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.
You can pick one up pretty cheap on Amazon
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!
You can also get these on Amazon for less than £10
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.
Step 5: Let me know if it work!
We’ve had quite a few views on this post now, and it would be great to hear if you managed to get it working, or if there are any other things you’d like to know how to do. Drop a comment below 🙂
Step 6: Check out some of our content
We are a small team here at Geek Sleep Rinse Repeat and any support is welcome, if you’ve got a spare 5 minutes (once you’ve got your Switch and Discord working of course) please do take some time to go and check out some of our gaming content. We write plenty of reviews and news pieces you might be interested in, here are a few Nintendo ones for you:
Mainlining review on Nintendo Switch
Stardew Valley on Nintendo Switch – Review
Future Grind Nintendo Switch review
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.
- If for any reason you are hearing the audio coming in kinda wonky (like quieter parts of the sound have a noticeably worse quality), uncheck audio enhancements. On some devices, that can help, but it really lowers the quality of the switch’s audio.
thank you so much… ive been trying to get it to work for a while and it finally did!
Glad to hear it! I searched around for ages before I finally worked this way out so I figured I’d get it up online
Thankyou for sharing this info!
Happy to help, did it work?
Works for me! thanks a lot!
I cannot see the ‘listen’ tab when I click properties?
It could be an issue with out of date drivers?
Having some trouble here. My PC only has 1 combined mic/headphone port. Any suggestions on what I could buy to help with this?
I know you can get splitters for single ports so you can plug in headphones and a mic. But I’m not sure if this method would then still work.
Nothing is showing up in my Recording tab. Any idea how to fix this? I’ve got a combined mic/headphone port.
Bro you are the best! I couldn’t figure out for the life of me how to get my switch to come through my 5.1 surround speakers. Everybody I asked said it couldn’t be done, or at least they had no idea on how to do it, and I just so happened to come across this post. Thank you so much and God bless you..
No problem mate, glad to hear it
I don’t see it posted anywhere here, but I’d like to point something out.
If for any reason you are hearing the audio coming in kinda wonky (like quieter parts of the sound have a noticeably worse quality), uncheck audio enhancements. On some devices, that can help, but it really lowers the quality of the switch’s audio.
Other than that, this worked like a charm. Damn well worth the money!
Thanks for this, I’m going to add it into the troubleshooting section if thats OK?
Hey, I have my MSI thing pop up when i Insert it that then asks what i am connecting. Do i select it as a mic? Or as a headphone? Or simply as a line-in?
Technically I think it should be a line-in, providing you can ‘listen’ to it. All this method is doing is creating a loop from your switch to your speakers/headphones. Any issues drop us another reply, and sorry for the delay.
Is there a way to do this while also using the pro controller or will I have to use the headphone jack and plug it directly into my sound card? I am using a good sound card but I am still getting interference is there another way around this?
Hi Aussie,
I’ve not tried it myself, but if it’s taking up the USB slot maybe use a multi-USB port to split it out? Another reader suggested the following if you are still getting feedback:
If for any reason you are hearing the audio coming in kinda wonky (like quieter parts of the sound have a noticeably worse quality), uncheck audio enhancements. On some devices, that can help, but it really lowers the quality of the switch’s audio.
Alternatively you could try using one of these:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01L1NP7YI/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=roadsun0a-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=B01L1NP7YI&linkId=2662f99a2335da20ab3c14499569d54e
I did this and the feed back is almost the same level of the game isnt it supposed to be lower
Never mind I got the static to go away by putting the mic base boost to 0 and setting the volume lower. Then I turned up the switches volume instead.
I don’t know if my last comment stayed because I don’t see it anymore. What I said was basically, you can turn down the static if you lower the settings in your PC, and increase the sound output of your console.
Hi mate, we have comments on an approval basis just to avoid all the bot spam 🙂 that’s a great tip thanks!
I followed all the steps and it works great! However the nintendo switch audio is only playing through my speakers, and not my headset. I even set the playback device for the switch to my headset but it still doesn’t work. Any advice?
If your PC is ‘listening’ to the switch as an input, then it should route all audio out to the primary device. Your PC has no idea that it’s a switch, it’s just been tricked into thinking it’s a microphone.
The only thing I could potentially think of is that your PC default device is your speakers, and Discord has been separately told to go through your headset? (Discord settings override defaults on your PC).
Does any other audio come out your speakers? Such as a youtube video or something like that?
Is there no way that I can have both my microphone and the Switch audio active at the same time? Seeing as they’re both audio inputs, I don’t know how I can use both.
I have my switch directly into a line in, and a mic into my mic port, and headphones into my headphone port at the back of my Desktop PC. My problem is, whenever a discord call is started, my mic is working and I “listen” to the line-in, it plays the line-in to the person I’m conversing with. So they can hear me and my switch sound. But when not in a call, I can hear my line-in perfectly fine. If you have any insight it would be greatly appreciated.
