Update your audio codec to allow for stereo mic setups

itschives

We have a lot of people on Discord that love to play instruments in vc (I'm gonna use guitar as an example since that is what I play) and many people serious about recording guitar will use a pair of microphones where they pan each mic to either side to achieve a very convincing stereo image. The benefits of allowing stereo in terms of clarity of speech and hearing what someone actually sounds is a standalone selling point in itself. I have a pair of pretty expensive sennheiser mics so I was pretty disappointed when I found out your audio codec only supports a mono input in an age where stereo and 3D audio are industry standard at this point. Too many people on Discord love music to deny this feature for so long. 

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Comments

18 comments

Date Votes
  • mannie.exe

    Hello!

    Would any developer be interested in taking a look at this? What's the performance overhead for multi-channel audio for all users? I'm not hyper familiar with the many audio codecs and protocols, and their transmission over IP -- so if somebody with some better knowledge can help us determine the feasibility of bringing this to production with respect towards client and server performance and stability it'd be fantastic!

    Would allowing individual clients to enable or disable multi-channel input for other users help users with poor connections? How much of a beating would Hammer & Chisel's infrastructure take when compared to current statistics?

    ===

     

     

    Also, another user posted this about the Opus 1.3 (now 1.3.1) update: https://support.discordapp.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/360041744612-Implement-newest-version-of-Opus-v1-3- 

    Another user pointed out in the comments how useful this would be to help Discord establish itself as a music producer's tool as well, and I wholeheartedly agree! Also being able to whisper into people's left ears is definitely going to get some people banned, but hey -- eggs and omelettes.

    1
  • Toggleton

    I'm a little confused when I'm looking at this https://support.discordapp.com/hc/en-us/articles/360028038352

    and looking at the Recommended settings for Opus https://wiki.xiph.org/Opus_Recommended_Settings

    Would that mean

    Level 1 128 Kbps Audio Quality (For 2 Channel )

    Level 2 256 Kbps Audio Quality (For 5.1)

    Level 3 384Kbps Audio Quality (for 7.1)

    or am I misinterpreting that

    2
  • Uri

    It's honestly odd that Discord still doesn't have stereo support. It's a shame, really. I suppose that's the last plus Teamspeak holds over it.

    8
  • Icykidzboi

    Can i talk with myf riends with this now>

    0
  • Ted Beauvarlet

    Totally agree with Togleton, this is not Clear ... Will I have Stereo if I boost my server ???

    I would even go up to 256 Kbps 

     

    but we have no answer ... Someone ??

     

    2
  • MCXL

    If you want the answer, it was purposely removed from discord about two years ago. Bots for streaming music may access stereo codecs, but they removed the ability to set voice chat to stereo for users to conserve bandwidth, and solve some small issues where some people had improperly configured stereo inputs panned to one side. I would love to see it come back as an advanced feature, but it was removed, not something they haven't implemented yet.

     

    You used to be able to select from several codecs as well, not just Opus.

    6
  • Dense Cabbage

    I've heard many people now have a stereo sound, this is with their guitars.  It just makes no sense that I can't do it as well.  I'm not a Nitro user, but I should be able to use this, I have a stereo output off of voicemeeter, I should be able to use it.

    Other people are using it, I just haven't been able to figure out how they are pulling it off.

    4
  • ke7zum
    • Edited

    I'm echoing what others have said here.

    I've often wondered why discord does not have a "hear input in stereo" option. Some of us have stereo mics on either our computers or externally. I know opus can do stereo well at low bit rates and even higher ones too. Can this please be looked into? I can't up vote suggestions due to a problem with accessibility of doing so, but can this still be suggested somewhere. This on the PC version btw. maybe one day on iOs and android. or it could be on all platforms?

     

    thanks. and shame it was removed. I know zoom has the feature, why not discord, and  opus. I'd gladly take it on the basic plan  which gives me up to 128kbps opus. That would be nice in stereo.

    1
  • Arnett

    I use a program called Ripcord (https://cancel.fm/ripcord).

    This allows you to have a stereo input. 

    :)

     

    0
  • ke7zum

    Now that iOs 14 has stereo capability that hopefully will be something discord can implement, but I heard and it was said on this thread, that this was taken out a few years ago because of some bots, or something to that effect. I really wish this would be implemented again as I like hearing things in stereo and opus would do a good job even at 64kbps, or 96.

    0
  • HVDiffusion
    • Edited

    Indeed I am of the same opinion of integration this essential feature for any good artist witched in audio which seeks to propose the best immersion and sound quality during a service.

    The fact of going through additional software or having to use a bot "with reduced quality and random buig" is not at all practical and would be easier to have this nice functionality in the Discord client itself.

    Indirectly, even if the user does not have Nitro, they can promote Discord more if this feature is introduced, they will be more likely to invite new people to listen to them with quality sound.

    Many people like me have high-end equipment (Micro, mixer ect) and we are able to send stereo quality stream too bad to be limited to stereo.

    0
  • Bleuzen

    Would love to see this implemented, really need that for music streaming.

    0
  • Téléviziyon

    Hey, is there any other options instead of using ripcord ? this is against tos to use 3rd party softwares with discord...

    Is there any experimental options to enable opus music/stereo "client-sided" ??

    0
  • Froggy Raven

    Does discord still not have stereo sound?

    0
  • Zipdox
    • Edited

    Nope, but I'm working on a client in C.

    https://gitlab.com/zipdox/librediscord
    0
  • 138Klub

    Other people are using it, I just haven't been able to figure out https://mirror.xyz/0xFa5Eb1dAF388A7E1AAE6C933B6713A1a4d856B37

    0
  • Zipdox

    Discord already encodes audio in stereo. It just mixes the input to dual mono. The client I'm working on supports stereo.

    0
  • Zipdox

    Edit ~/.config/discord/0.0.*/modules/discord_voice/index.js and find setTransportOptions in the bindConnectionInstance function. Replace the entire line with this:

    setTransportOptions: (options) => {
      if(options.audioEncoder)
      {
        options.audioEncoder.params = { channels: 2, };
        options.audioEncoder.channels = 2;
        options.audioEncoder.freq = 48000;
        options.audioEncoder.rate = 384000;
        options.audioEncoder.pacsize = 20;
      }
      if(options.encodingVoiceBitRate) options.encodingVoiceBitRate = 256000;
      return instance.setTransportOptions(options);
    },
    1

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