Programatically switch stereo audio channels (left <> right) in headphones using C#

4
votes

SCENARIO

For personal reasons I need to put my headphones in the opposite orientation, so what should be the left channel/headphone I put it in my right ear, and the right channel/headphone in the left ear.

When playing videogames this turns a big issue on games where the player must concentrate to find out where the sounds of the game come from (left or right audio channel) for example in a online shooter videogame, because... well, what comes from the left channel in-game I hear it on my right ear, and what comes from the right channel, on my left one. And here is where this question makes sense.

QUESTION

How can I programatically switch the (stereo)audio channels of the master sound device/headphones (or the channels of a target executable) in Windows using C# or VB.NET?.

I have no problem in order to depend of NAudio or VistaCoreAudioApi libraries.

1
c#.netvb.netaudionaudio
This might be a dumb question, but have you tried putting your headphones on the opposite way? - maccettura
@maccettura Hahaha good one. The problem is that the headphones are wireless and it produces lot of interferences if I put it on the right orientation. Buying a new headphones is not a solution, because it will produce the same interferences, so instead of that I just need to fix/switch the channel outputs in the system. - ElektroStudios
Have you tried moving the wireless source on the other side of your head and putting your headphones back on correctly? - Ecnerwal
Assuming that this uses the 3.5mm audio jack, make your own "extension" core, but reverse the left and right leads. Alternatively, buy an extension cord, cut the wires and re-splice them. - JerryM
NAudio would let you capture audio coming from other apps with WasapiLoopbackCapture, but not modify it. You need a virtual audio device driver to do low level stuff like that, so writing your own would be very difficult. The swapping channels part is easy - it's intercepting sound from other apps before it comes out the speakers that's not. - Mark Heath

1 Answers

-1
votes

The best way that I've found is to download and configure Equalizer APO as described in this post (should work for Windows 10 too): how-do-i-reverse-audio-channels-win-windows-7