Hey there, my setup involves my console games tv as a second monitor, utilizing a hdmi switcher to go between whatever mode I want. Of course, I’ve been wanting some sort of fix for being able to listen to both my switch and computer audio at the same time, especially for playing Smash while being in a voice call via Discord, so seeing this option over the much more expensive sound board was lovely.
Having difficulties figuring out how to get it working though? I utilize a laptop (built for gaming,) instead of a desktop, but it still has a headphone port so should obviously still work, however I don’t see any new device popping up at all. Additionally, I only hear my switch audio when I have the audio cord plugged into the mic port on the adapter, while my headphones are plugged into the headphone jack. If I do it vice versa (Headphones in the mic port, the audio cable in both headphone ports) I get no sound whatsoever.
If you’re able to offer any help, it’d be greatly appreciated.
Does this not work for the switch lite? I followed these instructions, skipping the part that involves the dock, yet I’m not able to hear anything from my switch. I’m plugging the aux cord into my switch headphone jack while plugging the other side into every compatible jack on my PC. My main earbuds plug into the jack on my monitor, but I’ve switched around into every different arrangement I can think of with no luck, the same goes for my sound settings. I’ve tried all the different input and output devices in my options, changing the defaults then running the troubleshooter but still wasn’t able to hear anything from my switch.
I dont know why… but I cant find the guide …. It only shows me the title… then the picture and then the comments… there is no description on how to do it… and I cant find a “register” button or something like this … Is this normal ? Help would be apreciated and sry for the bad English ( im from Germany) 🙂
Thanks
askliva
There is no need to register to anything. It should just display as normal. Could be an issue with your browser?
Hi I have sizzling.
Thanks for this. Did the trick.
thank you! I just wish that there was a way to remove the buzzing…
I turned down the volume but i can still hear it (a little bit when there is no other audio)
Thank you for this, I just have a small problem where the audio from the switch keeps dropping out every now and then. Any suggestions??
if you’re running the switch output as a microphone to the pc, wouldn’t that mean you can’t speak in discord? only listen?
You can set a different input device specifically in Discord settings, this should work.
So, I set this up and it worked perfectly the first couple times I tried it, but after that it just stopped working. my pc and switch could both detect it working and according to my pc there were no issues. Any fixes?
After the recent windows update, it doesn’t seem to work anymore? I’ve had it working for the longest time.
Does this work with a laptop and a usb headset?
the pink 3.5 port is the mic not headphones
Do you get a buzzing sound through your pc when using a USB to 3.5mm adaptor? because the method that I am using at the moment creates a small buzzing noise that is rather annoying, and I am wondering if using a usb to 3.5mm converter out of the switch rather than just the aux cable out of the switch will fix that
Worked for me, thank you!
This works perfectly when I am not trying to use discord. My main microphone is plugged into the 3.5mm port on the front of my pc, but when I plug the switch cord into the rear 3.5mm port, it replaces my microphone, and appears as the exact same ‘microphone’ device under sounds. How would I make it appear as its own device separate to my microphone?
If you want to completely get rid of the buzzing noise plug a group loop Isolator into the port on your pc and the aux cable into that. You get those things for around $8 on Amazon. With this you would also not need the USB to Aux thing. Personally I just have such an Isolator and an Aux cable directly into the switch. Cost me in total around 12€ and I get no buzzing at all as long as my sounds are configured correctly
If you want to completely get rid of the buzzing noise plug a group loop isolator into the port on your pc and the aux cable into that. You get those things for around $8 on Amazon. With this you would also not need the USB to Aux thing. Personally I just have such an Isolator and an Aux cable directly into the switch. Cost me in total around 12€ and I get no buzzing at all as long as my sounds are configured correctly
Thanks so much for the help! Got it working and got it working another way too. If you’re using an Elgato capture card(probably works with others but that’s what i’m using) you can use the same principals as above with changing the device settings to listen to and it worked. Just in case you’ve already got one and want to save a bit of cash and no buzz at all, thanks for the tips, never would have ever thought to look there.
Would this work for listening to phone calls and nintendo switch games too?
I was looking for a way to listen to music and hear my switch through the same headset and this method worked brilliantly. I bought a high quality aux cable and USB adaptor (same items that are recommended in the article), connected the aux cable to my line-out port on my sound card (with 3.5mm to 6.3mm jack adaptor) hooked the aux cable to the green port on the USB adaptor and plugged that into the Switch’s USB port. Changed the settings for the line-in audio on my ASUS Xonar essence sound card (recordings tab, properties, listen to this device) and top quality Switch audio coming through my PC. There are very VERY slight artifacts, but are barely noticeable unless the volume is turned up and there is no music/ambient sound coming from the Switch game.
Overall, super advice, I’ll be happy playing Animal Crossing without having to bear the in game music over my own selection 😀