Mixing via Zoom, Teams etc

menamestom

What's the best way to mix with somebody over the internet, so they can see your screen, hear your mic but also hear the Cubase output sound via the computer in decent quality, rather than through the speakers into the mic?

Lestratcaster

There's some form of virtual mixer, something banana I think its called, or Voicemeeter? Its like a digital mixer in your computer. I tried this before but found that guitar and backing signals were out of sync (digital vs analogue) so went the old school way with a hardware mixer. But it can be done with a DAW, I think you can use a loopback feature too with your audio interface but it looked too fiddly for me and I also wanted to off-load additional processing power from the machine.

PolarityMan

https://audiomovers.com/

PolarityMan

Because IM a cheapskate we have done writing review session during lockdown using OBS and discord so OBS was streaming the audio into a facebook meeting then we used discord voice chat for disucssion. Quality was only though, fine for writing but dont think it worked well enough to mix. I dialled into someone else's session using audio movers though and that seemed pretty nice. (ie/ he was running the mix session and I was listening / watching his screen). 

menamestom

Thanks for the suggestions.

I’ve tried voicemeeter but can’t seem to get the DAW sound into Skype or Zoom, it goes into the app and I can mix it with my voice, but the person on the other end if the call can’t hear it.
Probably my issue.  I find it hard to visualise what goes where, could do with a schematic of some kind so it makes more sense.

I’ll have a look at Audio Movers as well.
If it’s an all in one solution might be worth paying for.

We’re not playing live, it’s just for remote mixing, so latency shouldn’t be an issue.

Stratavarious

My mixers have USB out/return and I can set the desk monitor/output as the audio mic device in conferencing software if using my studio computer.

Basically anything going through the mixer is audio on the call from me and the screen is shared.  I use a mic on a spare channel to speak.

What mixer/interface have you got?

Lestratcaster

menamestom said:

Thanks for the suggestions.

I’ve tried voicemeeter but can’t seem to get the DAW sound into Skype or Zoom, it goes into the app and I can mix it with my voice, but the person on the other end if the call can’t hear it.
Probably my issue.  I find it hard to visualise what goes where, could do with a schematic of some kind so it makes more sense.

Yeah I had this issue as well when trying virtual mixers. The platform (Zoom at the time) doesn't pick it up as an audio input, as it can't connect with the interface.

There is a way to rout a DAW out to your OS, its called that loopback thing. But its a bit tricky to figure out and like yourself I wanna visualise where everything else so I just use a Yamaha MG10 analogue mixer so I have separate volume controls for all my main sounds (voice, guitar, backing track) and mix as one soundwave out into the Focusrite I use then into the computer via USB. It means 2 devices but works perfectly and sounds great. Windows recognises the interface as the audio input and so does the platform (run in Google Chrome)

Stuckfast

Are you on Mac or Windows? And what audio interface are you using?

menamestom

Stuckfast said:

Are you on Mac or Windows? And what audio interface are you using?

Windows with Zoom LiveTrak L12

Stuckfast

Hmmm, I think it's harder on Windows as ASIO does not support multiple devices. IIRC the L12 has two pairs of outputs that can be addressed in Cubase? I presume Teams etc can only access sound via the system drivers and not via ASIO, but assuming it can see at least one input pair on your L12, I'd try the following. 

(1) Select Teams to pick up inputs 1/2 from the L12, but mute these on the L12 itself, otherwiwe you'll get feedback.

(2) Route outputs 1/2 in Cubase to your speakers, but have a send on the master channel to outputs 3/4.

(3) Set up a mic input on one of the other L12 channels. Again, mute this on the L12 itself. In Cubase, route this only to outputs 3/4.

(4) Now cable outputs 3/4 on the L12 back into inputs 1/2.

If that works then output 3/4 should be like a bus containing everything you want to send to the client at the other end, so it would routed directly into inputs 1/2 and sent to Teams, but that input would be muted locally. Does that sound right?

octatonic

Source Nexus has been the standard on Mac, esp with Pro Tools users.

As Stuckfast says on iIndows there is the ASIO multi-client issue.
Zoom can be particularly fiddly with sample rate- my studio is permanently on 48khz but using an audio device that is set to 48khz in Zoom will cause it to lock up- so much so that you can't even change the audio device in Zoom, you have to change the device in Audio Midi setup to 44.1 and then go back into Zoom.

Have you seen this?

https://www.knuckledustermusic.com/blog/vb-cable

AntonHunter

PolarityMan said:

https://audiomovers.com/

This. 

I've sat in sessions using this and it's ideal. 

Murray_B

You could just share the computer audio over Zoom? It's in the share screen options. Best to wear headphones your end if you are doing so.