Syrinscape and TeamSpeak on Mac

[HoratioDrank]

I guess I should really be asking this question over on the Syrinscape forums, but I feel really comfortable with this community so I thought I'd check here first.

Does anyone have experience linking Syrinscape and TeamSpeak on a Mac? VB-Cable is Windows-only. I see there are various virtual cable options for Mac. Has anyone successfully used any? Any tips?

Thanks so much.

CNYGamer99

[Benjamin Loomes]

Hi, yes, I think there are a couple of threads on the Syrinscape forums re Teamspeak and VB-Cable etc on MACs... It'll be great when someone works out an easy pathway to making it work smoothly... as long as they write a nice tutorial for the rest of us! ;-)

[Mirloc]

I seem to recall Zeus or Dulux-Oz writing something up about this perhaps a year ago or so, just before Syrinscape entered the beta for the Adobe Air version...

Regardless, there's a Mac user to uses Loopback (see post #10 here: https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?32444-The-magic-of-sound&highlight=mac+syrinscape )

[HoratioDrank]

To date, I have not had any luck getting Syrinscape to play through TeamSpeak on my Mac. After reading the documention for Jack, I had high hopes, but Jack won't run on the most recent version of OS X (soon to be called macOS).

I also left a message on the one forum discussion I was able to find over on the Syrinscape forums. There was a user over there who was able to resolve the situation just last month (https://forum.syrinscape.com/t/mac-os-and-teamspeak/920) and mentioned he would write up a set of instructions. But so far nothing.

With regards to the thread you linked to, Mirloc, it looks like Loopback is a $99 purchase. Quite honestly, with all of the money I've put into getting myself and my gaming group online and running in the best possible environment we can, I'm starting to get spending fatigue. I would continue running my games on my Windows machine before I spent another $100. But thanks so much for the heads-up. That's good lookin out.

[Mirloc]

AlternativeTo indicates that there are three possible alternate programs for Loopback (https://alternativeto.net/software/loopback/?platform=mac) JACK, Soundflower and Sound Siphon.

Not being a Mac person, I can't really say to the quality or functionality, but of the three Soundflower actually appears to be a nearly perfect replacement for how Loopback was used in the thread. I'd like to hear back if this is the case. Sorry about the $99 pricetag CNYGamer99 I just don't keep up on Mac at all.

Looks like Sound Siphon is around $40 or so, not quite the $100 pricetag on Loopback, but it's still a significant investment. Soundflower is showing that the code is around 2 years old which would put it in the range of - if I remember right - Yosemite?

[Benjamin Loomes]

Ultimately we are hoping to look towards remote controlled players on players' local machines, receiving simple (low bandwidth) triggers to play sounds.

The GM's clicks a sound on his Player (the Master) and this call is broadcast out to the Player's Players (Minions). That way the Players have full quality sound (which they can turn up and down easily), and there's no bandwidth crowding.

'Sounds' good?

Ben (from Syrinscape)

[ianmward]

Sounds great. The sound quality definitely drops when played through TeamSpeak, so local playback would be a big improvement.

Would this require all of the players to have bought the sound packs or subscribe, though?


Ultimately we are hoping to look towards remote controlled players on players' local machines, receiving simple (low bandwidth) triggers to play sounds.

The GM's clicks a sound on his Player (the Master) and this call is broadcast out to the Player's Players (Minions). That way the Players have full quality sound (which they can turn up and down easily), and there's no bandwidth crowding.

'Sounds' good?

Ben (from Syrinscape)

[HoratioDrank]

Ultimately we are hoping to look towards remote controlled players on players' local machines, receiving simple (low bandwidth) triggers to play sounds.

The GM's clicks a sound on his Player (the Master) and this call is broadcast out to the Player's Players (Minions). That way the Players have full quality sound (which they can turn up and down easily), and there's no bandwidth crowding.

'Sounds' good?

Ben (from Syrinscape)

Ben,

For me, the issue at hand is not how controllable Syrinscape is from inside of Fantasy Grounds. It's a cute little convenience, but doesn't carry much weight for me personally. I have no problem controlling it directly from the Syrinscape control panel (and, in fact, I usually do). Obviously, there will be some people out there who find that convenience more meaningful than I.

For me, there continue to be two issues that keep Syrinscape from being a stellar, knock-it-out-of-the-park product:

1. Relative sound volume. I can run one sound scheme and have to turn the volume on the Syrinscape control panel way up to for it to be audble. And another sound scheme will blow out all the windows in the room at the same volume. And generally across the board, the individual sound effects seem to be much, much louder than the various sound schemes.

