Breadwinner XL

Who cares about audio?  Doesn’t Windows handle this for us plug and play style?  Why would we go the extra mile and possibly take hours to set up an advanced audio setup on our Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, or Windows 10 computer.  Is it worth it?  How about I tell you that if you accomplish what is in this article, you will have much more than a high performance and extremely adaptive system for business purposes.  You will also have a superior setup to what most audiophiles and musicians have on their Mac, Linux, or PC systems worldwide on average.

Having said that, setting up audio for a good streaming and vlogging PC can be extremely difficult for Windows 10 users when trying to set up common needed capabilities.  Many people have struggled to get things like a microphone or basic output running smoothly and bug free and they question why they have so many difficulties.  There is a major hurdle in our way in setting up audio for that ultimate vlogging PC.  Windows has issues with sound drivers (Mainly WDM drivers) and tries to take over management of configurations and integrates things together that result in sometimes severe limitations and/or glitches.

Often times, there is little to nothing with the built in controls to set things up the way we truly want them.  WDM drivers have become quite buggy and unpredictable since the release of Windows 10.  Therefore, we need to circumvent and reconfigure the sound path to separate it from such issues to get the great results we are looking for.

My aim in this article is to give you some intuition and direction so that you don’t waste time or go down the wrong path while maximizing your outcome.  It was originally my goal here to make two clear paths (the other path involving a software called Voicemeeter from VB Audio) with sound steps that will be easy to execute for a wide range of systems.  However, there is only one way acceptable that I know of to create an excellent audio setup in Windows 10 without breaking the bank.

Now, you need to really dig deep for this little project.  When I first tried this setup, I gave up and came back to it months later.   At first, I could not get my sound system in Windows 10 quite right no matter what I tried.  It may be difficult for some, but it is well worth the effort and, I am trying to make it an easier transition for you than I had.  I literally went from hate to love in this setup and I like it better the more I use it.  Now, I rarely take more than a few minutes to set up the audio once the software is installed on a fresh system.

For those with more advanced setups it will be even harder to set things up, but it will be easy for you and reliable once you fully understand how it works.  You will get there as long as you spend the time. I promise!  How long a time?  I estimate it to take approximately 30 minutes to an hour of time to get your system working well and maybe several hours of reading the manual and tinkering to understand this system with confidence.  Here is the best recommended way to set up an online business streaming and vlogging PC’s audio configuration that will amaze you!

TEST YOUR SYSTEM FIRST
( If you feel adventurous or don’t have the patience, you can skip to
“THE MAIN EVENT – SETTING UP YOUR ULTIMATE AUDIO SYSTEM
You can always come back here if you have trouble)

Make a system restore point before you start for safety.  Click the link below if you are unsure how to make a restore point in windows …
SPEED UP WINDOWS 10 OR MAKE RESTORE POINT:  https://www.watchmanadvisors.com/how-to-speed-up-windows-10/

It is very important to quickly check the performance of your computer before you invest the time to set up the audio.  This way, especially with Asio4All setups, you will have the best possible outcome.  I have set this up without checking things when I was in a rush and usually have a good turnout but it is highly recommended to check things over.

Download and install DPC Latency Checker …  https://www.thesycon.de/eng/latency_check.shtml
Run DPC Latency Checker. Notice the bar color in DPC Latency Checker. If the bars aren’t green, you should do some work to speed up windows 10 at the link above as well.

My system result in the picture above started at over 1000 uS latency and I got it to almost 90% better from the steps  in this article and from the article in the link above.
I did one additional thing that I personally chose to do for my own system.  I disabled all processes I knew I wasn’t using and I crippled Cortana/Search, Windows Defender (Msmpeng.exe) and “Touch Keyboard and Handwriting Panel Service”.

Why did I do this?  Because I did a deep analysis with Windows Performance Analyzer and saw that these processes were infiltrating my PC with way too many interrupts and that leads to bad DPC and ISR issues (I explain these issues more below).  I am happy with a 90% reduction in latency and my 8 year old laptop feels much faster as well.  I can now have 200 Google Chrome tabs open at once, run a vmware or virtualbox OS, and my sound software with 2 microphones, a midi keyboard, all with effects without any pops, clicks, or dropouts.  It just works.

