Zoom on a Windows machine and routing audio?

[simeon]

i've been trying to help a friend with this and we're having no luck. i'm a mac user who hasn't touched a PC in well over a decade.

he wants to perform a song live over zoom, so here's what he's trying to do...

play a backing track
sing and play live electric guitar at the same time

he has a 2 channel saffire audio interface

option 1 - play the backing track in mixcraft (his daw) and run his vocal and his guitar into the two saffire inputs and process them (with software monitoring) in mixcraft. send the mix of all three to zoom

option 2 - play the backing track in itunes and run his guitar into the saffire from the headphone out on his amp and run his mic into the saffire. mix all three together and send them to zoom

option 1 would sound the best, because he can add some effects to the vocal etc, but may have a bit of latency

the problem we're having is trying to route anything anywhere. he downloaded "virtual audio cable" and it won't see the mixcraft output, or the monitor mix going back to the saffire

any alternatives worth trying?

 

[simeon]

i should say, mixcraft won't let the user select different inputs and outputs. if he could select saffire as the input and virtual cable as the output, it would solve the problem, i guess. can you make aggregate devices on a PC?

 

[BBN]

Simplest solution would be an external mixer.
All audio goes into external mixer....out of the mixer into his saffire.
I don't know if doing it all 'in the box' is an option. Zoom is very simple - pick one input and one output. I don't know if it would recognize an internal software (mixer) as a source for input.

My band members have tried merging sources for virtual rehearsals (in the box), and at the end - external mixer took minutes to set up (vs. hours spent trying to make it happen in the box).

 

[simeon]

yeah, that would be the easiest solution , but he doesn't have one. zoom does recognise internal mixers, as i have mine running with "loopback" on my mac and it works very well. i've just suggested that he try "jack", as i've used that in the past with some success.

 

[RoshRoslin]

yeah, that would be the easiest solution , but he doesn't have one. zoom does recognise internal mixers, as i have mine running with "loopback" on my mac and it works very well. i've just suggested that he try "jack", as i've used that in the past with some success.

I would say a PC equivalent to loopback would be the best bet rather than external hardware. Since COVID all my teaching has moved online so I just route 4 things into Zoom. AxeFX, Vocal Mic, iPad (for click/backing tracks) and then the rest of audio from software on my computer like Logic, spotify, youtube etc. all into zoom.

Loopback makes it very simple.

 

[GuitarDojo]

Just got the Rode Rode-caster Pro. Should be able to do ANYTHING.

Brought down a satellite this morning... so there's that.....