Setting Up Virtual Audio Cable Tutorial

There are some cases where you would want the audio coming out of your computer to be mirrored through your microphone. This is useful for streaming audio on sites such as Justin.tv or for trolling people in online games by letting them listen along with the full discography of Captain Beefheart. A lot of people also use it to record Skype calls so that they can record both themselves and the people they are talking to.

One of the best services for this is Virtual Audio Cable. I found the tutorial on their site to be quite lacking. Getting the basics to work is quite simple though.

After installing the program you want to open its control panel which you can simply find in the program files directory.

If your control panel doesn't look like this, you've done something horribly wrong.

In the control panel, you are going to need to set up at least two Cables in the top left. You can set up more but to get the basics done you only need two. Most of the other fields you can leave defaulted as they are not that important.

Next you need to adjust your audio outputs and inputs. Right click on the speaker button in the bottom right of your computer and bring up playback devices. Set up the default playback as Line 1. Next go to recording and set the default microphone line as Line 2. For the time being you will be unable to hear audio or record from your mic.

Now you will need to boot three instances of the Audio Repeater. You want Line 2 going into Line 1 to allow audio to go through your mic. You will also want Line 1 going into your speakers or headphones. You also need to have your mic going into Line 2 so that both your voice and the computer sound will go through Line 2.

What everything should look like.

You will of course need to hit start on everything to get things going. Go ahead and play around with some of the other values. In particular try playing with the priority. Depending on what you are running, and the quality of your computer you may be able to run on better priority and better audio.