RemSound — user manual

RemSound is a Windows program that sends live sound from one computer to another, with very little delay. Picture a private audio link between two or more computers: each one decides what sound it wants to send and what sound it wants to play, and the audio travels straight between them over your network.

It was built for playing music together over the internet — a guitarist on one computer and a singer on another, hearing each other in real time — but it works just as well for listening to one room from another room in your house, co-hosting a podcast, or anything else where you want to get sound from one PC to another, fast.

Table of contents

1. What RemSound does
2. Quick start
3. Profiles
4. The main window: menu bar + three tabs
5. Menus (File, Record, Options, Help)
6. Connectivity tab
7. Audio inputs and outputs tab
8. Audio profile tab
9. ASIO and WASAPI
10. Peers — finding and connecting
11. How the network works (LAN, WAN, Tailscale)
12. Passwords and encryption
13. Latency and audio quality
14. Keyboard shortcuts
15. Global hotkeys (mute, volume, tray, recording)
16. Remote control: adjusting a peer's listening volume from your end
17. Startup behaviour
18. Audio cue sounds
19. Updating RemSound
20. Recording to a file
21. Logs and diagnostics
22. Command-line options
23. Troubleshooting
24. Glossary

1. What RemSound does

RemSound carries sound from one PC's microphone or sound card to another PC's speakers or audio interface, almost instantly, over your network. Both computers run the same program, and each one decides for itself whether it wants to send sound, receive sound, or do both.

The basic flow

There is no central server, no account, and nothing stored online. The sound goes straight from one computer to the other.

2. Quick start

Let's assume you and a friend both have RemSound running, and that your two computers can reach each other on the network (the same Wi-Fi, the same Tailscale account, and so on).

1. Start RemSound. The first thing you'll see is the profile picker. On a brand-new install your only choice is New profile — select it and press Enter or click OK. Later, once you've saved a setup or two of your own, this is the dialog where you choose which one to load. See Profiles for the full story.
2. Once the main window opens, go to the Audio inputs and outputs tab. Tick Receive audio (Alt+R), then tick the device you want incoming sound played through in WASAPI outputs for received sound (Alt+3).
3. On the same tab, tick Send my audio (Alt+S) and tick your microphone in WASAPI inputs to send (Alt+5).
4. Go to the Connectivity tab, find your friend in the Discovered peers (Alt+D) list, and tick them. If they aren't showing up, use Add peer by IP (Alt+A) and type their address.
5. Have your friend do the same with you on their computer.
6. Within a second or two, both of you will hear each other.
7. In the File menu (Alt+F), choose Save as to give your setup a name. Next time you start the program, picking that name from the startup dialog restores all your settings, device choices, peers, and connections in one go.

3. Profiles

RemSound saves your whole setup — which devices are ticked, whether you're sending or receiving, your sound quality settings, delay targets, hotkeys, your ASIO driver choice, remembered peers, currently connected peers — into a single settings file. Each saved setup is called a profile. You choose which profile to load every time you start the program. You might keep one profile for “morning podcast” and another for “evening jam session”, each with a different mix of devices ticked, and switch between them in a couple of clicks.

The startup picker

When RemSound starts, the first thing you see is the profile picker. It is a list of your saved profile names, with an extra entry called New profile at the top. The keys are deliberately simple:

The first profile in the list is highlighted to begin with, so on a fresh install where the only entry is New profile, you just press Enter to get going.

What “New profile” means

A new profile is a one-off session with all the defaults: nothing ticked in any device list, neither Receive nor Send turned on, the standard sound settings, no ASIO driver chosen, no remembered peers, and the standard hotkeys. You'd pick it for a quick session you don't plan to save, or as a clean starting point for a new profile. The Save button is hidden while you're on a new profile — there's no existing setup to update, only a new one to save.

Starting a new profile later: the picker only appears at startup, and if you've set RemSound to start in a specific profile you skip straight past it. So to start a brand-new profile at any time, use File → New profile (Ctrl+N, or Alt+F, W) — it opens a fresh, default session, ready for you to set up and then Save as. If your current profile has unsaved changes, it offers to save them first.

Saving and updating

The File menu has two ways to save:

The window title bar always shows which profile is in use: RemSound — Active profile: My session name.

Switching, renaming, and deleting

Where your files are stored

Everything RemSound keeps for you on this computer — your settings, your profiles, your logs, and your cue sounds — lives together in one folder inside RemSound called user settings and logs. Each profile is one small file, stored at:

<RemSound folder>\user settings and logs\profiles\<your computer name>\<profile name>

(If you're upgrading from an older version, RemSound moves all of this into the user settings and logs folder automatically the first time you run this version, and tells you once that it's done it. Nothing is lost.) From this version on, RemSound updates never touch that folder — so anything of your own in there, including custom cue sounds, stays safe when you update.

The folder named after your computer keeps each machine's profiles separate. If you used the Browse… button on the startup dialog to pick a different folder (for example, one inside Dropbox), the profiles are stored directly in that folder — with no per-computer subfolder — so two computers pointed at the same shared folder see exactly the same list.

You can also copy a profile file from one computer to another: drop it into the other computer's profile folder and it will appear in that computer's startup dialog. If the other computer doesn't have the same equipment (different sound cards, different ASIO drivers), those device choices are simply skipped when the profile loads — RemSound won't show an error or a warning, the relevant lists just won't have those items ticked.

What is NOT saved in a profile

A few things are deliberately kept out of profiles:

• The folder profiles are read from. You choose this with the Browse… button on the startup dialog. It's kept in a small settings file on that particular computer.
• Live connection health figures — these describe what's happening right now, not your setup.
• Anything auto-tune has learned — this is worked out fresh each session.
• Window position and size — Windows itself remembers these.

Locking a profile (read-only)

By default, RemSound treats your profile like a document: if you change something while it's running, you'll be asked “save changes?” when you exit. Most of the time that's exactly what you want — you don't lose work by accident.

