So I recently bought a Switch, but my evenings are mostly spent chatting with my friends on Discord even if we are all playing different games.
I racked my brains as to the best way to be able to chat to people on Discord whilst also listening to Link beat the hell out of some Bokoblins in Breath of the Wild.
What you need
You don’t need a great deal, but full disclaimer this will cost you about £10.
A 3.5mm Aux cable
Any male to male ‘headphone’ cable will work, but I would suggest getting a relatively good one to avoid interference.
3.5mm Aux male to male
UK Amazon
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Braided-Premium-Auxiliary-Android-Smartphones-Gold
A USB to 3.5mm adapter
This is to go into the back of your Switch dock.
You can go direct from the headphone port on your console into your PC, but this can cause some interference and you have to plugin it in everytime!
USB to 3.5mm Adapter
UK Amazon
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B01N905VOY/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
The solution
In short, the solution is about running the console through the PC as a line-in and routing that out of your soundcard to play as standard audio.
Step 1: Plug your 3.5mm cable
Take your 3.5mm male to male cable, and plugin it into the headphone port on the back of your PC. This is going to be the pink 3.5mm port.
Step 2: Plug your USB adapter into your dock
In your Switch dock, you should have a USB port between the USB-C and the HDMI. Plug in your adapter and feed it out of the slot in the back.
Step 3: Connect the adapter and the 3.5mm
Take the cable that you just plugged into your PC and connect it to the green port on your USB adapter.
What we’re doing here is taking the audio that’s coming out of the console, and feeding it into the PC as a line-in. Your PC will see it as a microphone.
Step 4: Configure your new ‘device’ under sound settings
On your PC, go to your control panel then go to Hardware and sound > Sound > Manage audio devices.
Click on the ‘Recording’ tab and you should see a new device there.
Right click on this new device and select properties and click on the ‘Listen’ tab.
You then need to check the box ‘Listen to this device’.
Check your speakers or headphones for feedback noises as depending on the quality of the ports/cables you might hear some.
That’s it! You should now be able to hear your PC and Switch audio through one headset or speaker.
If you have any problems with this feel free to drop a comment, but I’ve left some potential troubleshooting issues below.
- Check you have your PC speakers/headset turned up
- This may default your ‘default playback device’ to this new one, make sure your active microphone is still set to that or people won’t be able to hear you!
- If you can’t hear anything, try plugin the 3.5mm directly from your PC into the switch and see if that helps.
- It’s likely you’ll hear a small amount of feedback no matter how hard you try, but this method should be quiet enough that you can’t notice it over game sounds.
