ODeus ASIO Link now available free

[msmcleod]

I'm not sure if people are aware of this being available again... I've only just become aware of it myself.

@cclarry mentioned the product on the old forum back in 2015: http://forum.cakewalk.com/O-Deus-Audio-releases-ASIO-Link-Pro-v24-m3283843.aspx, however when I tried to purchase it about a year ago, I found that I couldn't because the original developer had sadly passed away... and now the original website has gone.

"This ASIO driver extends your audio interface ASIO driver and adds windows audio with no additional latency. It also allows you to use your ASIO driver from more than one application with the inbuilt multi-client support, and you can even send ASIO audio over the network.

The driver is great value for money for people who need to monitor or record from windows audio or just want to jam with their favourite tunes.

Features:

• Extremely high performance for Pro Audio apps.
• Zero added ASIO latency.
• 64 IN + 64 OUT virtual ASIO channels.
• 32 IN + 32 OUT WDM audio channels.
• 16 IN + 16 OUT network audio channels.
• Multi-client mode means ASIO for up to 25 apps.
• Works without internal WDM or ASIO audio resampling.
• Record lossless 8 channel audio to FLAC file.
• Supports Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8, 8.1 and 10.
• Route audio to/from WDM/MME/DirectSound/WASAPI and LAN/NET."

This effectively allows you to use more than one ASIO interface at the same time in CbB (even ones on an external networked PC), allowing up to 64 input/output channels.  At the moment I've no idea how this affects latency, but I guess if it's lots of inputs you need then it's likely it's a whole band you're recording and this will be less of a concern. I can also see it being really useful for making tutorial videos.

The good news is, it now looks like the developer's nephew has authorised it to be released for free with a patch to remove the registration/authorisation:

https://give.academy/posts/2018/03/02/AsioLinkPro/

You can download it here:

https://give.academy/downloads/2018/03/03/ODeusASIOLinkPro/

 

[msmcleod]

I've given this a quick test...

The great news is that it is indeed latency free. The CPU usage is increased only very slightly, but my projects play exactly as before and are still happily working with a buffer of 64 (1.5ms). I didn't try recording, but playing a piano VSTi through it showed absolutely no change in latency.

The bad news is that you can only select one "real" ASIO interface, so additional interfaces have to be selected as WDM and routed to the ASIOLink ASIO driver like ASIO4ALL does. I've not worked out how to select WASAPI instead yet, but it does claim to support it. It's not really a big deal though for recording whole bands, and it does mean you don't need to swap drivers/modes all the time. And unlike ASIO4ALL, you can save & recall your routing configurations.

What I've not tried yet is using other interfaces with ASIO on another PC and using the network interface. I'm only set up for WiFi in my studio at the moment, so I don't think that would be a fair test.

If/when I get the chance to try it out, I'll post my findings...

[Mesh]

Not sure if this will be a solution for me, but using my Focusrite 2i4 (1st gen) is giving me constant drop outs (on playback/tracking) and everso-slight latency (which drives me nuts) using my amp sims. Will read a bit more on ODeus and see if this will solve my issue. Appreciate you posting this Mark.

Cheers!!

 

[msmcleod]

So it looks like there is a way to get ASIOLink to combine more than one ASIO interface into one:

• Open one instance of ASIOLink, and set the ASIO driver to be your second ASIO interface, setting the output to Network (just use the local network IP) & enable network. 
• Open a second instance of ASIOLink, set the ASIO driver to be your primary ASIO interface, set the output to ASIOLink's ASIO driver and enable network input using your local network IP.

Observations:

• You'll still need to ensure that both interfaces are word-clock sync'd, either via ADAT / SPDIF, or a standard BNC wordclock cable. 
• There is a slight increase in latency in the interface going over the internal network, hence the reason why I say make second ASIO interface you have over the network. 
• To get your latency back to normal, just disable the network input on the ASIOLink instance when you're not using your second interface.
• You're limited to 16 audio tracks over the network, so bear this in mind when choosing your primary/secondary interfaces.  For me, this means sacrificing 16 of my mLAN inputs.
• You might find that using the WDM drivers on the 2nd interface gives better latency than using the network (and the setup is much simpler, because you're only using one ASIOLink instance).

[Simeon Amburgey]

I have recently discovered this  and thanks @msmcleod for sharing the information.
It is such a shame that we lost a great developer but thankfully the y were able to come up with this wonderful solution to make ASIOLink available again.

My experience over the past few days has been amazing, ASIOLink has been running very solid and stable and I look forward to learning more about how to integrate it into my webcasts, tutorials, etc.. I am not finding any type of manual or instructions so I have just been bumping around looking for other resources to help understand the capabilities. I even ran across a video (5 hours long) that was very interesting (no I did not watch the entire 5 hours).

Thanks for any additional insight on how to use ASIOLink Pro.

[slartabartfast]

Is there a manual or how-to somewhere for this?

[Simeon Amburgey]

11 minutes ago, slartabartfast said:

Is there a manual or how-to somewhere for this?

