Old 04-13-2010, 08:48 AM   #1
pcartwright
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Default Route Skype/Windows Audio?

A friend and I are trying to do a few podcasts (just for fun); we do our main communication via Skype. Ideally, we’d record our own segments and mix them together, but his recording set up is less than ideal. Anyway, Skype’s quality is surprisingly good for the kind of stuff we want to record, and I’d like to route the audio from Skype directly into Reaper; however, I haven’t been able to find a way to route Skype’s audio internally. I know I could send the audio out of my computer’s default sound card and into my Firepod, but I’d rather route the audio internally (Rearoute maybe?) to keep excess noise to a minimum.

If there’s a way I can set Skype (or Windows for that matter) to use Rearoute, that would be ideal, but I’m open to any suggestions.
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Old 04-13-2010, 10:24 AM   #2
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This is normally accomplished at the soundcard level not the program. You need to be able to route an output of the soundcard to an input. If your driver panel doesn't allow this, then you must either manually place a cable from an output to an input on the same card, or do it between 2 soundcards.

I know cheap cards used to let you do this with the "what you hear" option, but I've not found an internal way using nicer recording cards in my attempts. I've always had to hard wire it.

The rearoute wouldn't work because you're not playing the skype audio through reaper at any point.

Since you use a firepod route your skype audio to outputs 3/4 then connect the outputs to channel 1/2 on Reaper. To listen to the output in real time, set Reaper or your sound card to output to channel 1/2 so you don't create a feedback loop.

You might be able to route a s/pdif cable from the output to input and then record the input while outputting the skype to the s/pdify out. That would be equivalent to recording internally really. I'm just not sure you can sync it to itself.
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Old 04-13-2010, 12:51 PM   #3
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Omni View Post
You need to be able to route an output of the soundcard to an input. If your driver panel doesn't allow this, then you must either manually place a cable from an output to an input on the same card, or do it between 2 soundcards.

Since you use a firepod route your skype audio to outputs 3/4 then connect the outputs to channel 1/2 on Reaper.
Thanks for the feedback.

Unfortunately, the driver panel for the Firepod only has a few options (bit rate and sample rate); I don't think I can route the inputs/outputs of the Firepod internally. Also, the Firepod is set up as an ASIO device; correct me if I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that an ASIO device could only be used by ASIO compatible software (i.e. Reaper, Reason, etc. not Skype).

I had seen a program for Linux once upon a time called JACK that allowed different programs to send audio to each other. I see that it’s available for Windows, but I think the software you use it with (i.e. Skype or Reaper) would have to be compatible with JACK (though I could be wrong). At any rate, I'm hoping to find something similar to this for Windows, but I guess I’ll have to stick with the old patchbay/wire method for now.
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Old 04-14-2010, 07:09 AM   #4
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Another quick thought, does anyone think internal routing would be possible with ASIO4ALL? Or will I run into the same issues/limitations outlined by Omni?
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Old 04-14-2010, 12:08 PM   #5
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I don't believe ASIO4ALL will help you either. My advice would be to set the computer soundcard to your firepod's channel 3/4 in the control panel (you could use 1/2 as well but that'd mean you need to route your main outputs out of 3/4 so you can hear it). Then use two cables to connect 3/4 to inputs 1/2. Then use Reaper to record 1/2 and you can listen to your main outputs on 1/2.

The audio loss would be negligible on a decent card like Firepod. Just make sure the outputs for Skype are loud enough to get a good signal on the inputs.


The advantage of this setup is that you could leave this set up permanently. Any audio from Windows would be directed out 3/4 and you could just direct monitor 1/2. Or, you can switch Windows to output to 1/2 in the control panel but still leave the cables plugged in.

whatever you want though.
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Old 02-28-2011, 03:35 AM   #6
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for recording skype calls i use IMCapture for Skype http://www.imcapture.com/IMCapture_for_FaceTime/
. I always record my interviews with it's help.
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Old 02-28-2011, 04:26 AM   #7
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Ive been trying to get skype to add asio for years. With ReaRoute, it would become the ultimate podcasting app

but noooooooooooooooooooooooo
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Old 02-28-2011, 06:31 AM   #8
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Try recording Windows' "stereo mix" signal from your internal sound card. You might have to enable stereo mix in windows (W7 and Vista), as (from what I hear) it is supposed to be hidden for DRM reasons. Some sound cards (or rather their drivers) do not even have it, just because of this...
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Old 02-28-2011, 11:25 AM   #9
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I understand the convenience of recording audio from Skype, but to be honest, I firmly believe that you get better quality results by doing the "double ender" (as broadcasters refer to it) technique; each side recording his or her own audio to his or her computer, then send the file to the other side and mix it together. I do listen to a lot of podcasts, and Skype recorded audio is still not as good as it would be with a double ender, and the occasional skips and blackouts in the audio stream can get annoying.

With high speed Internet these days, you can just transfer one side's audio track in a compressed format (I know audio engineers would balk at the idea of mixing from compressed formats, but in the case of dialogue, the quality loss is negligible), then mix it all together.

As far as routing goes, I use E-Mu cards, and they have an easy context menu option to add another send to physical or ASIO channels, and Reaper can just simply be assigned that new channel as an input. I am not familiar with Firepod's own virtual mixer/patchbay application, but should it not be able to create internal sends in a similar manner?
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Old 02-28-2011, 11:49 AM   #10
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Virtual Audio Cable will help, but it's not free.

http://software.muzychenko.net/eng/vac.htm
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Old 02-28-2011, 07:52 PM   #11
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Elteto View Post
I understand the convenience of recording audio from Skype, but to be honest, I firmly believe that you get better quality results by doing the "double ender" (as broadcasters refer to it) technique; each side recording his or her own audio to his or her computer, then send the file to the other side and mix it together. I do listen to a lot of podcasts, and Skype recorded audio is still not as good as it would be with a double ender, and the occasional skips and blackouts in the audio stream can get annoying.

