Output to 2 sound cards Simultaneously

Hello All, 

I just wanted to chime in here and hope that I can help.

As others have noted, Virtual Audio Cable ( http://software.muzychenko.net/eng/vac.htm ) is a neat little app that will allow you two run two instances of it and channel the audio out into two different sound cards.

This is simply what I, personally, need for my media enter computer to do audio output with the HDMI cable to my receiver/speakers as well as to a little wireless audio USB "sound card" that outputs to a speaker than I can carry around and put in different areas of my home when I have folks over listening to music on the patio for example.

For Windows 7, this is what I did.

1. You can install VAC
2. Go into the WINDOWS sound settings and set the newly installed Virtual Audio Cable as the default one for everything by right-clicking on it and setting it.
3. Run the audiorepeater.exe program that comes with it, set it to the 1st sound card that you want audio to go to, click start, and minimize it.
4. Do the same as #3 except point it to your 2nd sound card that you want audio to go out to.

Voila! It works!  But keep reading....

But... For a purist like me, this is ugly and unacceptable.

The ugliest part about Virtual Audio Cable is you cannot set it up to do this for you automatically each time windows boots. It has no command line driven interface or anything.

What in the **** were the guys at Virtual Audio Cable thinking? Kinda sucks to have to do that by hand every time, right? Well, wrong.

I found yet another little handy app (this one is 100% free) called Do It Again ( http://www.spacetornado.com/DoItAgain/ ). No app ware or any **** on it.. just a good simple light weight app for free. That 's really nice of them considering Virtual Audio Cable wants $20. You have to have it if you want to do this next trick so go download it!

With this app you can record yourself opening the audiorepeater.exe and selecting a few options, clicking start, and then minimizing it (to the system tray, thank god for that at least) and then do it with the 2nd audio device as well. This is a macro record app that will then allow you to repeat this process after a reboot so that you don't have to do it.

STILL pretty ugly, really, but it works pretty well for me. I don't get to hear the Windows 7 boot music/sounds, but whatever. Once it is into windows and my batch file fires off, it waits 10 seconds, then launches the Do It Yourself macro that we just made and it does all key and mouse strokes that we did but much faster and all of this happens in just a few quick seconds.

So if you are like me and boot your media center PC and just do something else before it all gets ready, then you will love this setup.

I created a windows shortcut to the "C:\Program Files\Virtual Audio Cable\audiorepeater.exe" that just sits on the c: called C:\AR.lnk (this will make more sense in a second...)

You then go into the Do It Again program and create a new macro/task. For this case, we simply need to get it to start recording you and do this:

START RECORDING THE MACRO

1. Hit [WINDOWS KEY on KEYBOARD]
2. type C:\ar [ENTER]
3. You then use the mouse to split your audio channel off in to your 1st device and click start and minimize it.
4. Then, you do the same thing again for the 2nd device.

DONE RECORDING THE MACRO

Bam. Your macro is recorded.

The next cool thing about Do It Again is that it can take all the slow downs that you did and fix them so that when you run the macro it goes much faster. Now you see why I had you create that shortcut link earlier on the C: as it creates less typing when launching the app. So go up to Options- Set Pause Time Length. 0.1 seconds worked great for me as a setting in there. Make sure to check the "Normalize All Pauses" check box as well on the options menu. Also, you want to associate the .dia files with Do It Yourself on the options menu. If it doesn't associate them correctly, just associate the files in windows to the .EXE for Do It Yourself.

I then created a .BAT file with two commands in it. If you don't know what a BAT file is in windows, it is very easy. It is just a TXT file that has a BAT file extension on it instead. One command just waits 5 seconds. The other command simply launches the cool macro we made in Do It Yourself. That macro then takes off and sets all this junk up for us each time windows starts and minimizes it to the tray and ends itself. You never know the difference. It is as if you did it by hand,,, but you didn't. Automation is the reason computers are here I guess... Although having to do it like this is pretty lame to be honest.

