Voicemeeter Banana for Audio Mixing

[farrokh747]

g'day 

Came across this while looking for cockpit audio solutions for all the headsets/speakers/Vatsim matrix ....

https://www.vb-audio.com/Voicemeeter/banana.htm

https://www.vb-audio.com/Voicemeeter/vban.htm

https://www.vb-audio.com/Cable/index.htm

Interestingly, this app has an api to let another app control it's parameters.. vol, mute, etc :

https://forum.vb-audio.com/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=346&sid=992aef71d05c018fc5d34db7dc3aafb4

It also has a virtual audio cable system, and a network audio receiver.....

May be of some use to builders....

cheers,

FC

[Phil Bunch]

Amazing in the breadth and depth of its applications and features.

I would like to replace my home AV receiver with a PC and this software - much more flexible and richly featured!  I suppose that since my receiver also switches both audio and video to my home TV set that I would still need to find PC-based hardware to accommodate that set of tasks...hmmm....

[Mark]

Hi Farrokh,

Some thoughts; essentially I disagree (politely) with your suggestion.

Gary's sim uses a MOTU Monitor 8 as the main mixer and a Behringer ADA8200 connected via toslink for additional input channels. With this, I have got all the ACPs to work like the real aircraft - fully independent mixes and PTT for each headset. The pilot could be transmitting on 1 radio, the co-pilot on another radio and the 2 seats at the back having a conversation with each other with no unintended crosstalk.

There are significant benefits:
- It's the most reliable system in the sim.
- The latency is less than 1ms.
(Note that that Banana doesn't really talk about live/real time mixing? There's a reason for that. Extremely low latency is very important for cockpit conversation.)
- Easy ethernet control using OSC protocol.
- Soundcards with high IO counts aren't that cheap anyway, it's only a small jump up to the Monitor 8.

I could not find any pure software solution that would work 100%. Linux patched with the real-time kernel patch might get close but the state/complication of linux audio software would have taken too much time to get right.

[GodAtum]

I use a very simple system in my very basic sim: https://www.flightstore.co.uk/pilot-supplies-c1/headsets-c65/headset-accessories-c90/intercoms-c96/pilot-pa400-asc-t-portable-4-station-stereo-intercom-with-mobile-phone-input-p444

[farrokh747]

Hi Mark -

I agree that a full hardware solution would be the best.... But at 1000++ usd for the gear, it may be beyond many builders, not to mention the technical knowhow to get it all working - perhaps one day....

Ive been playing around with this for a bit, and managed to get decent audio from vatsim, of course, until i can "talk" to the mixer, i cannot switch audio streams on/off/vol as per the ACP/RCP settings... 

And Banana has a limited number of hardware inputs - For comms, I have 2x speakers, 4x headsets/mics, 4x handmics and 11 places in the sim where I can PTT - it all gets a bit complex.....  As you said, a full subsystem is required to handle the audio .... 

anyway, for a cheap and (relatively) quick option, its pretty good.. (IMHO)

cheers,

fc