With high speed Internet these days, you can just transfer one side's audio track in a compressed format (I know audio engineers would balk at the idea of mixing from compressed formats, but in the case of dialogue, the quality loss is negligible), then mix it all together.

As far as routing goes, I use E-Mu cards, and they have an easy context menu option to add another send to physical or ASIO channels, and Reaper can just simply be assigned that new channel as an input. I am not familiar with Firepod's own virtual mixer/patchbay application, but should it not be able to create internal sends in a similar manner?
I totally agree and have used the approach you describe above before, but it's not always technically possible. My friend isn't really into recording tech, so it's always good to have a back up plan.
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Old 02-28-2011, 07:55 PM   #12
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Fabian View Post
Try recording Windows' "stereo mix" signal from your internal sound card. You might have to enable stereo mix in windows (W7 and Vista), as (from what I hear) it is supposed to be hidden for DRM reasons. Some sound cards (or rather their drivers) do not even have it, just because of this...
Interesting idea. The only down side is that I can either record the stereo mix or I can record from my Firepod. I don't seem able to do both at once (asio4all doesn't seem to like stereo mix, or maybe asio4all doesn't like inputs with different bit rates).
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Old 02-28-2011, 07:56 PM   #13
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Thanks to everyone for replying to an old thread. I've been routing the audio out of my computer and into my Firepod as described in my first post, but I'll definitely give some of these ideas a try.
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Old 06-15-2011, 11:49 AM   #14
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Quote:
Originally Posted by pcartwright View Post
A friend and I are trying to do a few podcasts (just for fun); we do our main communication via Skype. Ideally, we’d record our own segments and mix them together, but his recording set up is less than ideal. Anyway, Skype’s quality is surprisingly good for the kind of stuff we want to record, and I’d like to route the audio from Skype integration directly into Reaper; however, I haven’t been able to find a way to route Skype’s audio internally. I know I could send the audio out of my computer’s default sound card and into my Firepod, but I’d rather route the audio internally (Rearoute maybe?) to keep excess noise to a minimum.

If there’s a way I can set Skype (or Windows for that matter) to use Rearoute, that would be ideal, but I’m open to any suggestions.
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yeah skypes quality is great. I don't think theres a way to route for skype with reaper though. If anyone figures this out I'd love to know. THANKS
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Old 06-16-2011, 12:45 AM   #15
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Quote:
Originally Posted by joshr1124 View Post
yeah skypes quality is great. I don't think theres a way to route for skype with reaper though. If anyone figures this out I'd love to know. THANKS
The question has been answered:

Quote:
Originally Posted by Evan View Post
Virtual Audio Cable will help, but it's not free.

http://software.muzychenko.net/eng/vac.htm
Select a VAC Line in skype as audio device.
In reaper with the help of Asio4All, enable the VAC inputs besides the outputs to your soundcard.
Record arm and monitor a track that inputs from the VAC input.


Quote:
Originally Posted by Saimon1 View Post
i use IMCapture for Skype http://www.imcapture.com/IMCapture_for_Skype/
.It's prog for record audio and video calls.I like this simple prog.
Quote:
Originally Posted by moll View Post
i prefer to use IMCapture for Skype (http://www.imcapture.com/IMCapture-for-Skype/), it helps me very often
Or offline non-realtime (record first and then edit/play in Reaper.
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Old 06-16-2011, 02:41 AM   #16
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reaper has a cool feature in the file menu 'save live output to disk'
don't know if that is useful for you
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Old 06-16-2011, 02:45 AM   #17
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VAC can be seen as an ASIO stream?
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Old 06-16-2011, 06:18 AM   #18
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Quote:
Originally Posted by pipelineaudio View Post
VAC can be seen as an ASIO stream?
With the help of ASIO4ALL yep

*edit*

to illustrate:

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Last edited by SiKo; 06-16-2011 at 06:30 AM.
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Old 06-16-2011, 04:45 PM   #19
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Holy shit man! You just made reaper into the ultimate podcasting app. I can't believe Justin didn't think of this
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Old 06-17-2011, 08:48 AM   #20
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Time for inclusion of ReaAudioCable 1.0
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Old 04-05-2013, 12:27 AM   #21
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I need to be able to still use my asio soundcard with reaper, while sending and recieving to skype, spreaker and ustream. At the same time the soundcard is taking in mics, processing audio in reaper and sending out to headphones and such.

I'm hoping MOTU's cuemix will allow this, otherwise Im out of ideas and frustrated
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Old 04-05-2013, 12:36 AM   #22
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VAC should work fine with any asio soundcard. They've got a free trial.

http://software.muzychenko.net/eng/vac.htm
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Old 04-05-2013, 12:49 AM   #23
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I'd have to use ASIO4all in reaper to do it with VAC, and then I'd be giving up my motu asio drivers in reaper
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Old 04-05-2013, 01:41 AM   #24
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Maybe someone can write a Skype plugin and a Reaper plugin, which communicate with each other and capture each conversation participant.

The Skype API allows for this stuff, as there are Skype plugins that can do this. Now it's just a matter of such a plugin passing on the information to ReaStream, or a custom plugin perhaps.

With a plugin generating sound on the insert of a track you might have to record the output, but at least you'd get it.
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Old 04-05-2013, 06:16 PM   #25
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Quote:
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I'd have to use ASIO4all in reaper to do it with VAC, and then I'd be giving up my motu asio drivers in reaper
Ah yeah, have you tried Jack for Windows?

http://jackaudio.org/jack_on_windows
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