Before I did the main things in this article, nothing worked or worked well at all.  It is not recommended to do all of this as my system was fine and worked better than I could have ever expected without these extra tweaks.  However, I got it working even better and made my system ultra fast because I was willing to do without these Windows 10 services/items and can put them back if I want to.  Again, it is not recommended or needed for the average user to do this.

It is recommended to further check the performance of your PC before continuing because it will give you great information on the state of your system.

Download and install LatencyMon and WhySoSlow … https://www.resplendence.com/downloads

Run WhySoSlow.  Let it run for one minute and then hit stop.

Run LatencyMon. Let it run for one minute and then hit stop.

If you have good results then you can continue. Otherwise, go this link … https://www.watchmanadvisors.com/how-to-speed-up-windows-10/

POSSIBLE SYSTEM TWEAKS TO INCREASE YOUR PERFORMANCE

You can try these steps below for further system responsiveness and speed.

Click the start button, type “regedit”, open regedit.  Navigate to this below…
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\MpsSvc

Change the start key on the right pane to “4” without the quotes.  This will disable an extra layer of security known to slow Windows down.
( I run a 3rd party Internet Security software that I can disable and reenable very easily so I don’t need this security running at all. )

Change the value of the “Start” key on the right to 4 as in the picture..

Open an administrator command prompt and run this command:
bcdedit /set disabledynamictick yes
If you have any issues or it doesn’t improve anything, run ..
bcdedit /set disabledynamictick no
.. to change it back.

Prior versions of Windows 10 seemed to have better latency performance than version 1903.  If you have Windows 10 version 1903, install this update…
Servicing stack update for Windows 10, Version 1903
https://www.catalog.update.microsoft.com/Search.aspx?q=KB4508433

It can make a huge difference in latency issues. It cut my latencies by two thirds.

UNDERSTANDING ISR AND DPC LATENCY

The main thing we are doing here is making the timing resolution and responsiveness much better.  Even if you have a powerful system, sound can be badly interrupted because it is sharing and integrated with video or other components it is synchronized with.  This makes sound somewhat inseparable from other events.

We have to be aware of two issues, ISR latency and DPC latency. ISR latency or interrupt service routine latency is the amount of time needed for a procedure to execute in the CPU and it is used by all of your different hardware like hdd’s, video card, sound card, USB, etc.  If an ISR routine cannot be executed promptly then the interrupt handler issues a DPC or deferred procedure call.  When a DPC routine is executed, it must complete and will make everything else wait.  DPC routines increase as the number of processes and running software increases.  As long as processes don’t take too long and are not too frequent, then your system is more responsive and fast.  Our aim is to minimize the number of ISR’s and DPC’s in the end.

THE MAIN EVENT –  SETTING UP YOUR ULTIMATE AUDIO SYSTEM

If you have a pc audio interface like the popular Focusrite or Behringer Uphoria units then you won’t use Asio4All (and it is better not to use Asio4All) , so skip to part B.  It is highly recommended to get a sound interface as it will always be superior to Asio4All.  I only ever use Asio4All as a bandaid for temporary use, although I do get good results with it most of the time.

USING ASIO4ALL?  Go to step A.)

NOT USING ASIO4ALL, USING YOUR EXTERNAL ASIO SOUND INTERFACE? Go to Step B.)

A.)

Download and install Asio4all … http://www.asio4all.org/
… and go with defaults for the install

or

B.)

You will use your ASIO driver from your physically connected audio interface so make sure it is installed and connected.