But sometimes you want the opposite. You have a profile you live in every day, you toggle send or receive on or off during the day as a matter of course, and you don't want to be asked about saving every single time you close RemSound. You especially don't want to be asked if RemSound might close itself for some other reason (a Windows update, your screen reader crashing, a remote session dropping, a laptop going into hibernate) — because then there's a save prompt sitting on screen that nobody can dismiss, and the app can't actually close.

Locking the profile solves this. When ticked:

• The profile loads normally and everything in the app works the same way it always did.
• Anything you change during the session — ticking a device, sliding the volume, toggling send or receive, picking a peer — still works for that session. RemSound just doesn't write any of it back to the profile file on disk.
• When you close RemSound, there is no save prompt. The app just closes. Whatever you changed during the session is forgotten; the next time you open the profile it's back to what it was when you locked it.
• The window title shows “(read-only)” so you can always tell at a glance.
• The startup profile picker also shows “(read-only)” next to locked profiles, so you know what you're picking before you hit Enter.
• Pressing Save (Ctrl+S) still works — the lock only blocks the automatic save prompt, not deliberate saves. See “Saving on purpose while a profile is locked” below.

How to lock or unlock: open the File menu (Alt+F) and pick Lock profile (read-only) (Alt+F, L). It's a tickable menu item — pick it once to turn the lock on (a tick appears next to it); pick it again to turn the lock off (the tick disappears). The lock state is remembered with the profile, so closing and reopening RemSound keeps the profile locked exactly as you left it.

Saving on purpose while a profile is locked

The lock is there to stop accidents — it doesn't stop you saving when you mean to. If you press Save (Ctrl+S) or pick File → Save on a locked profile, RemSound shows a one-time warning explaining what's about to happen:

Saving onto a read-only profile. You're about to save changes onto a profile that's marked as read-only. RemSound allows this because you asked to save on purpose — the lock only stops the automatic “save your changes?” prompt; it doesn't stop you saving when you mean to.

Click Save anyway to overwrite this profile, or Cancel and use File → Save as… if you'd rather save your changes to a new profile.

There's a Do not show me this message again tick on the warning. Once you tick it, future deliberate saves on a locked profile go through silently without the warning. The setting is per-machine, not per-profile — tick it once and it applies on every locked profile from that point on.

So in summary, on a locked profile:

• Closing RemSound — no prompt, changes are forgotten.
• Switching to a different profile — no prompt, changes are forgotten.
• Pressing Save (Ctrl+S) on purpose — warning the first time (with a do-not-show-again tick), then the save goes through and overwrites the profile.
• Save as… — always works, never warns. The new copy starts out unlocked.

4. The main window: menu bar + three tabs

The main window has three parts, stacked top to bottom:

1. A menu bar at the top with four menus — File, Record, Options and Help. See Menus.
2. A row of tabs with three tabs — Connectivity, Audio inputs and outputs, Audio profile. Each tab has its own Alt+letter shortcuts that only work when that tab is the one showing — so the same letter can do different things on different tabs without clashing.
3. A status line at the bottom that updates once a second with how long you've been connected, how many peers you have, whether sound is flowing, and connection health.

The system tray icon and its menu

When RemSound is minimised to the tray (via File → Minimise to tray, the “Show or hide window” global hotkey, or by starting minimised on launch), the main window hides and an icon appears in your Windows system tray (the small icons cluster next to the clock).

Hovering over the tray icon shows a short summary of what RemSound is doing right now — the number of healthy peers, whether you're sending or receiving and in which mode (WASAPI, ASIO, or both), and whether a recording is running. The summary keeps itself up to date as things change. It tells you a recording is in progress, but not its exact length — for that, glance at the main window. Examples:

• RemSound — not connected
• RemSound — 2 peers, sending (WASAPI), receiving (WASAPI)
• RemSound — recording, 1 peer, sending (WASAPI + ASIO), receiving (WASAPI + ASIO)

Right-clicking the tray icon opens a small menu with everything you might want to reach without re-opening the main window:

Keyboard access: the tray icon is reachable through standard Windows shortcuts — Windows + B moves focus to the notification area, arrow keys navigate, Enter activates, and the application context-menu key (or Shift+F10) opens the right-click menu without a mouse.

Important warnings always come to the front. Even when RemSound is hidden in the tray, a warning it needs you to read — such as the “your files have moved” notice, a microphone-blocked warning, or an update prompt — pops up in front of whatever you're doing, with focus, so your screen reader reads it straight away. RemSound stays in the tray; only the warning comes forward.

Only one copy of RemSound runs at a time

RemSound only ever runs as a single copy. If you try to open it while it's already running — for example by double-clicking it when it's already sitting in the system tray — it won't start a second one. Instead it asks what you'd like to do:

• Switch to the running copy — brings the copy that's already running back to the front. This is the default and usually what you want. Remember it may be minimised to the system tray, down by the clock.
• Force the running copy to close and start fresh — only needed if the running copy is stuck or not responding. It closes that copy and starts a new one. If the stuck copy was in the middle of a recording, that recording is lost — so this is the “get me out of trouble” option, not an everyday one.
• Cancel — do nothing.

5. Menus (File, Record, Options, Help)

There are four menus on the main window: File (Alt+F), Record (Alt+K), Options (Alt+O) and Help (Alt+H). The Record menu opens with Alt+K rather than Alt+R because Alt+R is already used by the Receive audio checkbox on the main window. The menu's title is shown as “Record (Alt+K)” so you can find the shortcut even though there is no K in the word.

File menu

The File menu holds everything to do with profiles — opening, saving, renaming — plus minimising to the tray and exiting.

Record menu

The recording feature can save what you're sending, what you're receiving, or both, to a file on your computer as a WAV, MP3, OGG-Opus or FLAC file. See Recording to a file for the full chapter; this is just the menu summary.

