Question / Help USB Audio recording on 2nd PC

[Toddmc]

Is there a way to record audio on a second PC without introducing the latency you get from Virtual Audio Cable? I understand that you can use the stereo mix option if you're listening to sound on the originating PC through the line out, but that does not work for a USB headset. The solution to that I've seen suggested is set up a virtual cable and split the output, but that desyncs the audio on the originating PC. Fine for listening to the radio, but not for playing a game.

It seems very strange to me that I can't find a program that can record the audio going to the USB headset when Open Broadcaster, FRAPs, and other video recording software can do it. But a program that can record or redirect just the audio seems to be more elusive.

 

[Toddmc]

So here's an interesting solution to this. Disclaimer: It's a horrible hack.

There's a program called Audio Record Wizard from Nowsmart that can record from output sources as well as input sources. They mention on their web page that the stereo mix method is obsolete in Windows 7 and that you shouldn't use it. Anyway that's the good news, bad news is that it cannot redirect the sound to an output device, only record it to a file. But you can set the file to stop recording and make a new file at any interval you want, and from what I can tell if you queue those recordings up in windows media player you can't hear the break. So set it to record a bunch of 5-10 second long files, save them on your network, play those files in sequence on the remote computer and sync all that up with a recording delay. Manage all that and you can play games with a headset or surround sound, with no audio latency, and use a second streaming computer.

Now if only there was a program like ARW that would output the sound to an audio device instead of a disk.

 

[Toddmc]

I found a solution to this that sort of works, since my first response to myself was impractical. There's a program called Total Recorder that will let you record from an audio output at the same time it plays back to a different output. So you can use this to record your speakers or USB headset without interfering with them like VAC does. Then set the output to the same HDMI output the video is being sent over. You can also mix in a microphone input, much like OBS allows you to do when using 1 PC.

There is a delay in the output audio that doesn't match the delay in the output video, but I got them to sync up by setting a video buffer in OBS on the capture PC.