AUDIO SETUP WITH EXCELLENT PERFORMANCE

Download and install o deus asio link pro from this link …                                                                                                                               https://give.academy/downloads/2018/03/03/ODeusASIOLinkPro/

Download the user manual and review it when you have time.  Make a point to read through all of the sections in it. It is well written and clear.   It will give you the wisdom and clarity you need to do what you want on anything needed in the future.
https://web.archive.org/web/20180318082455/https://o-deus-audio.com.au/ASIOLinkPro

This software is pre-patched by the developer as they don’t sell it anymore.  If you wish, you can read more about it here …
https://discuss.cakewalk.com/index.php?/topic/3519-odeus-asio-link-now-available-free/

 

SETTINGS HELP:

Run O Deus Asio Link Pro.  You will see the configuration window to start with. Here is what it looks like …

 

[PIC – AsioLinkProConfigTool.png]

Look at the image above. Copy what you see there. You can change it later if you want for your needs.

 

Generally, these are the settings that will be fine for almost anybody …

ASIO Sample rate: 44100
ASIO buffer size: 256 samples
ASIO Channels: 4 IN, 4 OUT

 

 

Make sure you have “Allow ASIO Link Pro to get focus” unchecked as it can cause problems in frequently seen setups.
ASIO in to out makes this work without extra configuring for our beginning. It patches inputs to outputs automatically and is not necessarily needed.

Click “Initialize ASIO”
Click “START ASIO”

FOR Asio4All driver ONLY:
Asio4All should be in the bottom right corner, the system tray. Left click it and the main window will show up.
Click the wrench to access Advanced Options. Look for your sound card listed and left click the plus to reveal items under it.
Only enable the mic input and audio output like the pic below. Your device names will likely be different.
Your settings should look similar to the picture below.

 

[PIC -asio4allSettings.png]

 

Close Asio4All and reopen it. Make sure the settings look the same. There is a bug in it that sometimes doesn’t take settings right away. It always seems to take the second time if it didn’t the first time.

Close the Asio4All window and click on the O Deus icon in the system tray like in the pic below …

 

[PIC – oDeusAsioSystemTray.png]

 

Review the screen below and draw the green, red, and yellow lines by left clicking and dragging them so your setup looks the same. It will be explained below.

 

[PIC – asioLinkTool.png]

 

Once your sound appears to be working, hit the save button on profile 1.

If you decide to do multi-client or use other asio programs, then you need to set up O Deus Asio Link Pro for that as well.  This is the case where reading the manual and reviewing the explanation below can help you get the intuition and wisdom to set things up to your fancy.

Great!  Your sound should be working under an asio low latency path and you should notice less lag and more options with your sound needs, like live monitoring and effects (including compressors, limiters, EQ, etc) of your microphone, windows sounds, or other software you specifically route in your system.

In order to do these things you need a Digital Audio Workstation (or DAW) software like Reaper, FL Studio, Pro Tools, etc.  You will set the audio driver in the DAW to “Asio Link Pro” and once you get good at routing, your output can be easily set up – as O Deus Asio Link Pro will open a separate window for you to configure your DAW.  You will see the name of your DAW on the O Deus Asio Link Pro window.  When you accomplish your sound routing in this second window, change your profile to profile 2 and click save so it remembers these settings.  Now, your main windows routing will be in profile 1 and your DAW routing will be saved in profile 2.

EXPLANATION OF O DEUS ASIO LINK PRO PROGRAM – MAIN WINDOW:
Please refer to the picture below for as complete of an explanation as can be made here.

[pic – asioLinkToolEXPLAINED.png]

ROW 1. RED
Capturing the windows desktop sound of your system.  So a song playing from a CD, A YouTube video, and any other desktop sounds come to this node.  It is taking the WDM driver audio from windows and converting it over to ASIO.

ROW 2. YELLOW
ASIO input for your sound interface like mics, keyboard, guitar, aux input.  This is raw unprocessed inputs to your device.  It is not routed anywhere until you route it.

ROW 3.  GREEN
Sound interface ASIO input that connects to the DAW.  If no DAW is used, it connects straight through to ROW 4 (ie, ROW 3 = ROW4 if no software takes ROW 3 as input).

