Talker - Skype and Multi-Channel Voice

billbell52 · Post by **billbell52** » Tue May 27, 2008 7:22 pm

I want to use Talker and Skype. I want to be able to talk or to use Talker. I have PLS (Primary Lateral Sclerosis) and I can be understood with short words/sentences. I have looked at this and came up with a few solutions. I have not tried any as of yet. I am looking for input on this. My laptop and PC both don't have an aux input, mono or stereo input mentioned in another posting. An older PC I have does have it but I have not tried Talker on that PC. I use a stereo headset for Skype.

Solution 1

Buy a USB sound card. This is a small card you can plug into the PC.
Have Talker go to the USB sound card.
Have Skype use the internal sound card.
Build a special connection card to control the left and right channels of the input and output of both the USB sound card and PC sound card.
Take the left speaker channel of the USB sound and connect it to the left channel of the mic input on the PC.
Take the left speaker channel of the USB sound and connect it to the left channel of the headset.
This way I can either talk into the right channel or use Talker on the left channel.
I'll hear skype on the right channel and talker on the left channel.

Solution 2

Do the same thing as solution 1 but do it in software.
I have not used DirectSound. I have done a little audio manipulation so I can combine channels.
I did get Microsoft's Test2Speech (TTS) working with a com object they provide so I can duplicate Nextup Talker if I need to. Hopefully I don't have to do that since it is a bargain and it would take me weeks to duplicate.
This would be a better solution since I could make the same sound come from both headset speakers.

Are there any other ideas out there? Surely this is not a new requirement.

Post by **Jim Bretti** » Wed May 28, 2008 5:45 pm

Try displaying your system volume control panel, click Options -> Properties, and on the Properties panel, click the "Recording" radio button. When you close the Properties panel, do you see a "Wave Out" or "Stereo Mix" device on the volume control?

If you can get to either of these devices, you can toggle between using NextUp Talker and the Microphone by leaving this volume control panel displayed while you're using skype, and selecting the Microphone device when you want to speak, and Wave Out / Stereo Mix when you want to use Talker.

If you don't see Wave Out or Stereo Mix listed with the recording devices, try updating the driver for your sound card. If that doesn't help, the feature probably isn't supported by your sound hardware, and this isn't going to work. In that case, in addition to the two options you indicated, you might also look at picking up a new sound card.

billbell52 · Post by **billbell52** » Fri May 30, 2008 10:39 am

I have an older PC that has the wave-out and stereo mix feature. My new PC and me laptop don't have it. I did think about the option you mentioned but I don't think I am that coordinated to do that in an interactive conversation. I am usually using this on conference calls with several people.

I have started looking at sound APIs and it does look possible to do in software. Is this something you are planning on for Talker. I don't want to invest the time and effort if this is a feature you are planning on. It does look like a good feature to add.

Post by **Jim Bretti** » Fri May 30, 2008 10:54 am

If you're looking for the wave out / stereo mix on the newer machines, definitely check for driver updates. I was missing these devices on a fairly new laptop and got them with an audio driver update.

We don't have immediate plans to add anything like this to Talker. Would you be looking for something in Talker to toggle the mixer for you, switching the recording device between Microphone and Wave Out?

billbell52 · Post by **billbell52** » Fri May 30, 2008 8:50 pm

What I was looking for was merging the microphone and audio out from Talker so no switching would be required. The audio out from Skype and Talker are already merged so I hear both.

Post by **Jim Bretti** » Sat May 31, 2008 10:23 am

Ok, thanks. I don't know when we'll get to this but I'll add it to our to-do list.

billbell52 · Post by **billbell52** » Mon Jun 02, 2008 1:58 pm

Thanks for adding it. Please note that I don't mind paying for it. So if you need to charge an extra ...say $50 to enable the feature I would be more than happy to pay for it.

billbell52 · Post by **billbell52** » Tue Sep 09, 2008 5:15 pm

I finally have this working the way I want it. I purchased a cheap second sound card and a cable with a 3.5mm audio with a male connector on both ends. I have Nextup Talker going to sound card 2. The cable goes from sound card 2 audio out to sound card 1 line-in. I have skype setup to use sound card 1. I select stereo mix for the microphone for skype. Now I can either talk or use Nextup Talker. Works very well.

larrymb · Post by **larrymb** » Wed Sep 02, 2009 3:32 pm

I have a Samsung NC10 netbook. When I use an external USB speaker (Tritton mentioned in previous post) the laptop mic picks up the output of Talker very clearly. So I can talk or use Talker without any hardware or software modifications. Interestingly, this will not work with the built in netbook speakers. Skype includes IM (texting), so with Skype this setup provides provides 3 alternative ways of communicating; Voice, Talker, or Texting.

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