{"id":114,"date":"2015-11-01T13:00:54","date_gmt":"2015-11-01T18:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/getbetteraudio.com\/?p=114"},"modified":"2015-11-18T20:49:05","modified_gmt":"2015-11-19T01:49:05","slug":"skypeducking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/getbetteraudio.com\/studio\/skypeducking\/","title":{"rendered":"Working Around Skype’s Half-Duplex Problem"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"01<\/a>Almost every Internet broadcaster uses Skype to connect with guests for a show. Using Skype can be frustrating because it is a half-duplex service, meaning that only one person can talk at a time. If the host and the guest talk at the same time, the louder of the two is going to cause the other person\u2019s audio to duck or decrease in volume. Ducking can be a real problem when the show is about a hot topic and the host and the caller are really motivated. It is also a problem if the host tries to play music or send return telephone audio to the guest.<\/span><\/p>\n

There is a simple solution to prevent Skype from ducking calls. When you hear it, you\u2019ll wonder why you didn\u2019t think of it already. In professional broadcasting, the on-air talent on a remote broadcast almost always has return audio from the producer or the control room back at the studio. Notice how even the weather guy on your TV station has an ear piece so that he can receive his audio cues from the director.<\/span><\/p>\n

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The trick to eliminating Skype ducking is to put the local host and the remote guest on two different Skype channels. With this configuration, the guest and host audio streams are not competing with each other for whatever bandwidth Skype has to offer, and the audio flows smoothly in both directions. It doesn\u2019t matter that Skype is half-duplex since you\u2019re sending audio in only one direction on each channel.<\/span><\/p>\n

Here\u2019s how it works. Start Skype. Then, start a <\/span>second<\/span><\/i> instance of Skype using the \u201c\/secondary\u201d command line switch. Click this link<\/a> to see how to create a secondary instance of Skype. You might want to create Skype accounts particularly for this application since the names and accounts can get confusing. For example, you could create one account called \u201chost-to-remote\u201d and another one called \u201cremote-to-host\u201d, not that those exact names are available. Audio from the host to the remote is SENT over the host-to-remote call, and audio from the remote to the host is SENT over the remote-to-host call. You might want to tell Skype to automatically answer calls to expedite the setup.<\/span><\/p>\n

Host Computer<\/b><\/p>\n

Host-to-Remote Account<\/span><\/p>\n