ROW 4. BLUE
Sound interface ASIO output or the signal on the output of the interface after it has processed the sound.  If ROW 4 is not connected it is like wires hanging  out of the back of the stereo but not connected to any speakers.

FOW 5. PURPLE
Physical speaker outputs for your computer.  In this setup it is broken up into 4 partitions.  Only one of the four can be active at one time and it is numbered 1 through 8 to process 7.1 surround 8 channel audio.  You can mix it down to 2 channel stereo by only connecting the first two outputs like I did.  ASIO Host In Mix or ASIO Driver Out Mix must be connected to it in some way or there won’t be any sound output.

Developing an entrepreneurial mindset can be a tough road. It can feel as if some days everything is working against you if only you could avoid burnout as a newbie. 

You can call it “Murphy’s law” where anything that can go wrong will, the computer on the fritz, orders are wrong, customers are upset and all you want to do is walk away to escape the gray ocean waves of chaos as you ask yourself  “what was I thinking…. why did I start a business anyway”?

Don’t feel beaten, think of it as “growing pains” of a business and stay focus on your why.

This was my reason “why”, and I am sure you too could relate to this experience in some way:
You’re in the office sipping on your morning’s well deserved Caramel Macchiato… floating in its scrumdiddlyumptious relaxing aroma while scrolling through your emails when one catches your attention with a subject line of “Mandatory Company Wide Meeting”.

Moving from Employee to Business Mindset

The rumors have been going around for weeks…

You kind of already know what to expect.  You’re weary of the excuses your employer has given about the company’s struggles:

• There won’t be a yearly bonus.
• This year the raises are currently frozen.
• They’ve implemented a hiring freeze.
• There will be some layoffs.

Now you’re being told to do more with less meanwhile, the cost of living is increasing, yet all they keep telling you on the news, our economy is strong… what is this alternative facts 2.0?

Because You Realize, the Business Mindset Provides More Freedom!

Business owners have financial freedom and financial stability that creates opportunities for continued growth.  This is the lifestyle you imagine for yourself with endless benefits.
You searched the internet and did your research, brainstorming, gathering ideas you would like to do.  You’re really feeling passionate about dropshipping as an online business.  You are blown away with the flexibility it offers.

Dropshipping can allow you to work from home to be with your family or provide you the ability to work from anywhere you have a wifi connection to the internet.

You don’t have to worry about inventory storage, shipping boxes all over the place, no packing… it doesn’t get any better than this.

You look into getting a business banking account, an EIN number, wondering if you should form as an LLC, Corporation, or Sole Proprietor… you are super excited about this new journey taking place in your life.

Welcome to your “WHY” you became an Entrepreneur.

But There Are Hidden Complexities to Being a Business Owner

Fellow business owner, you’ve launched your business but had no idea of the kick-butt, knockout punches, and struggles awaiting ahead of you. Nope… very few people talk about the ugly, and instead, they make start-ups appear as if you’ve landed in nirvana.

Attempting to map your way through everyday responsibilities of workflows.  Fighting to do your business bookkeeping…. product sourcing, and taking on the learning curves of eCommerce.

With longer hours and almost no days off this seems to be a bewildering game of  “Tug of War” in time management.

These are the hidden complexities of becoming a Mogul, but the rewards are worth it when you have the entrepreneurial mindset!

Here is a quote from a well known serial entrepreneur I found to be useful and keep posted over my computer monitor for those challenging days.
I know you will find it helpful too… go ahead (I’ll wait for you here) grab a pen and copy it down on a post-it-note, look at it when you need a little motivation.

As an entrepreneur, you never stop learning. ~ Daymond John

How Are Entrepreneurs Different From The General Workforce?

It’s all in your thinking process when you’re a business owner.

The frame of mind you must hold as an entrepreneur is to adopt the eagerness to learn, and the wisdom to delegate tasks you’re not good with.

Don’t feel ashamed or think you are being lazy because you want to outsource certain tasks.  The facts are… by you spending your time taking on projects, you could have assigned to someone else, will cut into your profits.  It’s better and more cost effective to delegate it.