I am still trying to find one as well. 

[Mesh]

I hope Mark won't mind me posting this, but it really helped me.

 

[Simeon Amburgey]

I had an idea to try using the Wayback Machine internet Archive to see what I could find and BEHOLD:

ASIO Link Pro Website via The Wayback Machine

There is a PDF manual you can download as well as some other info about this really amazing and useful ASIO driver.

 

Edited September 7, 2019 by Simeon Amburgey

[Carlos]

Can you use these drivers so the interface is a general/global audio player, and if you open your DAW it won't hesitate to NOT keep audio to itself,
then quitting your DAW, and not hesitating to "release" the asio drivers: in other words, as long as you have your global/general audio Windows 10 settings
the same as your projects (let's say 44 khz) if you open your DAW or close it while watching youtube audio doesn't crack or anything, is just one big audio environment?

I have a TASCAM 16x08 and those guys took forever to nail the drivers but they are 99% there, but if these drivers worked 100% great, then... awesome... thanks.

[Simeon Amburgey]

32 minutes ago, Carlos said:

Can you use these drivers so the interface is a general/global audio player, and if you open your DAW it won't hesitate to NOT keep audio to itself,
then quitting your DAW, and not hesitating to "release" the asio drivers: in other words, as long as you have your global/general audio Windows 10 settings
the same as your projects (let's say 44 khz) if you open your DAW or close it while watching youtube audio doesn't crack or anything, is just one big audio environment?

I have a TASCAM 16x08 and those guys took forever to nail the drivers but they are 99% there, but if these drivers worked 100% great, then... awesome... thanks.

@Carlos, I am just learning how to use this driver myself so I am not sure how it would work in your situation. What I am discovering is their stability and performance not only in Cakewalk but other audio recording and capturing apps as well. 

The best thing to do is download and try it for yourself.  Having the PDF manual available through the link I shared above will also help. You can always rollback to your previous driver if you find that it’s not working for you. There is a little learning curve (which I am discovering) but once you start to understand how the patching system works there seems to be an amazing depth of how you can use this to communicate between several audio apps at the same time and even work with audio between interfaces and other computers through using networked audio transfer.

It would be very interesting if someone was able to pick up the torch and continue developing this (with the author family’s approval of course) as it is a very well coded piece of software that as I mentioned earlier seems to have exceptional stability and performance.

Joyfully,

[slartabartfast]

18 hours ago, Simeon Amburgey said:

I had an idea to try using the Wayback Machine internet Archive to see what I could find and BEHOLD:

ASIO Link Pro Website via The Wayback Machine

There is a PDF manual you can download as well as some other info about this really amazing and useful ASIO driver.

 

Excellent. Thank you, Simeon.

[Simeon Amburgey]

I found that if you "RIGHT CLICKED" on the Title BAR that you could in fact MINIMIZE the interface to the tool tray area.
It comes in handy when you want to get the GUI out of the way for a little bit.

[Cymbeline]

I happily installed this software to solve a specific problem with my UAD Apollo interface. I then shared what i did on the Apollo forum thinking i could help other people.

But then someone there explained that the file is malicious and does all kinds of things it shouldn't be doing.

Did anybody here have any issues with it after installing it or anything to share about it?

Thanks.

 

Quote

Well, thats a very suspicious file. I wouldn't open it.

Registry Keys Opened
\Registry\Machine\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Image File Execution Options\996E.exe
\Registry\MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control \SafeBoot\Option
\Registry\Machine\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Wind ows\Safer\CodeIdentifiers
\REGISTRY\MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Wind ows\Safer\CodeIdentifiers\TransparentEnabled
\REGISTRY\USER\S-1-5-21-1482476501-1645522239-1417001333-500\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Safer\Code Identifiers
\REGISTRY\MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Image File Execution Options\996E.exe\RpcThreadPoolThrottle
\REGISTRY\MACHINE\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Wind ows NT\Rpc

Remote Access
Reads terminal service related keys

MITRE ATT&CK™ Techniques Detection
This report has 3 indicators that were mapped to 4 attack techniques and 4 tactics.

Defense Evasion, Privilege Escalation

Also activates Remote Desktop Protocol and more suspicious stuff... Why?

 

And

 

Quote

The software seems to be binded with some sort of malicious software, indeed. FUD Crypter's are used to fool Anti-virus scans, therefore called FULL UNDETECTED Crypter's. You can reverse engineere some of it, and you'll see the things i've posted. It shouldn't activate remote desktop and other things, just like backdoors/trojans does.

>
Installation/Persistance
Monitors specific registry key for changes
Remote Access Related
Reads terminal service related keys (often RDP related)
Unusual Characteristics
Imports suspicious APIs
Installs hooks/patches the running process
Hiding 2 Suspicious Indicators
<
Anti-Reverse Engineering
PE file contains zero-size sections
Installation/Persistance
Touches files in the Windows directory

I'm sure the "original" installer is clean, but this copy doesn't seem to be.

