Elgato just dropped Wave Link 3.0, and it’s a genuinely massive upgrade—plus the best part is it’s now free and available to everyone. You no longer need an Elgato mic or an XLR dock to unlock it, which is huge. Whether you’re on a third-party USB mic or running an XLR setup, you can jump in and start routing audio properly without buying into a specific ecosystem first. In this video I walk through the new visual overhaul and the big quality-of-life win: routing all your channels into mixes. That means if you’re streaming, you can quickly make a “chat mix” where your game is turned down for viewers while you keep it loud in your own headphones. And because I don’t want Wave Link open 24/7, I pair it with a Stream Deck—specifically my Stream Deck Plus XL—so I can assign channels and mixes to dials and control them instantly. I also show off how effects work: toggling things like reverb with a button press, stacking VSTs to level up your mic, and (my favourite) applying voice focus and other processing to your friends’ audio coming in through Discord/WhatsApp. If your mates have terrible microphones, you can literally fix it for them on your end.