Options menu

The Options menu gathers everything you might want to configure about the app — recording settings, keyboard shortcuts, startup behaviour, and general preferences.

Help menu

The Help menu opens this manual, checks for updates, and shows the About dialog.

6. Connectivity tab

This is where you manage peers and reach the logging options. The controls on this tab, in tab order:

7. Audio inputs and outputs tab

This tab controls everything to do with which sound devices are involved. The ASIO driver picker at the top decides whether ASIO is being used at all. The Receive side and the Send side each have their own master checkbox and their own device lists.

All the device lists are checkable lists — tick or untick an item to include or exclude that device. Profiles save which devices are ticked; a new profile starts with everything unticked.

Receiving

To receive sound you need two things: Receive audio ticked, and at least one output device ticked. Without an output device, even when sound arrives there is nowhere for it to go.

Tick as many outputs as you like across the WASAPI and ASIO output lists — the same received sound plays out of all of them. Common combinations:

• One output: just your monitors or headphones.
• Studio monitors through ASIO plus a wireless headset through WASAPI, so you can move around the house.
• Two physical outputs, one for each of two rooms.

Hearing everyone with one output ticked. A peer always tells you which sound path it's sending from. On your end, if you only have one type of output device ticked, sound from a peer using the other type is still routed through whatever output you do have ticked. So a single ticked output is enough to hear everyone.

Sending

To send sound you need Send my audio ticked, plus at least one capture source ticked across the three send lists.

Tick any combination across the three lists. RemSound mixes them together into one stream and sends that to all your chosen peers. So you can send a mic plus a guitar plus your system sound all at once, mixed together, and your friends hear all three.

8. Audio profile tab

Everything that shapes the trade-off between sound quality and delay lives here. The first control on the tab is the priority mode checkbox — it sits on its own at the top because it has the biggest single effect on how the audio feels in the first few seconds. Below it are two groups: Audio send parameters first, then Audio receive parameters.

Use CPU and Windows performance settings in high priority mode (Alt+U)

This is the first control on the tab. When it's ticked, RemSound asks Windows to keep it running at full speed the whole time RemSound is open under this profile.

The effect is that the “the first few seconds sound rough, then it warms up” behaviour goes away — nothing in the system is allowed to coast while RemSound is sitting quietly between bursts of sound.

This is a per-profile setting, so you can have one profile for live sessions where it's on, and another for casual background listening where it stays off. Turning it on or off marks the profile as having unsaved changes; save the profile to keep your choice.

The cost on a desktop is a couple of extra watts while RemSound is open. The cost on a laptop running on battery is that the battery drains a bit faster over the session, because the processor stays more wakeful instead of dozing — RemSound's own workload doesn't change, the processor just doesn't sleep as deeply. The setting is reversed automatically when RemSound closes (or when you untick it), so it's fine to leave the app running with the box ticked for a whole session, and turning it off partway through works too.

None of the other apps on your computer are affected. RemSound only asks Windows to keep itself running at full speed; Windows still saves power on everything else as normal, so your screen reader, browser and background programs are untouched.

Audio send parameters

Audio receive parameters

What you see in this section depends on whether an ASIO driver is chosen on the Audio inputs and outputs tab. With no ASIO driver, you see one delay setting (labelled simply “Audio latency”). With an ASIO driver chosen, you see two delay settings — one for each sound path — each with its own auto-tune toggle. The two paths are independent: a problem on one doesn't affect the other.

Most people only need to pick a codec and a smoothness level, and leave everything else at its default.

9. ASIO and WASAPI

RemSound can use two different ways of handling sound. Which one it uses depends on the ASIO driver (Alt+D) list at the top of the Audio inputs and outputs tab.

WASAPI (the default)

WASAPI is the normal Windows way of handling sound — every speaker and microphone in your Windows sound settings works this way. The delay added by capturing or playing through WASAPI is usually 10–30 milliseconds. Everyone running RemSound has WASAPI; no special equipment is needed.

ASIO (needs a driver)

ASIO is a faster, more direct way of handling sound used by professional audio equipment. ASIO drivers talk straight to the hardware, giving a hardware delay of under 5 milliseconds. It only works if your audio interface came with an ASIO driver.

The ASIO driver picker doesn't appear at all on a computer with no ASIO drivers installed. Common drivers that do appear:

• Audient USB Audio ASIO Driver — for EVO 4 / 8 / 16 and iD-series interfaces.
• Komplete Audio ASIO Driver — for Native Instruments interfaces.
• Focusrite USB ASIO — for Scarlett, Clarett and Red.
• RME ASIO — for Babyface, Fireface and UCX.
• Realtek ASIO — bundled with some Realtek drivers. Best avoided — it's a generic driver that can grab whatever Windows considers the default device, which often clashes with your screen reader's sound.

How the driver picker decides

One control, two outcomes:

On a fresh install the choice is (none). If you have an ASIO driver and want to use it, select it in the picker. To go back to WASAPI only, select (none).

ASIO channel pairs

ASIO doesn't list “devices” the way Windows does. Instead it gives you a list of channels (usually 2, 4, 6, 8 or more, depending on the interface), grouped into stereo pairs. RemSound labels each pair with the driver name, the pair number, and the channel names the driver itself reports. For an Audient EVO 8 you'd see entries like:

Audient USB Audio ASIO Driver — Pair 1 (channels 1/2): Mic | Line | Instrument 1 / Mic | Line 2
Audient USB Audio ASIO Driver — Pair 2 (channels 3/4): Mic | Line 3 / Mic | Line 4
Audient USB Audio ASIO Driver — Pair 3 (channels 5/6): Loop-back 1 (L) / Loop-back 2 (R)

Buffer size for ASIO

RemSound has no buffer-size control of its own. To change the ASIO buffer size, open the control panel program that came with your audio interface (such as NI's Komplete Audio Control Panel or the Audient EVO software) and set it there. The driver remembers its buffer size between sessions; RemSound simply uses whatever the driver is set to.

