AuDimix
Description
Recording a podcast, streaming live on Twitch or running a remote meeting all share a common audio routing challenge: multiple sound sources — a microphone, desktop audio from an application, a music track, sound effects — need to combine into a single output that the recording software or streaming encoder receives as one audio feed. Windows’ default audio routing allows one source to one output, so this mixing is not possible without dedicated software. AuDimix creates a virtual audio device on the Windows system that applications can use as a standard microphone input, while the AuDimix mixer combines as many real audio sources as the user needs into that single virtual output.
Streamers, podcasters, online teachers and content creators use AuDimix to control their audio mix — adjusting the level of the microphone relative to background music, muting individual sources during a broadcast, or applying effects to the microphone before the signal reaches streaming software — from a single mixing interface.
AuDimix installs a virtual audio device that is shown in the sound settings of Windows and in the audio source list of applications in conjunction with real microphones and audio interfaces. Any application that accepts a microphone input — OBS Studio, Zoom, Teams, Discord, recording software, game streaming tools — will select the AuDimix virtual device as its input and receive the combined mixed output of all the sources that the user has set up in the mixer. The virtual device integration does not require any extra configuration in the target application other than selecting the target application from the list of audio sources.
The mixing panel displays each of the audio sources as a separate channel strip: the physical microphone, desktop audio (system sounds and application audio), media player audio, and any additional virtual audio inputs. Each channel has a separate volume fader and mute button. Adjusting a fader adjusts the level of that source in the mix without affecting others. Muting a channel will mute that channel in the output but not mute other channels — useful for muting the microphone for a moment without interrupting the music or system audio in the mix.
AuDimix adds effects to the microphone channel before the signal gets to the mix: noise suppression to eliminate background ambient noise such as keyboard clicks, fan noise, and room echo; high-pass filter to reduce rumble (low frequencies); compression to reduce the dynamic range so that quiet speech and louder moments are more consistent in level; and equalizer bands to adjust frequency response for the specific characteristics of the microphone. The effects are processed in real time with negligible latency.
Push-to-talk assigns a keyboard shortcut that unmutes the microphone only when it’s held down, and otherwise mutes it — useful for situations where you don’t want to constantly monitor the microphone. Push-to-mute is the opposite: the microphone is always on and the shortcut mutes the microphone while held down. Both modes assign to any keyboard key or mouse button.
The soundboard panel is used for storing short audio clips that are assigned to keyboard shortcuts. Pressing a shortcut plays the associated clip into the mix — sound effects, intro jingles, alert sounds, or pre-recorded voice clips — in addition to the live microphone and other sources. The soundboard incorporates the playback into the main mix output so the clips make it to the virtual device along with all other audio sources.
AuDimix records the mixed output directly to an audio file — the same signal that the virtual device sends to connected applications — as WAV or MP3. Recording the mix records the combined audio exactly as it sounds to the streaming or recording software, allowing a local backup of the broadcast audio.
A separate monitor output sends a mix of the audio sources to headphones or speakers, so that the user can hear their own microphone in addition to other sources, without that monitoring signal being fed back into the virtual device output. The monitor mix volume is independent of the output mix.
