Important

🚧 Work in progress. Not all features of the Elgato Wave:3 are currently available, like controlling the stream/monitor mix or displaying its value.

Warning

This software comes with no warranty. I am not responsible for borked kernels, dead microphones, your friends' ears getting destroyed, or thermonuclear war. Use at your own risk.

Tip

For virtual cables and plugins, see my dots (requires PipeWire 0.5+)

wave3ctl

A Linux kernel module that acts as a USB Audio Class control proxy for the Elgato Wave:3 microphone. It sends control requests via usb_control_msg(), bypassing the usbdevfs interface-claim check that blocks userspace access. The snd-usb-audio driver stays loaded and audio is unaffected.

How it works

The module creates a /dev/wave3ctl misc device that accepts ioctls containing raw USB control transfers, forwarding them directly to the Wave:3 hardware. This avoids the need to detach the device from the kernel driver (which in my experience breaks settings on Discord and such).

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Prerequisites

• Linux kernel headers for your running kernel
• DKMS (for automatic rebuilds on kernel updates)
• GCC and make

On Arch Linux:

sudo pacman -S linux-headers dkms base-devel

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Building and installing

One-time setup with DKMS

DKMS will automatically rebuild the module whenever your kernel updates, so you only need to do this once.

1. Copy the source into the DKMS source directory:

sudo mkdir -p /usr/src/wave3ctl-1.0
sudo cp wave3ctl_kmod.c Makefile dkms.conf /usr/src/wave3ctl-1.0/

2. Register, build, and install with DKMS:

sudo dkms add -m wave3ctl -v 1.0
sudo dkms build -m wave3ctl -v 1.0
sudo dkms install -m wave3ctl -v 1.0

3. Load the module now (without rebooting):

sudo modprobe wave3ctl_kmod

4. Enable auto-load on boot:

echo "wave3ctl_kmod" | sudo tee /etc/modules-load.d/wave3ctl.conf

The module will now load on every boot and rebuild automatically after kernel updates.

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Verifying it works

Check the module is loaded:

lsmod | grep wave3

Check the device node exists:

ls -la /dev/wave3ctl

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Manual build (without DKMS)

If you just want to build and load the module without setting up DKMS:

make -C /lib/modules/$(uname -r)/build M=$PWD modules
sudo insmod wave3ctl_kmod.ko

To unload:

sudo rmmod wave3ctl_kmod

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fatal error: generated/autoconf.h: No such file or directory

Your kernel headers are missing or not installed. Install them:

# Arch Linux
sudo pacman -S linux-headers

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Usage (wave3ctl.py)

A command-line tool for controlling the Elgato Wave:3 microphone on Linux. It talks to the kernel module via /dev/wave3ctl to read and set microphone and headphone parameters over USB.

Requires the kernel module to be loaded first. See Building and Installing for setup.

wave3ctl <command> [argument]

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Commands

status

Shows the current state of the device: mic mute, mic gain, headphone mute, and headphone volume.

$ wave3ctl status
Elgato Wave:3 Status
========================================
  Mic:       🎤 LIVE
  Mic Gain:  72% (+18.3 dB)
  Headphone: 🔊 ON
  HP Volume: 55% (-12.0 dB)

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mute

Toggles microphone mute when called with no argument, or sets it explicitly.

wave3ctl mute          # toggle
wave3ctl mute on       # mute
wave3ctl mute off      # unmute

Accepted values for on/off: on, off, true, false, 1, 0.

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volume

Shows or sets the headphone volume as a percentage (0–100).

wave3ctl volume        # show current volume
wave3ctl volume 75     # set to 75%

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gain

Shows or sets the microphone gain as a percentage (0–100).

wave3ctl gain          # show current gain
wave3ctl gain 60       # set to 60%

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monitor

Watches for hardware changes in real time — knob turns, button presses, mute toggles. Polls at 200ms intervals. Press Ctrl-C to stop.

$ wave3ctl monitor
Monitoring Wave:3 — Ctrl-C to stop

Current state:
  Mic:    🎤 LIVE
  Gain:   72% (+18.3 dB)
  HP:     🔊 ON
  Volume: 55% (-12.0 dB)

  🔊 Vol  → 60% (-10.5 dB)
  🎤 Mic  → MUTED 🔇

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discover

Probes the USB Audio Class Feature Units and prints raw capabilities: mute state, current volume/gain in dB, and the full range and step size. Useful for debugging or understanding what the hardware exposes.

$ wave3ctl discover
Elgato Wave:3 — USB Audio Class Feature Units

  Headphone (Entity 5):
    Mute:   OFF 🔊
    Volume: 55% (-12.0 dB)
    Range:  -73.0 … 0.0 dB  (step 0.25 dB)

  Microphone (Entity 6):
    Mute:   OFF 🔊
    Volume: 72% (+18.3 dB)
    Range:  0.0 … 24.0 dB  (step 0.25 dB)