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[Trumpetguy]

I use loopback a lot at work. Suddenly, after the last few builds, the loopback behaves different than before. When playing to the default audio device, which is usually the mobo's built in audio chip, MC have grabben the audio stream and played it through my usb audio device into my in-ears. My colleagues are happy, no sound coming from my desk. Some time during the last few days, audio started playing both on the default audio device and through MC loopback. I did not hear that at first, and my colleagues weren't as happy as before. The same thing happens on my home setup.

Isn't loopback supposed to route the audio stream from the default device, leaving it silent?

[natehansen66]

This has been happening to me as well.........but  I think that has always been the case.

[Trumpetguy]

This has been happening to me as well.........but  I think that has always been the case.

Not for me, I am quite sure. At home, the default device is the speaker in my hdmi lcd screen. It has always gone silent whenever loopback was started. Now I get audio in both the screen speaker and the main speakers (delayed by a second or so because of convolution).

[Trumpetguy]

And if this is how it is supposed to work - how to mute the default audio? At work I am forced to use a default device that has actual speakers connected to it, and when I slide down the volume, MC goes silent as well of course.

[Trumpetguy]

*bump*

[Trumpetguy]

This is confusing. Sometimes it works, sometimes it dosn't.

On my work desktop computer: In addition to my USB DAC, it has an onboard chip (default playback device) and a Blacktronic IP phone headset/mic (default communication device). Disabling the Blacktronic USB unit enabled loopback again, but it took some work to get all muted correctly to avoid sound in the computer's built in speakers. It was required to restart MC a couple of times before it was able to pick up the audio stream.

After doing all this, the Blacktronic was enabled again without causing problems.

To add to the confusion, my home computer also acted weird a couple of days, but now loopback is back on track there also. Without me doing anything.

A bit tedious, but at least it was a local thing, not a MC issue.

[JimH]

Please try 18.0.191:
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=80999.0

[Trumpetguy]

I was a bit hasty in my "problem solved" conclusion. There is no diffence with .191. Now, loopback does not pick up the default device audio stream at all whatever I do. I started Spotify, and sound comes out of the computer's internal speakers. No sound through MC.

[Trumpetguy]

Sorry for nagging on this topic, but I have no music at work right now....from external sources using loopback that is. It would help if someone could explain the following to me:

1. Is it supposed to grab the bitstream from the default audio device, no matter what?
2. Is the default audio device supposed to be silent? Or am I to expect audio playing both in the default device and MC?

[Matt]

1) The default playback device is used during loopback.  It must support loopback.

2) Both play.  Ideally the default device is some device you're not using like a motherboard soundcard.

[Trumpetguy]

1) The default playback device is used during loopback.  It must support loopback.

2) Both play.  Ideally the default device is some device you're not using like a motherboard soundcard.

1) Right, and as long as it did, and sometimes do, work, I assume the device supports loopback. Right now, though, MC doesn't capture this audio stream whatever I do. So what could be wrong?

2) Is that the best solution? If you usually use the onboard digital interface I get it would not matter if the default device still plays or not. But what if you use a built-in audio device connected to (crappy) in-box speakers, and where the default device is used regularly for lo-fi playback (web news, youtube browsing etc). Either one must mute the hardware when switching to loopback (which can be difficult/impossible to do), or open the Windows mixer and drag the volume slider down to zero (as muting it also mutes input stream to MC). This becomes a significant number of operations if you switch between playback modes often. If technically possible, maybe you could consider adding an option "mute default audio device when using loopback"? Would be great.

[Trumpetguy]

Well, for some strange reason, after a couple of reboots and installing .194 and .195 it works again on both my computers. Not a clue what has been magically fixed under the hood, but it works. It may or may not have been an MC issue.

EDIT: What works now is loopback. What is probably the same as always is that the default audio path is not muted during loopback (I have now learned that this is how it is supposed to be).