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I believe Discord also uses Opus codec IIRC. But wonderful to see the codec in a fully open-source project. Added noise suppression would also be great, especi

I believe Discord also uses Opus codec IIRC. But wonderful to see the codec in a fully open-source project. Added noise suppression would also be great, especially a FOSS-based one (Discord uses AI-based noise suppression from Krisp [0] -- a Berkeley, CA based for-profit startup). I'm curious if there are any FOSS community projects in this noise suppression space. Given the rapid rise in WFH culture post covid-19, I can see an explosion in demand for s/w products in this space. [0] https://krisp.ai/ https://krisp.ai/

theelous3 5y ago
Except via discord, the quality is throttled and a bunch of random decisions are made about what to do with your audio outside of the codec. Drives me up the walls when I mention discords awful quality and people just say "I don't know what you're talking about they have the same codec". It's only a piece of the puzzle. Not to mention the constant robotting because some of their servers are melting or something. Host your own voice comms :) Even the cheapest 2€ a month box can handle a decent sized party with no issues.
- Macha 5y ago
  The issue is that Discord's audio processing is focused on mitigating the impact of the worst audio setups, not preserving the quality of the best, and I don't even think that's the wrong focus given their casual target market
  - theelous3 5y ago
    I'd believe this if they didn't offer higher quality as a paid feature. And why is there no passthrough mode setting for voice channels? Plenty of people out there with decent usb mics and a cheap little dac/amp setup.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - jhgg 5y ago
      A pass-through mode where we disable all audio processing is on the roadmap, for those with really good setups that don't need the post-processing :)
- IntelMiner 5y ago
  Hosting a Mumble server is the easy part Convincing everyone else involved to switch over to it however is a near-insurmountable battle. Many years ago I was playing on a friends Minecraft server, while in a then Skype call with some friends on the server One user couldn't get Skype to work on their Arch Linux install, and proceeded to spend almost an hour badgering us and whining to switch to Mumble so they could "join the fun" From our perspective, shifting our entire group conversation over to a brand new voice chat system just for one person seemed like an absolute joke. So they were left wanting
  - slim 5y ago
    What you did was not optimal. You had the opportunity to switch to a better platform and a strong incentive to do so (one member could not participate without it) you should have put the necessary effort to transition. It would have made your community stronger. Generally speaking, the policy of "none left behind" the most powerful bond-building tool available.
    - ferdowsi 5y ago
      This is not the case if setting up and using Mumble would have caused net more friction for the rest of the community. See all the comments about needing to perform constant troubleshooting for mumble users.
    - supertrope 5y ago
      You can't force peers to install software and take the time to train themselves on the new software like you can with an employee.
  - j1elo 5y ago
    It also doesn't help that Mumble has a very bad UI for the average user. I love it, because I'm an engineer and know what all those buttons and sliders do. My friends? they didn't like it at all. Thus making the switchover even harder. This issue has been mentioned in the past already, and I think Mumble devs acknowledged this in the past... having a well polished UI is so important for user adoption! Just throwing all technical choices to the user's face is rarely the right solution.
- navjack27 5y ago
  Yup. I've done this too. https://youtu.be/eUQKOPyiANc https://youtu.be/eUQKOPyiANc It's just so bad in discord I don't know what they are doing
- ThatMedicIsASpy 5y ago
  discord has terrible audio and ((non paid) video). I still use teamspeak3 these days with some of my friends being on ts5. I always get angry when companies use it for commentary on esports because its just that damn awful
- dancemethis 5y ago
  Not to mention their internal copy of the audio.
gsich 5y ago
Mumble has RNNoise.
smcameron 5y ago
> But wonderful to see the codec in a fully open-source project. I know that a few open source games use it for in-game chat. Empty Epsilon [1], and my own Space Nerds in Space [2] both use it for this, and there are probably others. [1] https://daid.github.io/EmptyEpsilon/ https://daid.github.io/EmptyEpsilon/ [2] https://smcameron.github.io/space-nerds-in-space/ https://smcameron.github.io/space-nerds-in-space/
pubutil 5y ago
Speaking of Krisp, I’m curious about other people’s experiences using their noise suppression with Discord. I personally had it enabled (by accident) for over a week, and during that week I noticed people were either ignoring me or not hearing me. I discovered it was the latter when I disabled the noise suppression option. Krisp was suppressing my voice in addition to noise. Other people I know who’ve tried it have had similar results, so I’m wondering if we’re using it wrong or if Krisp just isn’t worth using at this point.
- nyxcharon 5y ago
  I've ran into the same problems. My voice gets consistently muted with it on. I've been able to get it to sort of work by manually setting input sensitivity but even then I still get muted at times.

