from Hacker News

Software audio routers

by irsagent on 12/21/23, 7:10 AM with 41 comments

  • by mxmilkiib on 12/24/23, 4:01 AM

    JACK is capitalised. I use the PipeWire implementation of the JACK API; it still has advantages over using PipeWire directly, like easier metadata and CV connections.

    The NSM (Non/New Season Manager) system is best for saving and recalling the state of the graph. RaySession is a modern NSM front-end+backend.

    There's also LV2; it uses RDF to define both the audio unit properties and the relations between them. If only Ingen and mod-host and Carla, with their LV2 plugin graphs, went the full hog and could be used in their (Ingen and Carla anyway) LV2 plugin forms to work as easy-to-make semi-modular software synths, that would be cool. (Part of the thought behind LV2 was to provide a session/graph saving format)

  • by cheap_headphone on 12/24/23, 12:00 AM

    A good list. I would definitely recommend Blackhole for Mac. It is easy to recompile and create multiple virtual devices. With the OS Aggregate Device feature, you can do some good complex setups.

    Another one for Windows is ASIO Link Pro, which is quite old but still works well under Windows 10.

    https://give.academy/downloads/2018/03/03/ODeusASIOLinkPro/

  • by alvarlagerlof on 12/24/23, 1:20 AM

    Should have (2017) in the title. We have Pipewire on Linux now.

  • by heads on 12/24/23, 12:34 AM

    The audio part of OBS is the one thing I’ve never really played with, but I’m wondering why it doesn’t also move into this “mux stuff” space in the same way that it has done with the virtual camera.

    Switching between cameras is a godsend for calls (one for my face, and another one pointing vertically down at a blank pad of paper) but I guess there’s less demand for switching between audio in a streaming studio setting, and mixing live audio from multiple sources is a music thing, where there are much better solutions?

  • by tomduncalf on 12/24/23, 11:48 AM

    > BlackHole is new and I have not tried it yet.

    Hmm it's not that new, I guess maybe the article is old? In any case, BlackHole works very well for me on Mac (I only really use it for real time recording the system audio into Quicktime screen recordings, so have not stress tested it).

    An interesting related-ish Mac app is Monkey Audio Rewind[1], which runs in the background and is always recording the last n minutes of audio, then if there's something you want to capture (e.g. you're playing around on a soft synth and some serendipitous brilliance happens), you can just go into Rewind and export that bit of audio from the buffer. It's nicely designed and seems to work well.

    [1] https://monkeyc.audio/

  • by leetrout on 12/24/23, 12:25 AM

    There is a world of difference between the quality and robustness of the rogue amoeba software and VB software on windows.

    I hate how much audio software on windows lacks.

  • by weinzierl on 12/24/23, 8:35 AM

    [1] makes me believe that on Windows JACK doesn't really belong in the list. As great as JACK is on Linux, on Windows its power is limited to applications with native JACK support or applications and drivers with ASIO support.

    What I expect from a virtual cable is to allow me to connect any source with any sink and that is what solutions provide.

    [1] https://jackaudio.org/faq/jack_on_windows.html

  • by superb_dev on 12/24/23, 4:20 AM

    I've been using BlackHole on MacOS for the last few days. So far it's been great!

  • by thefz on 12/24/23, 8:09 AM

    Missing the most powerful on Windows, Voicemeeter.

  • by ZoomZoomZoom on 12/24/23, 11:24 AM

    It's such a shame the ASIO Link Pro project died with the author (according to hearsay) and no source is available to pick it up.

    In many ways it'd been one of the most capable solutions for Windows.

    The fine article looks a bit shallow not mentioning it at all.

  • by plussed_reader on 12/24/23, 3:46 AM

    What about a laddish environment with the Kx studio tools? Pipewire?

    Some glaring omissions, IMO.

  • by brcmthrowaway on 12/24/23, 1:00 AM

    Missing Audinate Dante

  • by koinedad on 12/24/23, 3:41 AM

    I’ve had positive experiences with SoundFlower on Mac. I remember jack on Linux with early Ardour being a nightmare

  • by cfr2023 on 12/24/23, 3:56 AM

    Factual inaccuracies within: Loopback can pass multi-channel audio and devices can be set as an input and output for applications, including with other audio processing between them, in an effects loop type configuration. Why spread misinformation like this?

  • by qwertox on 12/24/23, 10:47 AM

    Also Virtual Audio Cable (VAC) for Windows https://vac.muzychenko.net/en/

  • by ruuda on 12/24/23, 7:38 AM

    I recently discovered Helvum for Pipewire and suddenly it was easy to configure my audio setup the way I needed.