Stereo audio support for regular voice chatting

[alexbobp]

Context

I know there have been other tickets relating to stereo audio functionality in mumble. They appear to have largely been dismissed because they involve using mumble for use cases that are arguably not really what mumble is for.

The reason why I think this request is different is that there are now sub-$100 stereo microphones that someone can very reasonably use as a desktop mic for their voice chatting, and I in fact do so. Specifically, https://www.bestbuy.com/site/jlab-talk-professional-plug-play-usb-microphone/6417453.p?skuId=6417453

I like to sing to my friends, and I also have friends that respond well to ASMR. Stereo would greatly aid in both of these. I've gone as far as setting up an icecast stream so that I can stream to my friends with that (at high latency cost), while they talk to me on mumble, just to stimulate my friend's ASMR better, and it was worth it, but definitely annoying to do. I can't be the only one who wishes to use mumble this way, can I?

Description

It would be nice for mumble to support transmitting stereo audio from a regular stereo audio source, such as any stereo microphone or line-in device. As I understand, it can already receive stereo audio, so even a beta build with this would work right away with existing clients.

Mumble component

Client

OS-specific?

No

Additional information

No response

[Krzmbrzl]

I think that most likely this will only happen in the context of #5408, but let's keep this as a separate issue anyway.

[z411]

I'd also like to comment that many phones now (including the one I own, Xiaomi Redmi Note 8) have 2 microphones for stereo recording/speech.

[Krzmbrzl]

No ETA for this. I don't expect this to happen any time soon though

[755713372]

How long can we support stereo sound? We want to use this software to sing songs

[Krzmbrzl]

We already support stereo output. As for input, that will be supported as soon as someone implements it. This, however, is a lot more work than it might seem at first glance due to the way the current code is written (unfortunately).

[loliconRoot]

I needed mumble to support stereo inputs in another situation.
I am using mumble to share computer audio output (192kHz) over a WAN in high quality and low latency. To do this, I am using a VB-audio Hi-Fi Cable for high quality two-channel audio forwarding. I'm pretty sure it supports multi-channel, but since the mumble doesn't support such inputs, it makes some music sound strange.
I had remembered that there was dual channel support for this operation, so it seems I misremembered. This has forced me to forward low quality audio (48kHZ) through some high latency

[rob-fi]

I needed mumble to support stereo inputs in another situation. I am using mumble to share computer audio output (192kHz) over a WAN in high quality and low latency. To do this, I am using a VB-audio Hi-Fi Cable for high quality two-channel audio forwarding. I'm pretty sure it supports multi-channel, but since the mumble doesn't support such inputs, it makes some music sound strange. I had remembered that there was dual channel support for this operation, so it seems I misremembered. This has forced me to forward low quality audio (48kHZ) through some high latency

For others coming across this, for this requirement I'd suggest something like SonoBus (https://sonobus.net/) instead. It's an open souce tool for high quality and low latency sharing of audio between multiple participants using either PCM or Opus.

However, I'd still like to see stereo audio implemented into the Mumble client, due to Mumble having a low memory footprint and rock solid stability, and the central server architecture largely avoiding any NAT traversal issues.

[755713372]

Hello, I'd like to ask if there has been any progress in the support for stereo sound input in the Mumble software?

[Krzmbrzl]

Stereo playback is already supported in recent versions. However, so far stereo input has not been implemented.