Music through speakers... gameplay sound through headphones?

[Buddhaz Priest]

I have something I'd like to be able to do and for the life of me I can't figure out how to do it with just Windows. I know it can be done but idk if people are doing it with aftermarket software or something that I can't find. I've done a lot of googling and cant seem to find an answer I can use.

 

So here's my dilemma: My gaming PC is also the computer we use in my daughter's room as her lullaby music. We turn pandora on with lullaby's and turn the volume up. Anyway, sometimes in the night while she is asleep I would like to play a game, but I have to use headphones, which turns off her music. What I'm wanting to do is somehow let Pandora still run, playing through the speakers, and let my game audio play only through my headphones. I'm sure it can be done... I'm just stumped. If anyone could answer this, you win the internetz. Thank you in advance!

[Enderman]

Do you have realtek hd audio manager preinstalled?

[NIGHTSHADE0]

Im guessing they are usb headphones then?

You can use the realtek manager to set outputs and what not.

 

You could also buy a usb soundcard with a headphone out, and run one source to the headphones and another to speakers.

[Buddhaz Priest]

I do have realtek audio manager, I have made front panel and back panel separate audio streams through the advanced device settings, and I've disabled front audio detection. my problem is now how to set each program to a different audio out.

 

I have tried a sort of workaround that people have said online, but whenever I change the default device after starting Pandora (which many have claimed would make my chrome browser stay on the previous default) the audio from Pandora goes to the headset as well. The games I've tried so far none of them let me choose an audio output either so I can't set it up in the game itself... I'm really confused here lol.

[Buddhaz Priest]

Is there an aftermarket audio mixer or something I can use to reroute the audio streams? I see the different audio stream options now after changing the setting in realtek, I just can't specify what goes to which stream.

 

Edit: ok, correction, in Dota 2 I have gotten it to work. But now how do I do it with my other games that DON'T have an in-game option? lol

[LogicalDrm]

You set only music player to separed audio output. All other software will use default, so set that be your headphones.

[Buddhaz Priest]

right. I get that that is what I'm trying to do, and it should work for me if I could do it. Unfortunately i can't get it to work. Pandora is running through Chrome, and no matter what I do, Chrome ALWAYS plays out of the default stream, no matter what. So right now I can only make the gameplay sound go through my headset if there is an in-game setting for output (i.e. Dota2 and most Valve games cuz they think about that sort of thing  :rolleyes:) What I want to do is just make all my desktop/chrome etc. come out the speakers and ONLY the gameplay to headset but for the life of me I can't do it unless the game has it's own separate setting for it. Anyone else have any ideas? maybe some setting I'm missing in my windows sound settings lol.

[LogicalDrm]

@Buddhaz Priest, sadly only easy ways to do this are when programs allow to choose output channel. More experienced way would be using virtual audio cables but free versions still need software to support selecting audio channels.

 

My options to you would be either use different player or external solution like phone.

[Buddhaz Priest]

Well if that's the case that's really kind of sad. By now I would think that choosing what audio stream things go to should be a standard feature in windows itself. Being that online games having in-game chat is not a new thing, I could see how people would really want that feature so that they could set something like Vent to run through their headset but gameplay through screen you know?