Same driver, sending and receiving, on one computer

RemSound supports this — you can capture from your audio interface and play received sound out of the same interface at the same time, on the same computer. Most modern professional audio drivers handle this fine.

10. Peers — finding and connecting

A “peer” is another computer running RemSound that you want to talk to. You manage peers on the Connectivity tab. It has three lists, all of them checkable:

There's also the Add peer by IP (Alt+A) button, which opens a small box for a computer name or address. It's useful for a first connection over a VPN, where discovery hasn't reached the other computer yet.

Connecting to one specific IP address (and only that one)

RemSound can reach another computer two ways, and the difference matters if a computer has more than one IP address:

• By name — ticking someone in Discovered peers. RemSound found them from their announcement and the entry shows their computer name. This is the easy, automatic way on an ordinary network.
• By a fixed IP — Add peer by IP (Alt+A), then type the exact address, for example 10.8.0.1. RemSound talks to that address and nothing else: it doesn't look up a name, so it can never drift to a different IP, and if that address isn't reachable, no connection is made at all.

So to force a connection to one specific IP — say a machine that appears under two addresses and you only want one of them — add it by that IP and tick only that entry. If the same machine also turns up in Discovered peers under its other address, it shows as a separate entry that you simply leave unticked; RemSound keeps the two apart by their actual address, so they never merge.

Either way, the profile remembers exactly what you ticked. Tick a discovered name and the profile reconnects by that name next time; add and tick an IP and the profile reconnects to that exact IP. So the way to make a profile always use one specific IP is simply to add and tick it by that IP, then save the profile.

You only hear peers you've ticked

Even if a peer is sending sound your way, you won't hear it until you've ticked their checkbox. This is deliberate — connecting is a step where you give your consent. A peer's name appears in Discovered the moment they come online, but they can't make any sound on your speakers until you say yes.

Connection health

For each connected peer, the status read-out at the bottom of the window shows a small health note: the latest round-trip time in milliseconds, or pending, stale or unreachable if the regular check-in messages have stopped. (Round-trip time is how long sound takes to travel to the other computer and back.) RemSound plays a connect cue (a short sound) when a peer becomes healthy and a disconnect cue when one becomes unreachable. You can silence both cues using Audio cue sounds in the Preferences dialog (Options → Preferences, or Ctrl+P).

11. How the network works (LAN, WAN, Tailscale)

RemSound communicates on two network channels:

One audio channel number is used for everything — Tailscale, local network connections, and any relay server. You never need to type a channel number after an address; the default is assumed. Both sides of a connection do need to use the same audio channel number.

The health check-ins travel on the same channel as the audio, so if your sound reaches the other computer, your check-ins do too — one firewall rule covers both.

Network priority

RemSound automatically asks Windows to treat its audio as high-priority traffic, which helps most on a busy Wi-Fi network where other devices are streaming, downloading or video-calling. There's nothing to set up — it happens on its own every time RemSound starts. This helps on your local network and your home Wi-Fi; it makes no difference once the traffic leaves your home, but it does no harm either.

LAN — same Wi-Fi or Ethernet

On a normal home network, finding peers and checking their health both work with no setup. Start RemSound on two computers and they'll see each other within a second or two. You usually don't need to change any firewall settings.

WAN — computers in different places

Connecting two computers directly across the internet needs one of these:

• A VPN that puts both computers on the same private network — Tailscale is the one we recommend. (A VPN is a service that creates a private network linking your computers wherever they are.) Each computer gets a Tailscale address (it looks like 100.something) and they can reach each other directly.
• Or, let RemSound ask your router to open the audio port for you automatically — see Automatic router port opening (UPnP) below. Off by default; one tick to turn it on.
• Or, port forwarding on each end's router by hand (this is more involved and isn't covered here).

Automatic router port opening (UPnP)

Most home routers support a feature called UPnP (or its newer cousins NAT-PMP and PCP) which lets an app politely ask the router to open a port so the outside world can reach it. RemSound can use this so two computers can find each other across the internet without you having to log into the router and set up port forwarding by hand.

How to turn it on. Open Options → Preferences (Ctrl+P) and tick Automatically open my router for incoming connections (UPnP) (Alt+O). Off by default — we don't want to poke your router without permission. As soon as you tick the box, a status line appears just below it telling you what happened:

Across sleep and reboots. If your computer goes to sleep, RemSound asks the router to reopen the port automatically when it wakes up — some routers drop their port-forwarding list during long idle periods. Closing RemSound politely tells the router to forget the forwarding rule, so the port doesn't stay open after you're done.

Why this is off by default. Some networks — corporate offices, shared accommodation, hotel Wi-Fi — really don't want apps asking the router to open ports for them, either because there's a security policy or because the router is locked down. Off by default means RemSound never touches your router unless you explicitly tick the box.

Finding peers on Tailscale and other VPNs

The ordinary “I'm here” announcements that work on a home network don't travel across a VPN. RemSound works around this by also sending announcements directly to every address in your Remembered peers list. So:

1. One time only: each side adds the other's Tailscale address to its Remembered peers list (using the “Add peer by IP” button).
2. From then on, RemSound sends announcements straight to those addresses every 1.5 seconds.
3. The other side hears the announcement, adds the sender to its own list, and announces back.
4. Within seconds, both sides see each other in Discovered peers, with no further typing.

So the rule is: only one side has to type the other's address once. After that, the discovery works both ways on its own.

Round-trip time and what it means

Round-trip time is how long it takes for sound to travel to the other computer and back.

12. Passwords and encryption

From v3.3, all the audio RemSound sends is encrypted — scrambled as it leaves your computer and only unscrambled at the other end. Anyone in between (your internet provider, a shared Wi-Fi, anyone watching the connection) just sees noise. This means you no longer need a VPN simply to keep your audio private. And it adds no delay you could ever notice — the scrambling happens in millionths of a second, far less time than the audio itself takes.