Here is the contents of the A.BAT file I have on my C:

PING 1.1.1.1 -n 1 -w 5000 NUL

"C:\Program Files\Do It Again Macro Recorder\VirtualAudioCable.dia"

That PING command is just a trick to get it to wait 5 seconds.

The second line shells the macro you recorded in the Do it Again Macro Recorder and off it goes to make your life easier. The "VirtualAudioCable.dia" part needs to be called Whatever you named for macro in the Do It Yourself program.

I then added that .BAT file into the Startup menu under Programs in windows. If you never knew what that Startup folder in there did all this time, it just allows you to put a link of any kind in there and it will launch it for you when windows starts. So, we put in the .BAT file we just saved with those two command lines up above in it. I now enjoy music all through the house and outside of the house as well when we are sitting around the patio drinking and talking. Can't beat it. Thanks Microsoft. Not EVERYONE is trying to steal audio or whatever your fear is on this.

The most incredible thing of this problme on Win7 is that on Win xp it actually worked fine. why they turned off this wonderful feature???

The ugliest part about Virtual Audio Cable is you cannot set it up to do this for you automatically each time windows boots. It has no command line driven interface or anything.

Wrong!

First, thank you so much for making me discover Virtual Audio Cable. This little program accomplished exactly what Microsoft failed to include by design in Windows 7. I use it as you showed, the default output device of Windows is the "Line 1 (Virtual Audio Cable)" virtual device created by VAC; and I open as many instances of the "Audio Repeater" program as I have physical device to output audio to (one for each). Works perfectly! Worth the 30$.

But here is an improvement from the "Do It Again" part. Instead of using this additional program, it is to be noted that the "Audio Repeater" program DOES SUPPORT PARAMETERS (ver. 4.10). Here's the list from the "vac.chm" help file:

/Input:<str>

/Output:<str>

/SamplingRate:<num>

/BitsPerSample:<num>

/Channels:<num>

/ChanCfg:<str>

/BufferMs:<num>

/Buffers:<num>

/Priority:<str>

/WindowName:<str>

/AutoStart

/CloseInstance:<str>

With this information we can now create a batch file. Here's an example of mine:

@ECHO OFF

start /MIN "AR1" "C:\Program Files\Virtual Audio Cable\audiorepeater.exe" /Input:"Line 1 (Virtual Audio Cable)" /Output:"NAME_OF_YOUR_OUTPUT_DEVICE1_AS_IT_APPEARS_IN_AUDIO_REPEATER(WAVE_OUT)" /ChanCfg:"Stereo" /Priority:"Realtime" /AutoStart

start /MIN "AR2" "C:\Program Files\Virtual Audio Cable\audiorepeater.exe" /Input:"Line 1 (Virtual Audio Cable)" /Output:"NAME_OF_YOUR_OUTPUT_DEVICE2_AS_IT_APPEARS_IN_AUDIO_REPEATER(WAVE_OUT)" /ChanCfg:"5.1 surround" /Priority:"Realtime" /AutoStart

start /MIN "AR3" "C:\Program Files\Virtual Audio Cable\audiorepeater.exe" /Input:"Line 1 (Virtual Audio Cable)" /Output:"NAME_OF_YOUR_OUTPUT_DEVICE3_AS_IT_APPEARS_IN_AUDIO_REPEATER(WAVE_OUT)" /ChanCfg:"5.1 surround" /Priority:"Realtime" /AutoStart

So this could be a way of doing it. Works perfectly for me. I've noted a slight lag between device if the priority isn't set to Realtime. The "start /MIN" part is optionnal but lets the applications start already minimized in the system tray, which I find convenient if you store your .BAT file in your startup folder.

Feel free to ask questions if you feel you need more clarifications.

Thank you very much for the batch file. Saved me all kinds of time.

But my audio output devices have names that are over 31 letters. The names listed in Audio Repeater are truncated, and when I try to use the truncated name in the batch file, it can't find the output device. Any ideas?