I recently had to do a clean install of Windows, so I’m going back through and installing drivers. My interface is not making sound at all, even though it was working just fine right before the fresh windows install.
Here’s what the mixcontrol looks like. I’ve messed with all those sliders and routing settings. I can clearly see that the Focusrite is getting signal when I play my Summit, the green lights flash up. I have my headphones plugged in and I’m not getting any sound there, either. Windows is recognizing the interface no problem, and I have the little focusrite notifier thing going too.
It seems that maybe, maybe the recent driver bricked my focusrite.
There apparently was an update June 2022, which is this one I got. Before that I was running old software. I tried reinstalling this driver but still have the same issues. I’ve of course reset my computer, the interface, everything. Installed the drivers with the interface turned off.
Does anyone have any ideas of what to do? I tried searching around for old drivers and can’t find them the internet nor on focusrite’s website.
I also tried the reset to factory defaults option from the mixcontrol and it just tells me it can’t do it.
it looks like everything in MixControl got reset after the update. All your Line Outputs are off. They need to be routed to something, and if I remember correctly, there should be a submenu of “DAW” output channels to choose from. Same with your Monitor Outputs. If you had saved any MixControl configurations, you can load them, there may also be some preset files that come with MixControl that you can use to get it started, otherwise, it looks like everything needs to be put in place by hand.
when i test the sound nothing happens i know this is some weird setting i changed before, where browsers/windows sound didn’t agree with my interface’s bitrate or something. but i can’t seem to figure it out right now.
Hmm, if I remember correctly, in the volume icon in the taskbar you can also easily select the device. That’s what I always did whenever things got screwy.
The focusrite is already selected. For some reason I have two options. One says 7 and the other says 6. I get home much later today so I can’t take screenshots now but idk why there are two and why they’re such weird numbers.
Have you gone into Windows’ sound settings and made sure the Focusrite is the default sound device? I had to actually disable my computer’s default speakers if I remember correctly.
Yeah I disabled everything but the focusrite and windows said it was set to default. I also did all those steps above where I make sure it’s not conflicting with windows settings. I’ll double check all this later. I haven’t had a chance to try it with a daw yet and will try that tomorrow. Fingers crossed that I at least get sound coming out of my daw.
Also novation’s support is really helpful. They helped me figure it out last time so worst case scenario I’ll give them a call tomorrow.
i contacted focusrite support and through much time chatting and discussing the problem, it came to my attention that windows didn’t even recognize scarlett mixcontrol as an installed app. i would go to uninstall the program, windows would take me to “programs and features” and it wouldn’t even be listed. windows and mixcontrol were not cooperating, and my 18i20 was caught in the middle of their nonsense. hence why i couldn’t restore factory default settings.
so i convinced the guy in the chat to send me an old driver since my scarlett was working fine on old drivers, and i got mixcontrol 1.8. this installed mixcontrol on my computer, and now windows actually recognized it as a program. but now mixcontrol didn’t recognize my interface.
so then i uninstalled mixcontrol and the driver that came with it, reinstalled the NEW drivers and mix control, and i was able to finally reset my factory settings and everything is fine now.
tldr: honestly fuck computers. i hate computers.
well it’s not working with either Studio One or with Dorico Pro 4. So screw it. I’m done with this machine. It’s old anyway. Just bought a little presonus USB interface just so I can actually get some work done.
This issue seems to be prevalent with the latest Focusrite drivers after reinstalling Windows. My 18i20 1st gen all of a sudden stopped outputting sound, but would still record inputs fine. After much trial and error, I was able to resolve this by uninstalling the latest drivers (following instructions from this doc) and downloading/installing “Scarlett Mix Control 1.10 - Windows” that comes with driver version 4.65.5.658 from the Focusrite site. What a nightmare!
i’ve been running a presonus audiobox USB96 since this post and have had zero issues. works like a charm, especially with studio one and dorico pro 4. i don’t need tons of inputs these days anyway.
Thank you very much. I was getting crazy with this, and thanks to you, I just solved it.
Note: I’ll nver buy any focusrite product again. This driver thing is all over the internet, for years now and they have done nothing to solve it.
Not to speak about their Headphones out put levels, super low, even for a relatively expansive interface like 18i20. When I wrote to them about that, they told me that this is to protect people from distortion … wtf?? They think we are all newbies and they can use this argument …
Anyways, thank you very much to all here for sharing your knowledge and experience.
Thanks for the help!
i know this is some weird setting i changed before, where browsers/windows sound didn’t agree with my interface’s bitrate or something. but i can’t seem to figure it out right now.