How it works: a password per profile

Every profile carries a password, and that password is the key. The rule is simple:

• Same password on both ends → you connect and hear each other.
• Different passwords → no audio passes, and RemSound tells you so (see below) rather than leaving you with mysterious silence.

So the password does double duty: it both encrypts your audio and decides who you can talk to. You and the person you're connecting with simply agree a password — say it out loud, or text it to each other — and each set it on the profile you use to talk to one another. The profile names don't have to match; only the passwords do.

Setting and changing passwords

If you try to start sending or receiving on a profile that has no password yet, RemSound asks you to set one first (and offers to remember it on the profile so you don't type it again next time). Audio can't flow without a password — encryption is always on, there's no “off” switch.

When passwords don't match

If you connect to someone whose password is different from yours, RemSound shows a clear message — “You and [name] have different passwords, so no audio will pass between you” — so you know exactly what to fix. If the other person is on an older version of RemSound that can't encrypt, you'll be told they need to update.

Two things worth knowing

• Everyone needs v3.3 or newer. Because the audio is now scrambled, a v3.3 copy can only talk to other v3.3 (and later) copies. Anyone you connect with needs to update too.
• The password lives with the profile. It's stored (lightly scrambled) inside the profile file, so it travels with the profile if you copy it to another machine or sync it through something like Dropbox. That's handy, but it means you should keep the profile file private — protect it the way you'd protect the password itself.

13. Latency and audio quality

Latency is the small delay between sound leaving one computer and arriving at the other. Five controls together shape the trade-off between latency and sound quality, all on the Audio profile tab:

• Audio latency in milliseconds (Alt+L) — the main target for how much sound the receiving side keeps in reserve.
• Buffer smoothness (Alt+B) — how hard the receiving side works to protect against sudden jitter.
• Packet size (Alt+P) — Standard or Small. Small packets shave a couple of milliseconds off the sending delay, but double how many packets are sent.
• Lock to audio clock (Alt+D) — ties the timing of packets to the sound device's hardware clock, removing wobble caused by Windows.
• Continuous auto-tune — lets the receiving side choose the latency target for you, re-checking every few seconds.

Plus the codec choice (PCM, Opus broadcast quality, or Opus live latency), also on the Audio profile tab. Most people only need to pick a codec and a smoothness level and leave the rest at the default.

The sound-card cushion is automatic

Separately from the controls above — which manage the cushion against network jitter — RemSound also keeps a small cushion at the sound card itself, to smooth over the tiny timing differences between your two computers' sound clocks. From this version, RemSound sizes that cushion to each card automatically: a card that moves sound in bigger chunks (some onboard and USB cards do) gets a little more room, while a fast professional interface stays tight. You don't set this or think about it — it settles on the right amount for whatever card you're using.

Audio latency control

The Audio latency control tells the receiving side how much sound to keep in reserve as a cushion against uneven network timing. A bigger cushion means more delay but fewer clicks. A smaller cushion means less delay but more clicks when the network wobbles.

Smaller is better when the network can handle it. If you'd rather not think about this number, turn on continuous auto-tune (below) and leave it.

Buffer smoothness

The Buffer smoothness list is a 1-to-10 scale for how patient the receiving side is when network jitter spikes. The default is 3.

Smoothness and the Audio latency control work together — smoothness controls how the receiving side reacts when sound runs late; the latency value controls how big a head-start it builds up. A practical tip: if you can hear clicks, try raising smoothness by one or two before you reach for a bigger latency value.

Packet size — Standard or Small

Two choices: Standard (the default) and Small. This controls how much sound each network packet carries:

The saving is small — at most a few milliseconds end to end. Small packets are useful when you and your collaborator are on the same local network and want to chase every last millisecond. For any internet connection it's a false economy, because doubling how many packets are sent also doubles the chance of running into jitter at the wrong moment, which you hear as clicks.

Lock to audio clock

The Lock to audio clock checkbox ties RemSound's sending timing to the sound device's own hardware clock, instead of letting Windows decide the pace. It's off by default. The label tells you what it does in your particular setup:

Continuous auto-tune

The Continuous auto-tune latency checkbox hands the latency value over to RemSound itself. When it's on, RemSound watches how evenly packets are arriving, every few seconds, and nudges the latency target up if it's seeing late packets, or down if the network has been calm. It deliberately ignores a single one-off stall — the kind a driver or Windows hiccup causes once and never again — and only raises the cushion when late audio keeps arriving, so one brief blip doesn't balloon your latency for the rest of the session. The companion Auto-tune latency interval (Alt+I) combo box sets how often it re-checks — 3, 5, 10, 15, or 30 seconds. Faster values react quickly to a change in the network but can feel a bit twitchy. Think of continuous auto-tune as a hands-off way to keep the cushion the right size as your network changes through the session.

If you turn auto-tune off, the latency value just stays wherever it last was.

Artefact sound type

When the playback reserve briefly runs empty, RemSound has to fill the gap with something. The Artefact sound type list decides what that gap sounds like:

• Noise burst (default) — a brief soft hiss that blends into music. Easy on the ear; it tells you something happened without being jarring.
• Click — the gap is left unfilled, so you hear an obvious click each time. Use this when you want to hear every problem (for example, while you're tuning the latency down).

Opus repairs lost sound automatically (built in, no setting)

Both Opus modes can automatically repair lost audio: each packet quietly carries a small backup copy of the previous packet's sound, so the receiving side can rebuild any single packet that goes missing on the way. The result is that a single missing packet becomes inaudible — no click, no glitch — instead of the small pop you'd otherwise hear. Two missing packets in a row still produce one click; that's just a limit of how Opus works, not something you can change.

This happens on its own — there's no switch for it. PCM mode doesn't have it.