Another train of thought is to know the moment to show humility when communicating with your customers or clients, and have a superhero ability to be a problem solver.

As a business person building relationships is a fundamental balancing act… a huge difference than being an employee… if you don’t like your job, you can walk away and look for another one.

At the very core of achieving great success as a business owner is your mindset. But what exactly must you do to train your mind for great accomplishments and at the same time avoid burnout?

Here are 3 time-tested entrepreneurial mindset principles I use all the time to stay on the path of success:

3 Things You Can Do Develop a Prosperous Entrepreneurial Mindset

1 – Entrepreneurial Mindset of Visualizing

 

Can you still remember how you used to dream about starting your own business?

When you quietly kept your secret Pinterest board with a collection of pictures of home office spaces, color schemes, and the ideas about buying second hand furniture and refinishing your trash to treasure finds.

Fantasizing about how you would paint your “treasured” desk in the color combo of “Fluff and Gravel Road” with an ombre effect using chalk paint.

You were hysterically thrilled visualizing yourself sitting at this desk scheduling virtual meetings, and creating auto-response emails… nearly jumping out of your skin because you were so excited and couldn’t wait to showcase your new business email address.

You went from an employee mindset to taking on a defined thought process of an entrepreneur, kudos!

Oh,  wait there is one thing you may have forgotten during the transformation of a business owner “visualizing” let’s not forget being able to dream is what got you here.

Allow tapping into your inner child and start daydreaming again with intent.

Start thinking of that once in a lifetime dream vacation, begin a collection of 1950’s period hot rods, or maybe your goal is to be on the front cover of Entrepreneurial Magazine.

Whatever your passion is you must see yourself in the center of it.

There are other things you can do to expand on this by taking action and create a scheduling plan in getting there by doing some of the following:

• Find a quiet room/create a safe space for yourself and put yourself in an adult time-out to exercise seeing your vision board.
• Do daily meditation so you can focus on seeing your future goals.
• You can continuously be studying.
• You can be networking.
• Use tools/Apps to force your mind to visualize your day.

Here Are the Top 5 Time Management Apps to Boost Your Workday:

RescueTime – What is Rescue Time? Is a powerful time management tool that stops you from getting distracted.

• You can set-up your time blocks for different projects and websites.
• Track how long you spend reading or writing your emails.
• Now you can know if spending time attending every meeting is productive.
• Get alerts when you’re spending too much time on a task.
• Highlight your daily goals achieved.

Monday.com – What is Monday.com?  It’s a Project Management App that can accommodate a team of 2 – 200+ users, mind-blowing isn’t it.

• You get file storage, activity logs by a person, client, project, status, and timelines, and embedded forms.
• Works with iOS and Android and much, much more…. customize your templates, who says working can’t be exciting in a good way!

Focus Booster – What is Focus Booster?   It’s one of the best online time trackers using the Pomodoro technique.

• Give this APP a try the next time you are struggling with focusing on meeting a  deadline… and see how breaking up your time in 15, 25, or 90 minutes workable segments can boost your productivity to the next level.
• Run a productivity report…  and learn how much you are improving in your time management skills.
• Hitting your projected deadlines are now simple to do with Pomodoro timer.

Evernote – What is Evernote?  A must have APP that can capture your business life as if it was your digital brain from any mobile device.  Getting your documents is now a snap… they can be PDFs, handwritten notes, web clippings, your-to-to-list, pictures and much more.  Searching for everything in one easy place on any device is a business owner’s digital bestie.

ClickUp – This has got to be my favorite Project Management tool and I know it can support you with working smarter, not harder.  By adding this APP to your browser you can do the following in one step:

• It allows you to collaborate with teams, share reports, create goals.
• Use their layout checklist templates or create your own.
• Get more done when you add the APP to your Google Chrome Browser, no more working out of multiple windows.
• Attach an email to projects.
• Need to track your time when corresponding with clients, hit the “stop clock” to start and end the record time.
• Create your own alerts for deadlines and never miss a single step.

