Hello, I have currently two seperate pc’s.My daily driver running Ubuntu and one windows machine for playing pubg. The Linux system hosts discord and also occasionally games.
In my current solution I use a simple analog audio mixer to control the outputs of both devices. Unfortunately I get pretty mean coil whine effects from the windows machine when the game is running. This is annoying for me, but even noticeable for persons in the discord.
I fixed it by using the optical line out from the windows PC in combination with an external DAC and then back to the analog mixer… This works but the setup looks more and more like a birds nest.
Now I am looking for a solution that allows me to :
- mix digital toslink with sound of the Linux machine in one device
- I need real world buttons/wheels to adapt the sound of both machines independently and without software
Any ideas?
Cheers, M.
Maybe I’m misunderstanding but this is best achieved with an analog mixer. You already have the ideal solution for your requirements.
Really sounds (sorry) like you want a hardware solution. Not sure what a linux specific solution would be.
exactly! The device you posted has an usb connection. I would connect this to the main machine. But I am not sure if the device supports linux on that conenction. From my point of view I could also go with a soundcard which alows digital line-in and mixing. I guess something like this would work: https://www.amazon.com/Creative-Streaming-Programmable-Surround-GameVoice/dp/B0BXFV6Q1T/ref=sr_1_33?keywords=sound+blaster+7&qid=1686692956&sr=8-33
but the sound blaster does not properly work on linux
Nowadays the majority of audio interfaces “just work” with Linux, as long as the manufacturer hasn’t tried to implement some proprietary protocol, which few manufacturers do now
I have several audio interfaces with usb connections and they all work with Linux (they just identify themselves as “usb audio device”), so chances are this device will work perfectly?
I agree with the other answer suggesting to keep the mixer. Maybe look into a higher grade cables if the interference is induced into the analog cables (it could also come from the sound card, cables won’t help with that). That way you could get rid of the optical to analog conversion.
Just as an other option I wanted to mention Deej though. You’d likely need two deej controllers but they could be built into the same box.