Elgato Wave:3 Microphone Review

Wave Link Software

While the Wave:3 can certainly function as a USB microphone without any additional software, Elgato has paired up this microphone with a software application they are calling “Wave Link”. Wave Link can be thought of as a “digital mixer”, in that you are able to mix and route various audio sources – not just the Wave:3 – in order to customize your audio output just to your liking for your streaming and content creation needs. By offering up to eight audio input channels, you can bring in your Wave:3 audio, voice chat, game audio, music, and more. You can then adjust each source’s volume and decide whether or not you want to pass it on to your stream via the Stream Mix, or keep it isolated to your ears alone via the Monitor Mix.

While this may sound complex, and it can be, Wave Link is laid out intuitively, and adding and adjusting audio channels and sources is quite easy.

Elgato Wave:3

The INPUTS section of Wave Link is initially configured with five inputs – Wave:3, System, Music, Browser, and Voice Chat. Wave:3 is pretty obvious, as this is the input of the actual microphone itself. The remaining default inputs can each be configured for various application interaction. For example, Music can be tied to Spotify or another music application to give you control over the volume of said application on each output channel. So if you wanted to have music playing in your stream, but didn’t want to hear it yourself, you could simply mute or lower the volume of the music in your Monitor Mix and leave it up for the Stream Mix. In addition to the five default audio inputs, you can also add SFX, Game, Aux1, and Aux2, as well as any other audio input that is listed, such as webcam microphones, RTX Voice, etc.

Elgato Wave:3

Each input allows you to adjust the volume being presented to each of the outputs independently, but you can also link them together for quick control over both output volumes. You can also click the Monitor Mix or Stream Mix icon beneath each volume slider in order to quickly mute that audio input, respectively. There is also a nice stereo audio visualizer towards the top of each input channel which shows the levels of audio on the left and right channels, and can provide a visual indicator of audio input sources that may be a bit loud.

In order to direct external applications to Wave Link, Elgato has included a handy button for accessing the Windows 10 sound settings window. This allows you to adjust the output and input of these applications to whichever output you would like. For example, we have Spotify set up to use the “Wave Link Music (Elgato Wave:3)” output. This allows Windows to route the output from Spotify to the Music input in Wave Link. The same thing can be done with Discord by routing that audio over to the Voice Chat input in Wave Link. One thing to keep in mind is that if you are switching games in your stream, you will need to update the Game input in Wave Link to the proper application when you switch over, otherwise you will not have control of your new game’s audio within Wave Link.

Elgato Wave:3

Elgato Wave:3

Regarding the Outputs, Monitor Mix and Stream Mix, each acts as a “Master” output, giving you control over the volume of each output individually. The Monitor Mix output has a simple drop down menu next to it, allowing you to choose where you would like to route your audio for monitoring purposes. For our uses, we route this output to either our speakers or headset, as we want to be able to hear our music, voice chat, and game audio while streaming. Additionally, we lower the volume of the Wave:3 microphone input on the Monitor Mix input so that we have a slight bit of sidetone to provide a slight bit of audio from our microphone to hear ourselves. The Stream Mix output drop down menu provides a bit of information regarding selecting “Wave Link (Stream)” as the audio source in your streaming software of choice. Also found in the Outputs section of Wave Link are two small ear icons that allow you to switch back and forth between which output you are listening to. This is helpful for making sure what you are hearing in your Monitor Mix is correct, and the same for the Stream Mix. This can be even more handy when you start having different volume levels for each input on different outputs, or only routing certain inputs to one output or another.

As you would expect, the Wave:3 and Wave Link team up quite nicely with the Elgato Stream Deck. With all of these components, you can gain quick access to volume control, muting, and more for audio input and output channels. This allows you to simply hit a button to make adjustments, as opposed to tabbing out of your game to make on-the-fly audio adjustments.

Also, it is worth noting that Wave Link does require the Wave:3 to be connected to your PC in order to launch. So while you can use additional microphones with Wave Link via one of the audio input channels, you can’t use the application without the Wave:3.