Can I Combine Audio from my Monitor and Headset?

Zapawaf · June 7, 2023

Hey all,

I'm at a loss here. I used to be able to use Realtek Audio Console to mess around with my speakers and headset, but now I can't launch the app, can't find it in the Microsoft Store, and can't find a way to manually install it to save my life.

I'm using a headset that uses the aux jack, and some speakers that use the aux jack in the back of the case. I primarily use this for the PC, but lately my buddy and I have been playing the Nintendo Switch, and I usually throw discord on the second monitor and switch the inputs on the primary monitor to the switch. Downside, is the monitor doesn't have speakers, so I just don't get game volume. I noticed the monitor has an aux jack on it, but I can't use the mic when I do this. I used to be able to have the speakers and headset running at the same time if I used the Realtek Audio Console, but that just gives an RPC service error when I try it (which I haven't tried using in a while, so I'm not sure how long that hasn't been working). My hope was to plug the speakers into the monitor to get game volume, use my headset plugged into the PC as normal for mic, and use Realtek to mix the two so I have Discord and game audio, which I'm not even sure if realtek would've picked up the monitors output, but that was the hope.

The current solution would just be to plug the speakers into the monitor for game audio, and use my headset with an earcup off to hear the game and discord... but having a newborn, sometimes game volume blasting through the house is less than ideal. I'm half temped to get some sort of usb mixer, but I thought I'd reach out here to see if I'm just an idiot who's over complicating things. Any suggestions would be very much appreciated.

Assuming it's relevant:

Monitor is Gigabyte G32qc

Motherboard Asus Z690P

Zapawaf · June 7, 2023

I thought I found a solution which involved going into Sounds and using Stereo Mix, but I didn't have that option. Messed around with the drivers, and got it to display, but then it killed the back aux jack so my speakers didn't work. Spent way too long just to get everything back to working, which ultimately removed that stereo mix option.

Psittac · June 8, 2023

*edit: skip to the end for the simplest potential solution, I was thinking while typing and might have your solution.

ok so what your doing isn't possible to the best of my knowledge. The easiest solution is headset through PC for discord and speakers through main monitor for switch. The problem you are running into is that there is literally no exchange of audio from the monitor to the PC for many reasons. First you are in a completely separate loop being as the main monitor is no longer electrically connected to the PC when it is displaying the switch. Second is that even if it did somehow maintain a connection..... hdmi doesn't have the function to send audio back to the PC, at least so far as I know. ARC is one thing that comes to mind so maybe in a perfect world the Audio Return Channel could do something but that's not the world we live in. For all realistic purposes you have one monitor and audio/video system being the switch/monitor/speaker and the secondary system being monitor/PC/speaker. Two distinct systems.

All of that long winded way of saying that you need a way to put them into the same system, and I know nothing about this but could imagine that some kind of capture card would do the trick? This way your switch is plugged into the PC Then it passes to the monitor. Now they're all one audio video system running through the PC. However given it's Nintendo and DHCP is a thing.... you are opening another can of worms. I would look into capturing a switch to see if that is even possible, and if it is move on to how on god's green earth you would output it to one monitor and discord on the other. Again this is completely out of my realm I'm just trying to give you ideas.

Now, as I was typing this admittedly long winded reply, I thought of something. If you can somehow output the audio of the main Nintendo monitor into the PC then you bypass all DHCP issues. You could do this with a 3.5mm TRS male to male cable or commonly known as an Aux cable. Then if you can somehow figure out how to get two input's into your computer it becomes a software issue of combining the two audio input's. If you get to this point the only advice I can give is look into something called virtual cables, this creates a virtual device that connects two input's or outputs within the computer but I've never done it.

So to sum up and clarify.

As it stands with your current hardware, there is no way to do this. You have two unique audio and video solutions and they have no pathway to interact or combine on a physical level (the monitor with the switch is essentially disconnected from the PC).

What you need to figure out is how to get the two systems connected physically, the two options I gave (in theory) are to pass the audio and video both through the PC with a capture device. Problem being that this opens up DHCP or copyright protection problems. Second option is to output audio only from the monitor into the PC and use software to combine the two. This is the easiest way conceptually but leaves two problems I can think of. First having a spot to plug in both your monitor and microphone as inputs into the PC (a piece of hardware may do this). And second how to manage two audio inputs and one audio output.

*Welcome to the culmination of my random thoughts.

3.5mm TRS male to male cable (aux cable) from switch/monitor to input on back or front of PC

headset mic to other input of PC that isn't used by monitor

figure out how to mix with software (virtual cables are a thing that I haven't used)

AI_Must_Di3 · June 8, 2023

Some sort of KVM switch could probably solve all this for ya pretty easily and pretty cheaply. You will have to look into a few different ones and compare and see if they will do what you want cause they have a couple different kind now.

Something like this maybe, but cdw is kinds expensive, so i would look elsewhere first: https://www.cdw.com/product/iogear-4x4-usb-2.0-peripheral-sharing-switch-gus404-usb-peripheral-sharin/5019498?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI4LL1isiz_wIVFI_ICh3GaAJrEAQYCyABEgI3a_D_BwE&cm_ven=acquirgy&cm_cat=google&cm_pla=NA-NA-IOGEAR_US&cm_ite=5019498&ef_id=EAIaIQobChMI4LL1isiz_wIVFI_ICh3GaAJrEAQYCyABEgI3a_D_BwE:G:s&s_kwcid=AL!4223!3!496173788324!!!g!446558666765!!12244136370!117820875032

Psittac · June 9, 2023

12 hours ago, AI_Must_Di3 said:

Some sort of KVM switch could probably solve all this for ya pretty easily and pretty cheaply. You will have to look into a few different ones and compare and see if they will do what you want cause they have a couple different kind now.

Something like this maybe, but cdw is kinds expensive, so i would look elsewhere first: https://www.cdw.com/product/iogear-4x4-usb-2.0-peripheral-sharing-switch-gus404-usb-peripheral-sharin/5019498?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI4LL1isiz_wIVFI_ICh3GaAJrEAQYCyABEgI3a_D_BwE&cm_ven=acquirgy&cm_cat=google&cm_pla=NA-NA-IOGEAR_US&cm_ite=5019498&ef_id=EAIaIQobChMI4LL1isiz_wIVFI_ICh3GaAJrEAQYCyABEgI3a_D_BwE:G:s&s_kwcid=AL!4223!3!496173788324!!!g!446558666765!!12244136370!117820875032

To the best of my knowledge a KVM switch is just that, a switch. It's like selecting BD or SAT on your stereo only it's for computers and allows you to throw in USB as well. At least that's how my KVM works, at which point it's not doing what he needs.

Got_DDM_KVM · June 9, 2023

There are KVM switches provide the independently switching in video and audio ports and USB hub ports.

You can do the locking/ parking/ sync. switching/ un-sync. switching for different sharing audio devices, such as speaker, microphone and even USB DAC audio interface for sharing.