Remote Desktop

[craigctodd]

Today I tried running REW on my Windows 11 media PC in the listening room while using Remote Desktop on a computer in my office in another room. Everything seemed to work, I could navigate REW and activate the Generator, but the SPL meter was not reading correctly. I found the media PC (as displayed on my office PC) wasn't showing the UMIK mic as an available audio input. I spend an hour or so troubleshooting trying to figure out how to get the mic properly recognized by Windows on the media PC. Finally I disconnected the Remote Desktop session and went into the listening room to directly operate the media PC. Everything worked perfectly. So it seems that when running a Remote Desktop session the mic pugged into USB is not available. Seems a bit odd but there is probably no solution.

 

[John Mulcahy]

Is the UMIK the default record device? If so it might be accessed by the remote session. If it needs to be shared try selecting the non-EXCL input option that should allow sharing.

 

[dlr]

Just a suggestion - TightVNC. I use it on a regular basis controlling a laptop running REW, a PC as music server and NAS, measurement PCs and a dedicated speaker DSP system. It doesn't require the Win Pro license the Remote Desktop does. But I'm not making audio measurements so no mic at this point, I'm testing hardware (preamp, amp, etc.).

 

[craigctodd]

John pointed me in the right direction.
I did a lot of searching and most hits were about remoting into your office computer but wanting to talk in a Teams or Zoom call using a local microphone, whereas I want to use the mic on the remote machine that is running REW. I finally found this:

Using microphone and speaker over RDP - Microsoft Q&A

I have a use case where I want to use the microphone of the remote system and hear the playback in my local system through RDP. Tried the settings in RDP like, Remote Audio Playback, Remote Audio Recording, iterated through the settings, checked the…

learn.microsoft.com

Reading that post I made the settings shown in 2. on my office computer and in 3. on the computer in the sound room. For some settings I had to hunt a bit as the instructions might be for Windows 10 and I'm now on Windows 11. It was not hard to find the items.

When starting the remote connection on my office computer, in the Remote Desktop Connection popup I now select "Show Options" and then "Local Resources", then in the Remote audio box I hit "Settings" and then under Remote audio playback I select "Play on remote computer". The lower box for Remote audio recording then greys out.

Before doing this when I remoted in and opened Device Manager and looked under Audio inputs and outputs I would only see Remote audio listed. Now I see all the normal devices including the Umik mic. All seems to work fine now, REW is accessing the Umik mic correctly.

I have used VNC to get into a remotely located Raspberry PI. I can understand it is also probably a good solution.

 

[dlr]

I have used VNC to get into a remotely located Raspberry PI. I can understand it is also probably a good solution.

So problem solved, that's good. The one difference I would point out is that I suspect VNC doesn't require any special actions on the user's part to start it up. It just works, at least with anything I've done in REW and other software. Can't confirm REW use with a microphone, however. For hardware testing I just log into the target PC and go. It also is great for re-sizing windows as needed. In fact, it's how I watch Amazon Prime on my TV using PC (I hate the TV apps). I connect to my server PC through TightVNC that is also connected to the TV and the main monitor (dual use monitor), bring up Amazon in the browser that simultaneously is displayed on the TV, set that full screen and done. Tight VNC can then be minimized in my main PC while watching (yeah, I sometimes poke around/work on my main PC while watching).

 

[phofman]

IMO the suggestion to use a different remote-screen technology is a good one too. IIUC the windows Remote Desktop (RDP) routes local (client) audio devices to the remote server, in addition to graphics (server -> client) and keyboard/mouse (client -> server). It makes sense - one typically wants to use local audio devices, those connected to the client. IMO that is the reason for changed audio devices in the remote desktop on the client, compared to the server.

Using a solution which only transfers graphics and keyboard/mouse (such as the suggested example of various VNC implementations) would not change the audio devices (because only graphics is transferred) and server audio devices would be visible in the client.

 

[craigctodd]

What is a good VNC server to use on the computer running REW? I see a lot of bad reviews of different versions.

 

[dlr]

TightVNV. I checked them out before settling on this one. Works well without fail. When you install you set viewer and/or server in each one.

I'm not aware that you can mix-n-match versions of VNC. Use TightVNC for both server and viewer.