• Registered: 2020-12-02
  • Posts: 2

Topic: The choice of sound in Windows

Hi! I have FF 800. And I have two cards in the Windows sound equipment selection settings - RME and NVidia High Definition Audio. One question - what default device  I must choise in setting of the Windows audio output?  In RME manual says "FireFace must be selected as output device". But then they write "Also FireFace should NOT be the Prefered Device for playback." As I understand it, the default device will be the audio playback device. The system Windows sounds I turned off. So which device should I choose by default?

  • ramses
  • DAW Mastermind
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  • Registered: 2012-10-14
  • Posts: 13,213

Re: The choice of sound in Windows

In the driver settings you can create WDM devices.
Do not choose all, only create those that you require.
Set this also to be the speaker device.
This device you will also find in the windows sound settings.
Make it there the default sound device.

BR Ramses - UFX III, 12Mic, XTC, ADI-2 Pro FS R BE, RayDAT, X10SRi-F, E5-1680v4, Win10Pro22H2, Cub14
  • Registered: 2020-12-02
  • Posts: 2

Re: The choice of sound in Windows

Thank you for answer, but I do not understandig. Why do I need another WDM device? I already have a second device, this is NVIDIA monitor speakers. Sometimes in Cubase I choose it for shit control. What should I choose for audio, for example, in Youtube? Or for playing music without a Cubase? I can listen through the monitor speakers, or through RME. What to choose?

4 Reply by ramses (edited by ramses 2020-12-02 11:39:53)

  • ramses
  • DAW Mastermind
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  • From: UTC+1
  • Registered: 2012-10-14
  • Posts: 13,213

Re: The choice of sound in Windows

The Windows operating system does not support ASIO drivers.

Lets put an easy example and then work towards your setup.

Imagine, the RME card would be your only recording/audio card in your system.
Then you could work in your DAW program without any issue by loading the RME ASIO driver.
In contrast to that Windows OS and typical Windows applications are not able to access the recording interface,
as they do not support ASIO, so they need a Windows compatible driver (-> in this case a WDM driver).
For this you need to create a WDM device in the RME driver settings and if you select the speaker device you get a speaker symbol in the Windows sound settings, to make it easier to identify the port where the speakers are connected to.
This device you configure in Windows Sound as the default sound device.
Then Windows OS and applications like Firefox (for youtube etc) can access the FF800 through the windows compatible WDM driver.

Similar situation, but now you have two audio interfaces:
- RME FF 800 and
- the nVidia Sound device
What device to choose now ?

I assume that you do not want to plug your monitors between FF800 and nVidia card depending on whether you are recording or not, so lets assume you have therefore your monitors connected to the FF800.

The rest is simple. If your monitors are connected to the FF800, then you need to create WDM devices for the analog I/O port of the FF800 where the monitors are connected to.

BR Ramses - UFX III, 12Mic, XTC, ADI-2 Pro FS R BE, RayDAT, X10SRi-F, E5-1680v4, Win10Pro22H2, Cub14