Don’t Be a Control Freak Trying to Do Everything Yourself

• You can embrace the idea of adding on a small team.
• You can map out standard operating procedures to help with the daily operations so the business can run seamlessly, created touchpoints for team members for everyone to be on the same page.
• Breathe a deep sigh of relief then let it go… things are under control because you got this winning attitude!

Can you see what you have accomplished, now recognize your worth!

2 – Entrepreneurial Mindset of Emotionalizing

Tap into your heartfelt wants and feelings of why you started your business to keep you motivated.

• Keep something close by at all times you can touch as a reminder of your intention… it could be a picture of a loved one, a favorite vacation spot or that dream home with a boat dock and panoramic mountain views faintly off in the distance.
•  It is ever so important to keep focused and to renew your thoughts, set your goals and reach for:

1. 1. Your business milestones.
   2. The joy and freedom to take care of your family as you always hoped.
   3. To enrich the lives of your loved ones and to be able to travel the world with purpose.
   4. The driving force and the feeling you get when you are able to see the results of your hard work and sacrifices.

3 – Entrepreneurial Mindset of Learning

When you became that hustler, it was understood you’d traded in your days doing the Monday – Friday grind of a 9 to 5.  But the temptation of weekends off, working only 35 – 40 hours is calling, you’re feeling at your whits end.

 

There are only 2 questions you have to ask yourself…

1. Will you continue to have the determination for sacrifice?
2. Can you walk away from those spontaneous events with friends and family?

Remember to Stay Focused on Your “WHY”!

As a business operator constantly learning is part of doing business. There will be hick-ups here and there but the rewards of having your own business far outweighs the other option of working for someone else.
Learn new things in bite sized portions at your own pace…

• Take a one day class.
• Sign-up for an online workshop.
• Get yourself a Mentor who is a mastermind in dropshipping that understands the worries of first-time business operators.
• Read books related to your business and what skills you would like to learn.
• Spend an hour daily planting seeds of knowledge, as long as you are doing the work to learn there is no wrong way of growing as an entrepreneur.

Being a Go-Getter Allows You to Be the Architect of Your Life and You Hold the Blueprints

Summary

As in our title “3 Elements About the Entrepreneurial Mindset, You Need to Knock Out Burnout as a Newbie”

Element number  1 The quote “As an entrepreneur, you never stop learning. Daymond John. ” Each day of being a business person is a learning experience when you feel something is going wrong, just pause for a moment and reassess the situation, any mistake can be corrected as long as you remain calm, and allow the occurrence to become a learning lesson.

Element number  2 Outsourcing isn’t a nasty work, have you ever met a successful business owner who was burning both sides of the candlestick, I haven’t.  Do you know why? Because those who feel they can do it all by themselves are just chasing their tails going nowhere fast.

• They’re missing out on opportunities for growth.
• Building relationships.
• Not partnering with experts who can take their business to the next level.
• Overwhelmed, tired and frustrated.
• What’s worse is they’re wobbling in underperformance.

Element number  3 Did you know emotions can power motivation?

When you’re hitting those targeted benchmarks it gives you a stronger desire and a want to reach higher.  You feel empowered, you walk in authenticity which people notice. You’re going to draw better opportunities for you and your business.

Bonus tip The “Mindset” of a newbie entrepreneur is like an underdeveloped muscle.

• You need to exercise it with tenacity.
• Don’t be stingy in feeding yourself knowledge continuously to enhance your business.
• Shed the wardrobe of a wage-earner and dress yourself as an owner of a business… accessorize yourself in a committed mind, discipline, compassion, and fairness.
• Sometimes you need a great mentor who believes in your purpose, such as Trent to help you develop what is an entrepreneurial mindset.
• Finally, keep it legal and don’t become morally bankrupt.

It is our wish, you were able to come away with good information from this post as a newbie business owner, and if you still have questions about something, no problem you can schedule a friendly chat by clicking on “chat with Trent“.