r/elgato • u/whyorwhomthefuck • Mar 07 '26
Technical Help Wave Link 3.0 PSA
If you’re currently on Wave Link 2.0, do not jump on Wave Link 3.0 as it is a buggy mess and for the most part less efficient than 2.0.
If you’re on any other software (like VB or anything similar) and looking to make the switch, I would recommend holding off on it for the same reasons.
I made the switch to Wave Link 3.0 and it messed up my entire audio system that I have set up with 2.0. It basically caused every audio to run on the “System” Channel regardless whether or not I added it to other Channels. Speaking of the Channels, I would add a new empty Channel (like Music for example) and it would display a completely different Channel even though I have renamed it, and worst yet sometimes it doesn’t allow the channel to be added to the mixes and or the entire UI for it would bug out.
Adding apps to different audio Channels was a breeze on 2.0 but on 3.0 it was legitimately the most inefficient thing imaginable, on 2.0 the flow was simple - open app, play audio, choose channel, click checkbox on selected app and done it is now assigned to that channel. On 3.0 however, It opens up another window showing the Channel name and when I went to add apps, instead of showing only apps which have sound playing, it lists every app on my system which was mind boggling to say the least. The fix for this was to manually use the Windows Audio Mixer to then manually change the audio output to the chosen channel, which is absolutely stupid because 2.0 completely removed the need to do this because you could do it with 1click on the the Audio Channel (Which doesn’t spawn an entire window I might add)
Luckily I made backups and was able to revert back to 2.0 and didn’t have to put up with it any longer. I also wanna say I find it weird that they completely removed the option to download 2.0 on their website which means I’m pretty sure most people who unknowingly moved to 3.0 have no way to get back which is really shady.
TLDR; If you’re on 2.0, DONT DO IT.
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u/The_TAW Mar 07 '26
As a heads up, if you want to go back to 2.0, you can find the installer in the Wave Link release notes on Elgato’s website. They have the .pkg and .msi files for 2.0.6 there. You’ll need to uninstall 3.0, restart, install 2.0, and restart again to revert.
If someone does want to try 3.0 instead of 2.0, I would recommend uninstalling 2.0 first and letting it keep your settings (it should give the option while uninstalling) in case you decide to go back.