list of audio drivers installed on your system. If you have more than one soundcard then you can use the Input / output menu to swap between them, only one soundcard driver can be used at a time (see the ASIO4ALL section for a work-around). ASIO and Primary Sound drivers are supported, drivers are sorted by type with sub-menu headings in the drop-down list. We recommend you select:

    4. An ASIO driver: If you have a soundcard with a custom supplied ASIO driver then use that, if not, we recommended you use ASIO4ALL. If you don't see ASIO4ALL in the list download it from www.asio4all.com. ASIO drivers give better performance and are a pre-requisite for audio recording.

    OR

    Direct Sound: If ASIO4ALL does not work then select the Windows 'Primary Sound Driver' as shown below.

  4. Mixer - If possible, set the sample rate to 44100 Hz (alternatively use 48000 Hz, click OK to any warnings) and Interpolation to Linear. Leave the switches in the default positions for now.
  5. CPU - If you have a multi-core CPU make sure 'Multithreaded generator processing' & 'Multithreaded mixer processing' are selected. 'Smart disable' should be selected for all CPU types. These options should help you squeeze the most performance out of your CPU.

NOTE: Select ASIO drivers if available for your sound card.

Your 'Output' options may be different, they depend on your brand of soundcard and installed drivers. Not all cards have ASIO driver options.

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I selected an ASIO driver
 
I selected the 'Primary Sound Driver'