Jun 10, 2009 VAC is basically a virtual sound mixer that allows you to mix several differet audio sou. This tutorial will show you the basic's of how to setup and use VAC.
Virtual Audio Cable (VAC) is an audio bridge between applications that transmits sounds (audio streams) from app to app, from device to device.
VAC creates a set of virtual audio devices. Each device simulates an audio adapter (card) whose output is internally connected to the input, making a loopback. If an application plays audio to the output, the sound will not be audible because the signal is looped back to the input. But if another application records from the input, it receives the sound produced by the first app.
Such virtual devices are named Virtual Cables. The 'Virtual Cable' term is used only in VAC description, as a placeholder. Actual device/endpoint names that you will see in applications' windows, are different (for example, 'Line 1', 'Line 2' etc.).
Each side of any Virtual Cable can be used by several apps at the same time. Sounds directed to the same playback endpoint are mixed. From the recording endpoint, each app gets its own copy of the sound.
VAC delivers audio signals completely inside the computer. No audio hardware is required. There is no quality loss (if no format conversion and/or volume control are involved). If all required conditions are met, audio transfer is bitperfect, suitable for audiophile applications. In well-tuned systems, signal latency is very low.
To transfer/route audio signals from an endpoint (device) to another, VAC offers Audio Repeater application.
Warning: there are several other products named 'Virtual Audio Cable' in the net. Some of them just use this name for promotional purposes, but some others are completely fake and contain malware. If you decide to try them, don't forget to check their sites/binaries with antivirus services.
Applicability
Use VAC with the following audio applications and application classes:
- Internet Telephony/VoIP/SIP/voice messengers (Skype, Discord, Ventrilo, MicroSIP).
- Live mixing/DJ (vMix, Mixxx, VirtualDJ, VoiceMeeter Banana/Potato).
- Live broadcasting (Open Broadcaster/OBS Studio, WireCast, VidBlasterX. SAM Broadcaster).
- Speech synthesis/recognition (Google Text-to-Speech/Speech-to-Text, Dragon Naturally Speaking).
- Software synthesizers and studio/DAW (Ableton, Acid, AudioMulch, Band-in-a-Box, Bidule, Cakewalk/Sonar, Cubase, FL Studio, GarageBand, Logic, MiniMoog, n-Track, Nuendo, Reaktor, REAPER, Reason, Samplitude, Traktor, Vegas).
- Audio editors/recorders (Audacity, Adobe Audition, GoldWave, WaveLab, Sound Forge).
- Virtual Machines (VMware Player/Workstation, VirtualBox, Hyper-V).
- Amateur and software-defined radio (Flex Radio, PowerSDR, HAM Radio Deluxe, HamSphere, HDSDR, Fldigi, SDR-Radio, WSJT-X, JTDX).
- Audio application development - watch the application's audio operations, check audio data played, supply with specific data to be recorded etc.
Compatibility
VAC works in Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8, 8.1 and 10.
No obsessive activity
VAC just performs things what it is intended for: passes audio streams between applications, converting audio formats if necessary. It never guides you to advertising pages, nor pops up busily on the screen, nor installs hidden activities in your system. VAC does only actions that you explicitly demand for.
Older versions
VAC 4 works only under Windows versions starting from XP (5.1). For support of older Windows releases, please visit VAC 3 page.
Hi
First off I want to say I've been having much fun using mixxx since I installed it, great work!I've used mixxx 1.6.0 in windows which seems to work good but in order for me to use mixxx for gigs I need to be able to run on linux and output to jack to integrate with my current setup.
After I got past the crashing of mixxx by unloading grip and joydev kernel modules, I still have problem of not being able to use jack, alsa works ok but i cannot plug them into other jack apps.
Voicemeeter
My setup:Gentoo Linux (kernel 2.6.25-gentoo-r7)
jack-audio-connection-kit (tried with 103.0 and 109.2)
portaudio (self compiled and installed into ~/ as gentoo has v18, tried last stable v19 and trunk)
mixxx svn trunk installed into ~/
Mixxx runs and jack shows as sound api in the settings but it gives error 'Audio device could not be opened' when I OK it.
I successfully use other jack based apps in my current setup with no problems.
Is this a known issue? I didn't want to pollute the bug tracker if this is known.