theelous3 5y ago

Except via discord, the quality is throttled and a bunch of random decisions are made about what to do with your audio outside of the codec. Drives me up the walls when I mention discords awful quality and people just say "I don't know what you're talking about they have the same codec". It's only a piece of the puzzle. Not to mention the constant robotting because some of their servers are melting or something. Host your own voice comms :) Even the cheapest 2€ a month box can handle a decent sized party with no issues.

Macha 5y ago
The issue is that Discord's audio processing is focused on mitigating the impact of the worst audio setups, not preserving the quality of the best, and I don't even think that's the wrong focus given their casual target market
- theelous3 5y ago
  I'd believe this if they didn't offer higher quality as a paid feature. And why is there no passthrough mode setting for voice channels? Plenty of people out there with decent usb mics and a cheap little dac/amp setup.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - jhgg 5y ago
    A pass-through mode where we disable all audio processing is on the roadmap, for those with really good setups that don't need the post-processing :)
IntelMiner 5y ago
Hosting a Mumble server is the easy part Convincing everyone else involved to switch over to it however is a near-insurmountable battle. Many years ago I was playing on a friends Minecraft server, while in a then Skype call with some friends on the server One user couldn't get Skype to work on their Arch Linux install, and proceeded to spend almost an hour badgering us and whining to switch to Mumble so they could "join the fun" From our perspective, shifting our entire group conversation over to a brand new voice chat system just for one person seemed like an absolute joke. So they were left wanting
- slim 5y ago
  What you did was not optimal. You had the opportunity to switch to a better platform and a strong incentive to do so (one member could not participate without it) you should have put the necessary effort to transition. It would have made your community stronger. Generally speaking, the policy of "none left behind" the most powerful bond-building tool available.
  - ferdowsi 5y ago
    This is not the case if setting up and using Mumble would have caused net more friction for the rest of the community. See all the comments about needing to perform constant troubleshooting for mumble users.
  - supertrope 5y ago
    You can't force peers to install software and take the time to train themselves on the new software like you can with an employee.
- j1elo 5y ago
  It also doesn't help that Mumble has a very bad UI for the average user. I love it, because I'm an engineer and know what all those buttons and sliders do. My friends? they didn't like it at all. Thus making the switchover even harder. This issue has been mentioned in the past already, and I think Mumble devs acknowledged this in the past... having a well polished UI is so important for user adoption! Just throwing all technical choices to the user's face is rarely the right solution.
navjack27 5y ago
Yup. I've done this too. https://youtu.be/eUQKOPyiANc https://youtu.be/eUQKOPyiANc It's just so bad in discord I don't know what they are doing
ThatMedicIsASpy 5y ago
discord has terrible audio and ((non paid) video). I still use teamspeak3 these days with some of my friends being on ts5. I always get angry when companies use it for commentary on esports because its just that damn awful
dancemethis 5y ago
Not to mention their internal copy of the audio.

gsich 5y ago

Mumble has RNNoise.

smcameron 5y ago

> But wonderful to see the codec in a fully open-source project. I know that a few open source games use it for in-game chat. Empty Epsilon [1], and my own Space Nerds in Space [2] both use it for this, and there are probably others. [1] https://daid.github.io/EmptyEpsilon/ https://daid.github.io/EmptyEpsilon/ [2] https://smcameron.github.io/space-nerds-in-space/ https://smcameron.github.io/space-nerds-in-space/

pubutil 5y ago

Speaking of Krisp, I’m curious about other people’s experiences using their noise suppression with Discord. I personally had it enabled (by accident) for over a week, and during that week I noticed people were either ignoring me or not hearing me. I discovered it was the latter when I disabled the noise suppression option. Krisp was suppressing my voice in addition to noise. Other people I know who’ve tried it have had similar results, so I’m wondering if we’re using it wrong or if Krisp just isn’t worth using at this point.

nyxcharon 5y ago
I've ran into the same problems. My voice gets consistently muted with it on. I've been able to get it to sort of work by manually setting input sensitivity but even then I still get muted at times.