Codec choice

Remember, the codec is the method RemSound uses to package the sound before sending it. There are three choices:

The difference between the two Opus choices is what they trade for what. Broadcast quality packs sound into larger chunks — bigger packets, sent less often, more tolerant of a wobbly connection. Live latency packs sound into very small chunks and sends them eight times more often, getting your audio there with almost no codec delay at all — close to PCM — at the cost of being a bit more sensitive to a noisy connection. Broadcast quality is the right pick for anything across the open internet; live latency is for playing along together over a clean local network or a wired connection.

PCM gives the very best sound with no quality loss at all, but it uses about ten times the network bandwidth of Opus. Over the open internet, Opus is almost always the right choice.

Both Opus choices can automatically repair a single missing packet (see the section just above), so single drops are inaudible on both. PCM doesn't have that ability.

14. Keyboard shortcuts (within the main window)

Each tab has its own Alt+letter shortcuts. The same letter can do different things on different tabs without clashing — the shortcuts only work on the tab that's showing. Move between tabs with Ctrl+Tab and Ctrl+Shift+Tab.

Connectivity tab

(The logging controls — Enable logs and Write logs now — are in the Preferences dialog; reach it via Options → Preferences or Ctrl+P, then use Alt+L / Alt+W within the dialog.)

Audio inputs and outputs tab

Audio profile tab

Some of these shortcuts shift depending on whether an ASIO driver is chosen. When one is chosen, the ASIO-path controls take the simpler Alt+L / Alt+T shortcuts, and the WASAPI-path controls move to Alt+W / Alt+Y so they don't collide.

File menu shortcuts (work from any tab)

Always available

15. Global hotkeys (work even when minimised)

You set these up in the Keyboard shortcuts dialog (Ctrl+K, or Options → Keyboard shortcuts). The dialog is a single list of every hotkey you can set: Enter sets the highlighted row, Del clears it (back to not set), and Escape or the Close button closes the dialog. The defaults:

You can change any of these to whatever combination you prefer. Each accepts modifiers (Ctrl, Shift, Alt) plus one ordinary key.

Quick profile switch

Once you've given Quick profile switch a key, pressing it anywhere pops up a small list of every profile you have. Arrow to the one you want and press Enter (or click it) to switch straight to it. The profile you're currently on is marked in the list. A sound plays as the list opens, and the profile-switch sound plays the moment you pick one. Press Escape to close the list without switching.

If RemSound was minimised to the system tray when you pressed the hotkey, it switches the profile and stays in the tray — the window doesn't jump up in front of whatever you're doing. So you can change profiles mid-task without losing your place.

Your screen reader reads out the hotkeys

Once a hotkey is set, your screen reader reads it out whenever you land on the menu item or control it's tied to — for example, moving onto File → Open profile announces “Ctrl+O”, and a control with a global hotkey announces “press [your key] anywhere”. So you can learn and confirm your shortcuts just by arrowing around the window, without coming back to this dialog.

16. Remote control: adjusting a peer's listening volume from your end

Here's the situation this is for: you're on your laptop, listening to sound coming from your desktop, and you've got NVDA Remote open so you can drive the desktop using your laptop's keyboard. Every key you press goes to the desktop — including any volume key on the laptop, which now never reaches the laptop itself. There's no way from inside that NVDA Remote session to nudge the laptop's listening volume without breaking out of the session.

RemSound's remote control feature gives you a way around this: you set up a hotkey on the desktop (the computer your keyboard is talking to) that sends a command across the audio link, telling the laptop's RemSound to raise, lower or mute its own listening volume. You stay in NVDA Remote, and the laptop responds.

Two kinds of remote command

There are two independent sets of remote-control hotkeys, both governed by the same opt-in toggle on the receiving end. Pick whichever fits the situation, or set up both:

Both sets target the receiving computer. Neither one changes anything on the sending computer.

How to set it up

1. On the computer that should respond to remote commands (the one you're listening on — the laptop in the example): open Preferences (Ctrl+P) and tick Accept remote volume commands from peers. Save the profile (Ctrl+S) so the choice sticks. (One toggle covers both kinds of remote command.)
2. On the computer that should send remote commands (the one your keyboard is driving — the desktop in the example): open the Keyboard shortcuts dialog (Ctrl+K). Set whichever of the six remote-control rows you want:
   • Send remote volume up / down to peers — nudges the receiver's RemSound slider.
   • Send remote receive mute toggle to peers — toggles the receiver's RemSound mute.
   • Send Windows global volume up / down to peers — nudges the receiver's Windows volume.
   • Send Windows global mute toggle to peers — toggles the receiver's Windows mute.
   Use whatever key combinations you prefer (for example Ctrl+Shift+Up / Ctrl+Shift+Down for one set, and Ctrl+Alt+Up / Ctrl+Alt+Down for the other). These are global hotkeys: they work as long as RemSound is running, no matter which app is in front.
3. That's it. Press the hotkey on the desktop — the laptop responds just as it would if you'd pressed the matching key on the laptop directly, and you hear the change without leaving the NVDA Remote session. Hold the Windows-volume hotkey down for a steady ramp, since Windows' key repeat fires the step over and over.

It works both ways

The feature is symmetric: both computers can both send and accept. If you set up hotkeys on both ends and tick “Accept remote volume commands” on both ends, either side can adjust the other's volume. There's no fixed “controller” and “controlled” computer.

What it does not touch

• The RemSound app-volume commands change RemSound's receive volume slider on the target computer, not the Windows volume. So your peer can't accidentally turn down a video call or your screen reader with those.
• It only works between peers who are already connected (each one has the other ticked in their connected-peers list). The list of people you've ticked is the gatekeeper — an unticked peer can't change your volume.
• The opt-in tick is per-profile, so a setup you've marked as your “trusted home pair” can have it on while a one-off jam-session profile keeps it off.
• Remote commands travel on the same audio channel as the sound and the health check-ins (47830 by default), so there's no extra firewall rule to add.