 

Edited December 28, 2019 by Cymbeline

[Simeon Amburgey]

2 hours ago, Cymbeline said:

I happily installed this software to solve a specific problem with my UAD Apollo interface. I then shared what i did on the Apollo forum thinking i could help other people.

But then someone there explained that the file is malicious and does all kinds of things it shouldn't be doing.

Did anybody here have any issues with it after installing it or anything to share about it?

Thanks

I was not aware this was an issue and I have not experienced anything crazy but will check it out. The only thing I could think of is where you might have originally downloaded your version.  @msmcleod, any thoughts on this?

[Cymbeline]

11 hours ago, Simeon Amburgey said:

I was not aware this was an issue and I have not experienced anything crazy but will check it out. The only thing I could think of is where you might have originally downloaded your version.  @msmcleod, any thoughts on this?

Thanks for the answer. I downloaded it from the link above in this thread.

 

[msmcleod]

While I can't say for sure that this isn't infected somehow, I strongly suspect this is a false positive.

The ASIOLink has to use RPC to bridge ASIO calls between processes (FWIW BitBridge & JBridge do a similar thing). It also uses network calls for the ASIO over network functionality. It may be that the developer decided to use the RDP protocol to enable RPC calls over the network, which would save him having to roll his own solution.

The zero sized sections within the PE is most likely the result of removing the copy protection.

I can't see anything in the list of suspicious characteristics that can't be explained by the nature of what ASIOLink does, but someone would have to monitor network activity closely to be absolutely sure (i.e. check if any remote sites are being contacted or if there's any unexplained incoming traffic).

[Cymbeline]

6 hours ago, msmcleod said:

While I can't say for sure that this isn't infected somehow, I strongly suspect this is a false positive.

The ASIOLink has to use RPC to bridge ASIO calls between processes (FWIW BitBridge & JBridge do a similar thing). It also uses network calls for the ASIO over network functionality. It may be that the developer decided to use the RDP protocol to enable RPC calls over the network, which would save him having to roll his own solution.

The zero sized sections within the PE is most likely the result of removing the copy protection.

I can't see anything in the list of suspicious characteristics that can't be explained by the nature of what ASIOLink does, but someone would have to monitor network activity closely to be absolutely sure (i.e. check if any remote sites are being contacted or if there's any unexplained incoming traffic).

Thank you for explaining. I'm with you and highly doubt it's malicious.

[Armando Silva]

On 5/5/2019 at 5:32 AM, msmcleod said:

I'm not sure if people are aware of this being available again... I've only just become aware of it myself.

@cclarry mentioned the product on the old forum back in 2015: http://forum.cakewalk.com/O-Deus-Audio-releases-ASIO-Link-Pro-v24-m3283843.aspx, however when I tried to purchase it about a year ago, I found that I couldn't because the original developer had sadly passed away... and now the original website has gone.

"This ASIO driver extends your audio interface ASIO driver and adds windows audio with no additional latency. It also allows you to use your ASIO driver from more than one application with the inbuilt multi-client support, and you can even send ASIO audio over the network.

The driver is great value for money for people who need to monitor or record from windows audio or just want to jam with their favourite tunes.

Features:

• Extremely high performance for Pro Audio apps.
• Zero added ASIO latency.
• 64 IN + 64 OUT virtual ASIO channels.
• 32 IN + 32 OUT WDM audio channels.
• 16 IN + 16 OUT network audio channels.
• Multi-client mode means ASIO for up to 25 apps.
• Works without internal WDM or ASIO audio resampling.
• Record lossless 8 channel audio to FLAC file.
• Supports Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8, 8.1 and 10.
• Route audio to/from WDM/MME/DirectSound/WASAPI and LAN/NET."

This effectively allows you to use more than one ASIO interface at the same time in CbB (even ones on an external networked PC), allowing up to 64 input/output channels.  At the moment I've no idea how this affects latency, but I guess if it's lots of inputs you need then it's likely it's a whole band you're recording and this will be less of a concern. I can also see it being really useful for making tutorial videos.

The good news is, it now looks like the developer's nephew has authorised it to be released for free with a patch to remove the registration/authorisation:

https://give.academy/posts/2018/03/02/AsioLinkPro/

You can download it here:

https://give.academy/downloads/2018/03/03/ODeusASIOLinkPro/

 

Already did probe it, and its amazing bro…thanks a lot…this its realy awesom…great job!

[RSMcGuitar]

On 5/6/2019 at 9:35 AM, Mesh said:

Not sure if this will be a solution for me, but using my Focusrite 2i4 (1st gen) is giving me constant drop outs (on playback/tracking) and everso-slight latency (which drives me nuts) using my amp sims. Will read a bit more on ODeus and see if this will solve my issue. Appreciate you posting this Mark.

Cheers!!

 

I'm using a first gen Scarlett as well. It seems to be getting worse lately... I hate how hard it is to verify. Is it software, drivers, DAW, OS? Who knows .. lol