Removing Discord desktop app's audio processing on mic for clean throughput

spiralknightking commented 5 months ago

Plugin Description

The discord desktop app performs processing on the mic audio regardless of if Krisp and the other features are turned off. I believe a high pass filter plus some leveling is done.

This behavior is not observed in the browser version of discord, and audio quality is exactly as high as the source is, which is directly observed in higher quality voice chat and voice messages. Can easily be tested making a voice message using the browser app vs the desktop app, and listening back to both.

I'm thinking if this fix could be a plugin, perhaps it is possible to just add this directly to Vencord as a settings toggle?

It's quite annoying how discord messes with the audio quality for no reason other than to coax people into using Krisp and the other noise suppression features. It's been a problem for years where people complain discord has poorer audio for no reason, but the app actually is making it worse seemingly on purpose, taking control away from the user.

I do use the browser version now which "solves the issue" by not being the desktop app, but the desktop app conveniences such as streamdeck hotkey support for easy controls like muting/PushToTalk while playing games or talking with people is too convenient to stop using.

For convenience here are two clips from a sound check I did using the voice message plugin;

With the browser version
With the desktop version

Both these are with the same settings in the app and browser with every krisp feature, gain and noise suppression turned off, and same mic settings outside of that and outside the apps. Even the waveform showing in discord itself is different, despite the settings being the same, if you can't hear it well.

Thanks for considering,

Cheers

Existing Plugin for other mod

No response

Request Agreement

[X] I read the above and made sure my plugin is possible and allowed
[X] I checked the existing plugins and made sure my plugin doesn't already exist
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Vendicated commented 5 months ago

very likely not possible. why not just use https://github.com/Vencord/Vesktop instead? it should have the same audio as on web

spiralknightking commented 5 months ago

Thanks, I checked Vesktop out a bit. It does have the same audio as the browser version, which is great. But it doesn't, I guess "appear", as the discord app to the elgato streamdeck app, so the discord-connected API that streamdeck uses means the PTT keys etc don't work. Effectively meaning it's the same as discords web browser version. I could of course set up separate hotkeys for this, so it would work but sometimes hotkeys don't work when you're playing certain videogames, which is why the API plugin for streamdeck is so useful.

Though Vesktop being a lighter version that is less taxing and has better audio- that's worth using it on it's own as opposed to the Discord desktop and possibly the browser version. Though, I noticed I can't zoom in this Vesktop app, so I will have to use the browser app for now as I use 16" 2560x1600 monitors as my secondaries, zooming in 160% on them in the app/browser.

I appreciate the suggestion though, I was thinking it would be possible to hijack the discord audio processing somehow and just turn off that extra processing it's doing, as afaik via the debug mode it logs that it's doing the high pass.

Again thanks for the response on this. I use vencord a lot due to the sheer unobtrusive convenience it offers.

Vendicated commented 5 months ago

Though, I noticed I can't zoom in this Vesktop app

Ctrl + / -

I was thinking it would be possible to hijack the discord audio processing somehow and just turn off that extra processing it's doing

discord uses their own native module (discord_voice) for handling voice chat, so vencord plugins unfortunately have little to no control over voice chat things like audio / streams

spiralknightking commented 5 months ago

Ctrl + / -

Perfect, of course.

Say, is Vesktop chromium or based on firefox, like the Waterfox app? I've been using the browser app via firefox due to it not being chromium.

spiralknightking commented 5 months ago

Just ran https://chromiumchecker.com, it's Electron 22

Anyways, I appreciate the work and the answers :dorimepray:

Vencord / plugin-requests