17. Startup behaviour

Startup behaviour now lives on the Startup behaviour tab of the Preferences dialog (File → Preferences, or Ctrl+P). It has three independent toggles, plus a profile picker that appears when the third one is on. Each tick is saved straight away — there's no OK or Apply button. (It used to be a separate item on the Options menu; it moved into Preferences in the 2026 cue overhaul.)

Profile to start with (Alt+L) — the list of your saved profiles. It only shows when the third toggle is on. Pick a profile and the choice is saved straight away.

Combining the three for a hands-off start

1. Save a profile with the device choices, peers, and sound settings you want for “always-on” use.
2. Go to the Startup behaviour tab in Preferences. Tick all three: Start minimised, Start automatically when this user logs in, and Start with a specific profile — then pick the profile you just saved.
3. Close the dialog. Reboot, or log out and back in, to test — RemSound starts itself, loads the profile, and goes straight to the tray. Sound starts flowing as soon as the peer is reachable.

18. Audio cue sounds

RemSound plays a short sound at moments where you might want an audible confirmation that something just happened. These are called cue sounds. Sixteen kinds of event have a cue:

All of these cues play through your default Windows sound output, which is separate from the audio RemSound is sending or receiving. They don't appear in a normal recording. (The exception: if your sending side is capturing the very output device the cues play through, then they get captured along with everything else from that device.)

The Audio cues tab

Open File → Preferences (or Ctrl+P) and go to the Audio cues tab. (Preferences is now organised into four tabs — General, Audio cues, Startup behaviour and Update settings — which you move between with Ctrl+Tab, or with the arrow keys when the row of tab names has focus.)

The Audio cue sounds (Alt+N) list shows every cue by name. Use the up and down arrow keys to move between them — as you land on each cue, RemSound plays its current sound, so you can hear what's set just by arrowing through.

Turning a cue on or off, and choosing its sound

Just below the cue list is a Choose sound (Alt+D) list, which controls whichever cue is highlighted above. Its first entry is (none); the rest are the built-in sounds that cue ships with. Arrow through it and RemSound plays each one as you land on it:

• Land on (none) and the cue is switched off — nothing plays for that event.
• Land on a sound and the cue is switched on and set to use that sound.

Every cue starts switched on, using its first sound. "(none)" is how you silence a cue — there are no separate tickboxes any more. Your choices are remembered for next time (per-event cues travel with the active profile; the app-level cues like startup and minimise are remembered for the whole installation).

The tick settings are saved with the active profile, so different profiles can have different combinations of cues on. For example, a “quiet listening” profile might have all cues off, while a “live monitoring” profile keeps them on. When you save the profile (Ctrl+S), the new settings travel with it.

Previewing and choosing a different sound

Below the list are two buttons that act on whichever cue is currently highlighted in the list:

• Play [cue name] (Alt+P) — previews the cue's currently-configured sound through your default Windows output, so you can hear it without having to trigger the event. Works regardless of whether the cue is ticked (so you can listen before deciding to enable it).
• Browse for [cue name]… (Alt+B) — opens a Windows file picker so you can choose your own WAV file for this cue, replacing the default. RemSound only accepts .wav files. Once picked, the button's label changes to “(custom)” to remind you the cue is using your file rather than the default. The next time the event fires, your custom sound plays.

Both buttons' labels update as you arrow through the list, so you always know which cue you're about to act on.

If a cue's sound file goes missing

If a cue is switched on but RemSound can't find its sound file — for example you delete a WAV you'd browsed for — RemSound brings its window to the front (even when it's minimised) and tells you which cue and which event it was, then switches that cue to (none) so it stops trying. Pick a sound for it again in the Choose sound list, or Browse for a new file, to turn it back on.

Keyboard clicks while typing

Just below the cue controls is a tickbox, Play keyboard clicks when typing into any edit field (Alt+K), which is on by default. With it ticked, typing into any text box anywhere in RemSound plays a soft click on each key, so you get an audible sense of your typing. It only sounds while your cursor is actually in an edit field — move out of the field and it stops.

Password boxes are treated specially: they play the same key click and a second, distinct sound at the same instant, so you can tell by ear when you're typing into a masked password field rather than an ordinary one. That second sound only happens in password fields.

Untick the box to switch all of this off. The setting applies to the whole installation.

Custom sound choices are saved with the active profile, the same way the tick states are. Different profiles can have completely different cue palettes — a “studio” profile might use one set of sounds, a “broadcast” profile another. The custom files themselves stay where you picked them on your disk; the profile just remembers their paths.

Going back to the default sound

To revert a cue to its default sound, right-click the Browse for [cue name]… button and pick Use default sound. The custom path is forgotten and the cue goes back to playing the default WAV that ships with RemSound. The right-click option is greyed out when the cue is already using its default. (Alternatively, click Browse and pick a file from RemSound's own sounds folder — inside user settings and logs — and RemSound treats that as “use default” and clears the override automatically.)

Where the cue sounds live

RemSound keeps the cue WAV files in a sounds folder inside user settings and logs — the same folder your settings and profiles live in. Each cue ships with a small set of numbered sound files there. They're named after the cue with a number on the end — for example connect 1.wav and connect 2.wav for the connect cue, record start 1.wav and record start 2.wav for the recording-start cue, and so on. The Choose default sound list described above simply picks between the numbered files a cue has. If you add more numbered files of your own following the same pattern, they show up in the list automatically — there's no fixed limit.

Because this folder is inside user settings and logs, RemSound updates never overwrite it. So if you drop your own WAV files in here in place of the defaults, your versions stay put when you update — you don't have to set them up again.

If a cue's WAV file is missing — either the default file doesn't exist or a custom path points at a file you've since deleted — the cue stays silent rather than producing an error. RemSound logs a note in the diagnostic log (if logging is on) so you can see what happened.

19. Updating RemSound

RemSound can check for a newer version on a schedule you choose, prompt you to install it, and either ask first or do it quietly. There's also a one-press “check now” button so you don't have to wait for the timer.

