Following kgoodyer's brilliant post, I am trying to reorganise my audio setup into and out of vMix. The reason is that there are occassions where I am producing a programme on my own, while "presenting" at the same time. In that case, I have no means of muting incoming Skype calls and have to trust the caller to manage that, which is not always ideal.

So I'd like to bring all my audio into vMix directly and get rid of the mixing desk, and then I can mute audio channels via midi.

The first problem I have come up against is the noise introduced when I do this. I have posted a shorrt video clip here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MvyeTjpeu4

I assume this is ground loop or other electrical interference. Here's what I can say:

- when I plug headphones into either Skype PC, there's no noise, so it's not the sound card.
- I get similar noise from both Skype computers
- The longer the cable, the louder the noise
- I have tried different cables
- I have tried plugging all PCs into the same electrical source
- We don't have this problem when we use the mixer

Does anyone have any recommendation for how to fix this?

Any experience of cheap and nasty ground loop isolators? I know some people complain about them, but I'm not needing audiophile quality sound here. I'll probably get one of these and try it anyway.

All suggestions welcome.

Just standard 3.5mm TRS stereo cables, straight from the headphone socket to mic socket, at the moment.

W14

Ebtech makes some nice hum eliminators. You would need an adapter to go from 3.5mm to 1/4.

http://www.guitarcenter....hannel-Hum-Eliminator.gc

I've used this 2 channel model and it works well. There are others made by Art, Nady, etc. that cost less, but I've never tried them.

Skype voice can be quiet easily integrated into VMIX on the same machine, without having to use any real cables, thus no external noise, electrical or otherwise. Below is a diagram demonstrating how this can be achieved. I have also included the basic configuration for a talk-back system allowing a return 'presenter / producer' clean feed back to the Skype caller (signal without the incoming Skype call looping back). It also includes methods for the 'producer' to whisper in the presenters ear, or hold a full private 'off air' conversation with the Skype caller, whilst the presenter is holding things together 'on air'.

I have included a basic truth table, there are plenty more combinations to do other interesting things, but this diagram with hopefully help.

The Virtual Audio Cable I use is the fantastic 'Virtual Audio Cable' from Eugene Muzychenko. A free 'watermarked' version can be downloaded from - http://software.muzychenko.net/eng/vac.htm and is about $25 (without support) to buy when you are ready. My VMIX is currently using 8 virtual audio cables (Single copy of Virtual Audio Cable) to route audio from VoIP phones, Voice mail Player, Sound FX shot box, etc.

Good Luck

Keith