Windows audio mixer?

Echo · May 2016

So I got a new USB headset. However, it's a bit annoying to manually have to go into the audio settings and set the headphones as the default audio device when I want to use them, and iTunes is stupid and needs to restart before it actually gives me audio in the headphones after changing.

So I'm looking for some software mixer/equivalent that lets me easily change audio output, so I can set that mixer as the default audio device instead. Anyone got something to suggest?

Handgimp · May 2016

AudioSwitch will allow you to readily swap devices, but so far the only way I've found to prevent having to restart some audio programs is to use Virtual Audio Cable (which is not free).

Create Line 1 with VAC, set it as your default playback device.
Run the audiorepeater.exe in your VAC directory for each audio playback device you wish to use.
Set Wave in as Line 1 (Virtual Audio Cable)
Set Wave out as the output device you want.
Click start in the bottom right.

This allows you to drive multiple headsets/devices without changing default device, which gets around restarting applications. You can click start/stop on each repeater if you don't want to drive them simultaneously, but this still requires alt-tab.

If you find a more elegant solution, I'd appreciate knowing.

TOGSolid · May 2016

I was gonna suggest VAC too. It can be handy in fun ways (like being able to pipe music from any source) if you ever do streaming so it can be worth the purchase.

The Wolfman · May 2016

If you're willing to deal with the annoyance, I've found right clicking the volume icon in the taskbar, then hitting Playback devices to be the fastest way to get into the settings to switch what's the default.

I don't use iTunes so I don't know if you can do this, but I use Winamp for my mp3's, and pretty much exclusively use the headphones for that. So I was able to go into its sound output settings and change it to always output to the headphones. This doesn't help you when you want the headphones for a Youtube video, but for any program that lets you change the output and you know that you'll be using only that output for it, it saves some switching.

Echo · May 2016

Had a look at the settings in iTunes and switched the audio output from "Windows audio session" (whatever that is) to DirectSound, and now I can switch to the headphones without having to restart iTunes, so that's one small annoyance out of the way.

Going to try that VAC thing, I'm not averse to paying for solutions that work.

DarkPrimus · May 2016

I use Soundswitch to swap between headphones and speakers on my computer. I don't know if it's too simple a program to handle what you want to do, but it's a tiny, free program that's easy to install and use, so all you're out is a few minutes of configuration.

Echo · May 2016

That sounds exactly like what I was looking for, now that I solved the iTunes issue. I was actually looking a bit at writing something like myself. Going to give that a spin in a bit.

Echo · May 2016

So yeah, this was exactly what I needed. I just select the output devices I want available to switch between, and hit Ctrl-Alt-F11 and it instantly switches between speakers and headset. :^:

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Windows audio mixer?

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