Station-IC: Using Virtual Audio Cable to connect Windows Apps like Teams and Zoom to Station-IC

In another Solution you can see here:

https://clear-com.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/SF/pages/2587820033

I showed how to get audio from Windows into and out of an Eclipse Frame using Lawo’s VSC. However, VSC does have one drawback, and that is it uses AES-67. What if we want to do this same workflow to get Teams or Zoom into an Eclipse, but we don’t have an AES-67 capable network setup? Well, if you already have Station-IC, we can use Station-IC’s IVC connection to an Eclipse, and a program called Virtual Audio Cable, to get bidirectional audio from nearly any Windows application.

https://vac.muzychenko.net/en/download.htm

VAC is a commonly used program by Streamers for getting audio in and out of a program like OBS or vMix, by creating virtual WDM audio devices that we can pass audio through. The virtual cables act like physical device in windows, like a speaker and mic, except they don’t go anywhere, so we can use the output of one program to feed the input of another. It has a fully featured trial version so you can make it work before buying, and a business license is $50 per user. I have found VAC to be extremely easy to use, and very lightweight in terms of CPU load.


VAC Setup


Setup of the application is very straightforward. Make sure you install and run it as Administrator, because we are installing audio drivers, it will not work otherwise. By default it will create one virtual audio cable, we will need two. Simply change the Cables field to 2 and hit set. I didn’t have to make any other changes in here to make it work with Station-IC, but you can change things like sample rate, if your source application requires it.

The installer will prompt you to not select the virtual WDM Drivers as default devices, and I would take that advice, as some odd stuff can happen if you do, such as windows system sounds playing on your Eclipse PL. Windows will change your default devices automatically, just change them back in control panel>sound.

Station-IC and Teams Setup

 

Now that we have our drivers created, we should be able to select them as input and output on Station IC


I am using Line 1 as my Input to Station-IC, and Line 2 as output. That means in my Teams setup, I need to reverse that:


Last, activate the talker and listener buttons on your Station IC panel:




As setup here, audio leaving the Teams call on line 1 is set as the input in Station-IC, and audio entering the Teams call is coming on Line 2, from the output of Station-IC. That should be all you need to do.


In order to test if it is working or to troubleshoot your setup, you can go to Control Panel>Sound, and see the driver’s output in real time. In this case, if I’ve done everything right, I should see audio on Line 2 when there is audio on the PL in Station-IC, and I should see it on Line 1 when someone talks to me from the teams call. If I see audio here but don’t hear it in my channel, it’s probably a configuration issue on the Eclipse. If I see no audio here at all, the issue is on the windows side.


This should work for any windows application, such as Zoom or other audio conferencing, or from any other windows program or device that has selectable WDM drivers for inputs or outputs. For example, the thing I use this the most for is just outputting my Spotify into a matrix so I can have constant audio for testing. Though your mileage may vary, I would download the trial version of VAC and see if it will work for your setup.

 

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