2. (This next one, admittedly, is not really a problem with Syrinscape itself, but this problem only occurs for me when I'm using Syrinscape, so in my consumer mind I blanket it under Syrinscape problems.) Use of Syrinscape with 3rd party VOIP programs. Let's face it, we're living in an increasingly more and more online world. Being able to use Syrinscape via VOIP was probably once a nicety, but it seems like it should be a necessity now. When I use Fantasy Grounds and Syrinscape on my Windows machine (which I don't prefer using), everything is fine. I followed the instructions for setting up a connection via VB-Cable and it worked fine right away. That said, although it worked, the whole multi-program set-up still very much a jury rigged, fragile pile of poo. And when I run Fantasy Grounds and Syrinscape from my Mac (my preferred platform), I can't get it to talk to TeamSpeak at all.

If those two issues were addressed, I'd be a Syrinscape zealot. As it stands, I'm merely an enthusiast.

[ianmward]

For number 2, the point Ben is making, I think, is avoiding syrinscape talking to teamspeak altogether as this is non trivial and gives poor audio quality even when it works.

Ben's suggestion is that the sound play on the client side, controlled by the GM. Each player then controls the volume (or even just doesn't run it, if they don't want sound) but the GM triggers what to play and when...

[Trenloe]

Sounds great. The sound quality definitely drops when played through TeamSpeak...
Yep, it will. But I've found running the Opus Music codec on the TS sub-channel and higher quality helps a lot - to the point that it sounds pretty good through TS.

[Benjamin Loomes]

Ben,
For me, there continue to be two issues that keep Syrinscape from being a stellar, knock-it-out-of-the-park product:

1. Relative sound volume. I can run one sound scheme and have to turn the volume on the Syrinscape control panel way up to for it to be audble. And another sound scheme will blow out all the windows in the room at the same volume. And generally across the board, the individual sound effects seem to be much, much louder than the various sound schemes.


I think THIS may make you just a bit happy?!


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ai0Kn-eeceU

[ianmward]

Yep, it will. But I've found running the Opus Music codec on the TS sub-channel and higher quality helps a lot - to the point that it sounds pretty good through TS.
Wow! I'll have to try that.

[damned]

I have enabled the Opus codecs on the community teamspeak server.

[ianmward]

Thanks Damned

[HoratioDrank]

So I had some success in getting Syrinscape to play nice with TeamSpeak on the Mac. Of immediate note, the Mac version of Syrinscape currently is one release behind the Windows version, and it will not support the direct control of the software through Fantasy Grounds.

A user over on the Syrinscape forums (jim_s_mckay) was kind enough to create a tutorial with screenshots (https://forum.syrinscape.com/t/protip-12-mac-os-and-teamspeak/920/20) on how to get Syrinscape working with TeamSpeak on the Mac. Although I greatly appreciate his efforts, I did not have success following his steps, but they were good enough to get me started on the path that led to a solution that works for me.

Basically, I installed Soundflower 2.0b2 (available at this link (https://github.com/mattingalls/Soundflower/releases/tag/2.0b2)).

Then I set my Mac's audio to Soundflower (2ch). From there, you can follow the regular Windows steps for creating identities inside TeamSpeak, but remember for the Sound Effects identity, you have to choose Soundflower (2ch) as the capture device.

Once that is done, all Syrinscape sounds (and, in fact, all normal system sounds) will play over Soundflower, which means your sound effects will play over TeamSpeak like they do with the Windows set-up. It's not an idea solution, but it works just fine. Once you're done with your session, you'll need to set your Mac system audio back to whatever you normally use.

Alternatively, once Soundflower is installed, you can go into MIDI Audio Setup and create a multi-output device, and attach your built-in output and Soundflower (2ch) to it, and use that for your Mac's audio setting. That means Syrinscape will play both over your system speaks and TeamSpeak. I don't care for that option, so I use Soundflower only.

Regardless of which way you go (Soundflower only vs. multi-output device), or which system you are using (Mac vs. Windows), the solutions are clunky and fragile. What the "gaming sound effects industry" needs is a revolution of some kind in terms of sharing sounds online. My perception is that these programs were created to play sounds from a computer for in-person, tabletop games. And for that purpose, they are excellent. But as gaming began to move more and more online, kludgy, jury-rigged solutions began to emerge.

For what it's worth, I have received first-hand information from people at both Syrinscape and Battlebards that solutions are "in the works" and "coming soon".

[Trenloe]

Once that is done, all Syrinscape sounds (and, in fact, all normal system sounds) will play over Soundflower, which means your sound effects will play over TeamSpeak like they do with the Windows set-up.
They don't have to play over TeamSpeak with the Windows setup - after setting the Windows default playback device for the second TeamSpeak channel before opening Syrinscape, change the Windows default playback device back to your headset and system sounds will be played only through your headset locally, not through the TeamSpeak channel.

[HoratioDrank]

They don't have to play over TeamSpeak with the Windows setup - after setting the Windows default playback device for the second TeamSpeak channel before opening Syrinscape, change the Windows default playback device back to your headset and system sounds will be played only through your headset locally, not through the TeamSpeak channel.

Yep, true enough. I was grammatically vague in my post. My bad. The "like they do with the Windows setup" was referring strictly to "your sound effects will play over TeamSpeak." Sorry for the confusion. :-)