Discord Audio Stream Bot

A simple discord audio streaming bot.

Preview: Streaming to discord ("speaking")

1. Audio source (e.g. your voice, music from file, sound from game)
2. Recording device (e.g. microphone, Virtual Cable)
3. Discord Audio Stream Bot (this software)
4. Discord Voice Chat (discord)

Getting started

Part 1 - Bot user

• Create a discord developer application here
• In the bot tab, add a bot user
• Copy the bot token
• Enable the "SERVER MEMBERS INTENT" (required to check if a user issuing a command has sufficient permissions)

Part 2 - Bot program

• Check that a Java Runtime Environment, version 17 (JRE/JDK 17) or higher with an architecture matching your computer is installed and that the folder containing java.exe & javaw.exe is added to the PATH system environment variable - otherwise it will crash in the next step!
• Run the bot program using "run win.bat"
  Note: This step is only valid for Windows. If you intend to run it on mac or linux, I would appreciate your help in making launch scripts or submitting explanations for this document!
• In the settings tab, paste your bot token and hit return
• In the home tab, click the big on/off button to log in to the bot user with the token
• In the maintenance tab, invite/add the bot to a guild/server, if necessary

Part 3 - Command introduction

• Now you can enter commands - either by sending a direct message in a private channel to the bot user or from within a channel of a guild/server shared by you and the bot user. Start by typing a slash ("/") to get a list of available commands for all applicable bots
• As an example, type "/about" to get a link to this repo ("/about public:True" to also show that to other users)
• Use "/bind" to restrict command usage to one or more channels in a guild
• Use "/autojoin" or "/follow-audio" to automate joining audio channels (being a voice or stage channel)

Part 4 - Test run

• Issue the command "/join" to bring the bot user up in a voice channel
• In the settings tab of the bot program, unmute the bot
• Choose & select a recording device (default one being your microphone, most likely)
• Now it should be sending audio from the selected recording device to discord. Enjoy!

macOS (credits to spkane, may be outdated)

Building

• Install homebrew if you do not already have it, then:
  • brew install gradle
  • gradle build
  • cd build/distributions
  • tar -xvf Discord-Audio-Stream-Bot-1.0-SNAPSHOT.tar

Usage

• Follow the build steps above, then:

  • cd Discord-Audio-Stream-Bot-1.0-SNAPSHOT
  • DISCORD_AUDIO_STREAM_BOT_OPTS='-Djava.library.path="/usr/lib:../../../natives/mac/" --add-exports="java.desktop/com.sun.java.swing.plaf.windows=ALL-UNNAMED"' ./bin/Discord-Audio-Stream-Bot

• Loopback is a very good virtual audio cable application for macOS

Linux (CentOS 7) (credits to Johnny Primus, may be outdated)

Building

• Install java and dependencies
• sudo yum install java-11-openjdk-devel.x86_64 java-11-openjdk-headless.x86_64 git-all zip unzip bzip2 gzip
• Install sdkman (https://sdkman.io/)
• curl -s "https://get.sdkman.io" | bash
• Install gradle 8.5 (https://gradle.org/install/)
• sdk install gradle 8.5
• build
• gradle build

Usage

• Follow the build steps above, then:
  • gradle run

Linux (PipeWire / PulseAudio)

For a normal virtual audio cable on modern Linux, snd-aloop is not required. The simplest setup is a PipeWire/Pulse virtual sink created through pactl.

Install the required tools

Arch Linux / CachyOS:

• sudo pacman -S qpwgraph pipewire-pulse

Debian / Ubuntu:

• sudo apt install qpwgraph pipewire-pulse

Fedora:

• sudo dnf install qpwgraph pipewire-pulseaudio

CentOS Stream / RHEL-like:

• sudo dnf install epel-release
• sudo dnf install qpwgraph pipewire-pulseaudio

openSUSE:

• sudo zypper install qpwgraph pipewire-pulseaudio

If qpwgraph is not available in your repositories, install the PipeWire/Pulse packages first and then use any equivalent PipeWire graph viewer available on your system.

Create a temporary virtual cable

• pactl load-module module-null-sink sink_name=discordbot sink_properties=device.description=DiscordBot-Cable

Create a persistent virtual cable

Create the directory if needed:

• mkdir -p ~/.config/pipewire/pipewire-pulse.conf.d

Create a file such as ~/.config/pipewire/pipewire-pulse.conf.d/discordbot-cable.conf with:

pulse.cmd = [
  { cmd = "load-module" args = "module-null-sink sink_name=discordbot sink_properties=device.description=DiscordBot-Cable" }
]

Then restart the user audio services or log out and back in:

• systemctl --user restart pipewire pipewire-pulse wireplumber

Verify that it exists

• wpctl status

Open the graph and connect it

• qpwgraph

In qpwgraph, the usual routing is:

• application source (Firefox, Chromium, VLC, etc.) -> DiscordBot-Cable playback_FL / playback_FR
• if you also want to keep hearing the sound:
  • DiscordBot-Cable monitor_FL / monitor_FR -> your real output device (Astro MixAmp Pro Game, etc.)

Important notes:

• pactl load-module module-null-sink ... is enough to create the virtual cable
• PipeWire loads its PulseAudio-compatible modules through pactl
• the virtual sink can also be made persistent with a file under ~/.config/pipewire/pipewire-pulse.conf.d/*.conf
• qpwgraph is for visualizing and connecting audio nodes
• wpctl status is mainly for inspecting sinks, sources, filters and streams

Optional fallback: ALSA loopback (snd-aloop)

snd-aloop is a separate ALSA loopback device. It is mainly useful as a workaround when an application does not correctly see PipeWire/PulseAudio virtual sources.

Useful notes:

• snd-aloop is not required for the normal PipeWire virtual-cable setup above
• it creates a full-duplex loopback sound card with two crossed sides
• aplay -l and arecord -l are mainly useful to inspect this ALSA loopback or for diagnostics, not to create the PipeWire cable itself

Downloads

Releases

Tools

• Virtual Cable (A virtual audio device working as virtual audio cable - After installation, restart bot program and set the recording device in settings tab to "CABLE Output (VB-Audio Virtual Cable)". Don't forget to stream audio into the device CABLE Input or else you'll hear nothing)

• Audio Router (To replug your favourite audio source to play into CABLE Input, if it doesn't support switching audio output)