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1clue
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PostPosted: Thu Jan 22, 2015 9:03 pm    Post subject: USB-connected Android phone as sound card? Reply with quote

Hi,

Is there a way to use a USB-connected Android phone as a sound card for the computer?

I need to have a headset connected all the time, both for my computer and for my phone. I would like to make that just be my phone, and when I connect the USB from phone to computer I would like the phone to act like a USB sound card and mix all the phone audio in with the computer audio.

I know this depends a lot on the phone and apps there, but if somebody already has it going it would be nice to see how you did it.

Thanks.
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Roman_Gruber
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PostPosted: Thu Jan 22, 2015 10:34 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Google is your friend.

e.g.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.georgie.SoundWireFree&hl=en

Quote:

Description
SoundWire lets you send any music or audio ("what you hear now") from your Windows or Linux PC to your Android mobile devices. Use it as:
- A remote speaker or wireless headphones
- A way to listen to music and movies from your computer anywhere in your house or out on your deck.
- A wireless extension of live audio from your PC-based music system
This is not just another file streaming app... you can use any music player on your PC or laptop like Grooveshark, Spotify, YouTube, or iTunes and feed the live sound directly to your Android device. SoundWire lets you listen to the free versions of Grooveshark and Spotify on your phone.
SoundWire has low latency (audio delay), which means it can even be used to listen to the soundtrack of a movie or YouTube video while you watch (**Note you must adjust the buffer size in app settings for low latency). There are other uses too... SoundWire can work as a baby monitor or listening device with a computer such as a netbook that has a built-in microphone. Hook up turntables to your computer's line input and stream a live DJ set to another part of the house over WiFi, or anywhere else over 3G/4G.
Before using SoundWire on your Android device you must install and run the SoundWire Server application on the Windows/Linux PC or laptop which is your source of music, web audio streaming, or other sounds. Raspberry Pi is also supported. Download the server at http://georgielabs.net (do NOT obtain the server from any other web site).
Features
- Live audio capture and streaming
- Excellent sound quality (44.1 / 48 kHz stereo 16-bit, PCM or Opus compression)
- True low latency (unlike AirPlay, Airfoil)
- Easy to use
- Compression option greatly reduces network usage
- Stream music from PC to PC running x86 virtualized app (Linux/Windows)
- Runs on all Android versions back to 1.5, put your old phone to good use
For more information see the user's guide at http://georgielabs.net/SoundWireHelp.html
If you have any problems please see the troubleshooting tips at the above link. For example if you get choppy audio try restarting your wireless router, then try the other troubleshooting suggestions in the guide. The most common reason for connection problems is incorrect firewall settings at the PC or router. Please contact support at soundwire@georgielabs.net if you have any problem.
The free version of the application identifies itself by voice every 45 minutes and displays ads. There is a 10 minute compression trial in the free version. The full version enables unlimited Opus audio compression, can handle multiple clients (up to 10 connections), and has no ads or voice identification. It also has a special Pro Mode to set and display buffer latency precisely in milliseconds. Please consider purchasing the full version of SoundWire if you'd like to support the developer.
You may want to use a remote control app together with SoundWire. Some good choices include: Grooveshark Remote, Spotimote (Spotify remote), Remote for iTunes, Android VNC, Unified Remote.
Please rate the app and comment on Google Play to let us know what you think of SoundWire. If you have a question or bug report send email to soundwire@georgielabs.net. If reporting a problem please give your phone's Android version and make/model.
Permissions
- Network communication: Communicates with the server program on your PC.
- Phone calls: Mutes audio when you receive or make a call. Without this permission music would continue to play, interfering with your call.
- Prevent phone from sleeping: Keeps app running while connected (playing music) or attempting to connect. May be disabled in settings.



One of many results.

I checked a few descriptions and basically you need a client installed on your host pc. what you do on your phone, to use it as headset, external speaker, and so on, depends on you and on the software.

most chat apps also exists for android too...

basically you have to search yourself the google store and check waht you need on your requirements.

i am not sure if you can use the adb to get something similar working. i managed to do a lot with adb but i never bothred to play around with teh sound source of my phone
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1clue
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PostPosted: Thu Jan 22, 2015 11:32 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I was looking for a wired USB connection, but I hadn't really considered wifi. I thought this app was for bluetooth, which I definitely don't want.

If I can't find a wired USB version I'll experiment with it a bit and see how the quality is.

Thanks.
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Roman_Gruber
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PostPosted: Sat Jan 24, 2015 10:14 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

adb, android debug bridge is a pain in the ass.

I like that i can use cli to communicate with my phone via adb. You may try around with adb but be warned that some features are locked when you do not have custom rom + superuser on your phone.

I just want to point out that you may find a way to open a channel to your soundhwardware on your phone via adb. you can even get a remote shell via adb shell command for example.

therefore i gave you teh hint for the google playstore. you need anyway a binary which is a client to your host computer and does the interface for the soundcards.. I am pretty sure they just use a few tricks which are easily achieveable when you use busybox on your phone and know what you do, but for that I lack a bit insight on sound / android os ...
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1clue
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PostPosted: Sun Jan 25, 2015 3:49 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

This is getting a lot more complicated than I anticipated. I'm going to tell you my scenario rather than looking for something specific.

I have several USB headsets. You plug them in, and they work, even on Linux. They act as a sound card hooked to USB. I was hoping that there was an established way to tell my phone to do the same thing. No matter what search terms I use on play store, nothing does it. Lots of bluetooth, some wifi (which might be OK if it provides encryption) and pretty much nothing through a wire.

Really what I'm after is a way to have a high quality headset (several hundred dollars USD) and a single high quality audio path which is used everywhere I go. My phone isn't really good enough for that, but it's adequate enough for now.

In my work I use Skype and Webex and join.me and some other things, and my phone. I work on a Mac right now, but it's old and slow and I need to turn on a fan and open a window (temps well below freezing outside) to get it to do the job without thermal shutodown now. I'm building up a Gentoo box for this, it at least has an i7 even if it's old. I know some of these tools don't work so well on Linux. I'm hoping to find a way to adapt. If I need to I'll use the Mac for those things that don't work very well on Linux.

I actually have a better than average sound card on my Gentoo box from a few years ago, but really what I need is unified sound. I need sound to get from all my computers AND my phone into my headset, which is a phone headset. Meaning it has a microphone, and that has to work too. But even so, it makes sense to me to spend money on ONE premium audio system which accepts signal from everything I work on, rather than a bunch of decent sound cards for each system.

There are some high quality DACs that can take multiple inputs and fit in a pocket, but it seems a little overkill, I was hoping to find something to work with a phone.

I need a way for anything that constitutes 'a call' to be able to mute any other audio, like music or video or system sounds from any other source. I just don't see anything like that right now.

Thanks.
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Ant P.
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PostPosted: Sun Jan 25, 2015 4:45 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

You have two technically-sound options here: find some project that implements a usb-audio class USB Gadget driver on Android (it's not all that crazy an idea, so it *should* exist somewhere), or try connecting the phone to your Mac using the Bluetooth bidirectional phone audio profile (which IIRC exists specifically for this reason). Gentoo's not an option for the latter, because BlueZ/Pulseaudio suck and don't implement that specific thing.
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1clue
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PostPosted: Sun Jan 25, 2015 5:23 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Bluetooth audio sucks and nothing in heaven or earth will change that.

Pulseaudio sucks much worse than bluetooth. It won't be installed on my hardware.

I know this makes me an uncooperative @$$#073 but a guy's gotta have standards.

I could technically still do this with a pocket DAC and some extra cables.

Thanks.
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