Play music in a Skype call

Question

I'd like to be able to play music in a Skype call so everyone can hear it.

Here's everything I tried:

• Setting the microphone device to Stereo Mix. People can hear music but obviously can't hear me since I'm talking through the microphone.
• Then I got a brilliant idea and made a new Skype account, ran a second instance of Skype and added my Radio Bot to the call. I've set it's microphone to Stereo Mix and the microphone on the real Skype is set to the actual mic. That works well but the problem is that I can also hear the music it's playing in the call, which means Stereo Mix picks it up and plays it again. It loops and there's a horrible echo.
• Next thing I tried is actually lowering the output volume in the real Skype and increasing it in the Radio Bot Skype. That way I can hear people in the call through the bot but the bot doesn't hear the music that it's playing to the call. Everything is great I thought. I was wrong.

The problem is, when people talk, I can hear them, which means that Stereo Mix picks up on it as well. It ends up in people hearing themselves.

Back to the drawing board.

• Next thing I tried is Virtual Audio Cable. The idea is to play Chrome (that's playing music) to a separate audio device and set the Radio Bot to listen to that device. Unfortunately, Chrome doesn't allow me to change it's output to another device and I don't know what else to try.

Is this possible, and how can I do it?

Answer 1

I found a way to do this with Virtual Audio Cable and 1 Skype open.

1. Open VAC Control Panel and make 2 lines
2. Open 4 Audio Repeater(MME)s
3. Set the First to Wave In: Line 1 and Wave Out: Speakers or primary output device
4. Set the Second to Wave In: Primary Microphone and Wave Out: Line 1
5. Set the Third to Wave In: Primary Microhone and Wave Out: Line 2
6. Set the Fourth to Wave In: Line 1 and Wave Out: Line 2

Once this is done set Line 1 as your default playback device in Windows and as Line 2 as your default recording device .

Make sure when you change your Skype settings to also have Line 2 as your microphone and your primary output device as the speakers.

This will make it so both you and your caller can hear any audio that comes from your computer (youtube, spotify, pandora, etc.). You can still talk and you won't hear yourself in an echo and neither will the party on the skype call.

Answer 2

I'm using this solution from a long time ago, though is even more difficult, but you don't need to have two skypes running at once.

Create two lines with VirtualAudioCable.

Configure the playing program to output to Line1.

Using VAC repeater copy Line1 to speaker.

With other instance of VAC repeater copy Line1 to Line2.

With other instance of VAC repeater copy your Mic to Line2.

Configure Skype to input from Line2 and Output to Speaker.

If you don't need to listen to the music, and just let the other person to listen to it, you just need one line, as Darwin said. And set Skype input as line1. If you want the other person to listen to you and to the music just use VAC repeater to copy microphone to line1.

Answer 3

You are pretty close to your answer.

You already saw that by setting skype to use Stereo Mix, you can have your skype contacts listen to music on the call.

But, if you are using Windows Vista or Windows 7, you can go ahead and set your Microphone settings to Listen on the Speakers for your system.

So, open your Recording Devices, double click on the microphone (right click -> properties, same thing), click 'Listen On' and choose the proper device (usually the default speakers).

When you do that, you will be able to hear yourself on the speakers, which is true, but they will be able to hear you as well. And the music too boot :)

It is what we do here, when we need to play important messages to our phone clients, and also leave them messages, while still being able to talk live to them :)

Answer 4

When I was recording podcasts, I ended up adding a second cheaper sound card dedicated to Skype and used the primary for music and recording. I then used a mixer to bring everything together. Definitely a more complicated setup and not very cheap, but it's a solid setup.

Answer 5

The Virtual Audio Cable (VAC) is only part of the solution. Well, sometimes you can get this setup working, but it ends up with your voice and all other sound echoing back either in your headset (if you send things to your speakers you'll likely get a feedback loop).

The rest of the answer is to use another app from VB-Audio (the developer of VAC), which is the VoiceMeeter donateware app. This app can pipe up to 3 inputs to up to 2 groups of outputs selectively. For example, you can send your microphone to just a virtual audio device that is being used by Skype and/or other programs for recording and broadcasting/streaming, so it doesn't echo back your voice in your headset. You can then take up to 2 other inputs, one is the VoiceMeeter virtual input, which you normally setup as the system default device so all apps will use it. The other will normally be setup as an extra virtual audio device from the VAC device you mentioned. This way all apps on your PC will use the virtual VoiceMeeter input by default for their output, and you can have Skype go to the VAC device - this let's you route the Skype output only to your local devices, so you aren't feeding it back incoming sounds from other participants right back to them. Meanwhile, all other apps on your PC will be setup to broadcast both locally and to your recording/streaming apps.

More information on these programs, where to get them, etc., is in my answer to another question here.

Answer 6

What about a simple "mechanical" solution?

If you wear headphones, then you can use your iPhone to play the music, which will be picked up by the microphone as is your voice (and you'll be able to hear the music as well, unless you're wearing some really soundproof headphones). Thus, the others can hear both your voice and the music, but due to your headphones, they won't be able to hear themselves.

Answer 7

Ok, here's the unpractical, extremely convoluted and unflexible solution that I found that works in my case.

Play Youtube videos or any music through the VLC media player. Then get the Virtual Audio Cables program and have it create one more audio device for you. Set VLC to output to DirectX and Line 1 audio device. Then in my other Skype account set the microphone to Line 1 and press play in VLC. Works.

Answer 8

VoiceMeeter virtual mixer for Windows is more flexible and powerful to mix whatever audio device and computer sound to whatever output (including audio application like Audacity, Skype etc.).