Settings in Preferences

Open Options → Preferences (or Ctrl+P). The update settings sit just above the logging row:

The brief notice before a silent update installs

If RemSound finds an update right after launch and is set to install silently, it now shows a small window so you're not surprised when the app closes a few seconds in. The window says “RemSound vX.X is ready to install” with three buttons:

• Install now — installs straight away. This is the default; press Enter or wait through the countdown to pick it.
• Skip this version — leaves the update alone for this launch. (RemSound may offer it again next time it checks.)
• Postpone — close the notice without installing now. The next scheduled background check will pick it up again.

A short countdown picks Install now automatically if you don't choose anything — long enough to read the version number, short enough that walking away from your desk doesn't block the silent update. Esc has the same effect as Postpone.

What happens during an install

RemSound can't replace its own program file while it's running, so it hands the job to a fresh copy of the new version, which does the swap once RemSound has closed:

1. RemSound downloads the new version into a temporary folder kept on your own machine, away from the install folder.
2. It starts the new copy from that temporary folder, and closes itself.
3. The new copy waits for RemSound to close fully, then moves your old program files aside and copies the new ones into place. If a file is briefly in use, it waits and retries rather than giving up.
4. It reopens RemSound on the same profile you were running, and clears the temporary folder away.

You'll see the window close, then reopen on the new version within a second or two. Anything that was unsaved in the old session (a profile you were partway through editing, for example) is lost — RemSound will not save it for you before installing. Save first if you've been making changes.

The same profile picks up automatically after an update

When the install finishes and RemSound reopens, it loads the same profile that was running just before the update — you don't see the profile picker, and your devices, peer list, codec and latency settings all come back exactly as they were. This means a silent update in the middle of a session drops the audio briefly while the install finishes, then your session reconnects on its own. You don't have to be at the computer when it happens.

This is a one-shot, just-after-the-update behaviour. The very next time you launch RemSound manually (from the desktop, the Start menu, or the tray icon), it follows your normal startup choice — the picker if that's how you've set it, or your chosen startup profile if you've picked one in Options → Startup behaviour.

If the profile that was running can't be found after the update (you'd renamed or moved it during the session, for example), RemSound falls back to your normal startup behaviour rather than getting stuck.

If an install fails

The update download is best-effort: a flaky network, or a temporarily-unavailable version, will pop up a message saying it couldn't finish, and leave your running version untouched. The address of the download page is in that message, so you can get the new version in a browser and install it by hand if you need to. If you installed RemSound into Program Files without giving your account permission to write to that folder, the install can't replace the files there — either fix the permission or move RemSound to a folder you can write to (somewhere inside your own user folder, for instance).

If the file swap itself can't finish — for example because a sync app or another program was holding one of the files open and wouldn't let go — RemSound puts your previous version back exactly as it was and reopens it, rather than leaving you with a half-finished install. It writes a short note called update-failed.txt next to the program explaining what happened. Nothing is broken — just try Help → Check for updates again, and it almost always goes through on the next attempt. If a sync app like Dropbox is involved, closing RemSound and giving it half a minute to settle before retrying helps.

A step-by-step record of every update is kept in a file called updater.log in the install folder — useful if a failure keeps happening and you want to share it for diagnosis.

The About dialog and release notes

To see which version you're on without checking for updates, open Help → About RemSound (Alt+H, A). The dialog shows the version number and the release notes for the version you're running, in a scrollable read-only box. Close (or Esc) dismisses it.

20. Recording to a file

RemSound can save the sound passing through it to a file on your computer — useful for keeping a copy of a music session, capturing a long jam for editing later, or just saving a one-off voice exchange you want to come back to.

What gets recorded

Recording captures the sound at fully-mixed, fully-finished points: for the received side, after volume and mute have been applied (so the file matches what you hear); for the sent side, the raw captured sound just before it's packaged for sending (so the file is the same whatever codec you chose). The three source choices:

• Record all received audio — the full mix of everything coming in from connected peers. This is the default.
• Record all sent audio — what your microphones, captured speakers and ASIO inputs are sending out. Useful for checking what your collaborators are actually hearing from you.
• Record both sent and received audio — a single file with both directions mixed gently together. The right choice for capturing a complete two-way exchange.

File formats

All four formats record at a 48 kHz sample rate, and every row in the attributes list states the rate clearly so it's never in doubt.

Surviving a crash. All four formats are designed to leave a playable file behind even if RemSound crashes partway through a recording. You lose at most about 5 seconds of recently-captured sound on a crash, never the whole session.

Start and stop sound cues

RemSound plays a short ding when a recording starts and another when it stops, so you have an audible confirmation that the toggle actually took effect. These are two of the eight cues described in Audio cue sounds. You can turn either or both off, replace them with your own WAV files, and preview them from Preferences. The defaults live at sounds\record start.wav and sounds\record stop.wav inside the user settings and logs folder.

Where recordings go

By default, recordings live in <RemSound install folder>\recordings\<computer name>\. Each recording creates a new file with a name like RemSound-2026-05-19_14-30-00, so files never overwrite each other.

You can change the folder via Record → Change recordings folder. Choosing a different folder saves that location into your current profile, so it travels with the rest of your settings — switching profiles can switch your recording destination too. If a saved profile points at a folder that doesn't exist on the computer loading it, the recorder quietly falls back to the default location for that computer.

Record → Open current recordings folder opens Windows File Explorer on whatever folder is currently set, creating it on the spot if no recording has been made there yet.

Starting and stopping

There are four ways to start or stop a recording:

• Ctrl+R from anywhere in the main window — a toggle. The menu item text switches between “Start recording” and “Stop recording” to show the current state.
• Record → Start recording (or Stop, when one is in progress).
• The Start / Stop recording global hotkey — works system-wide, even when RemSound is minimised or isn't the active window. It's unset by default; set a combination in the Keyboard shortcuts dialog (Ctrl+K). See Global hotkeys.
• Closing RemSound while a recording is running finishes the file cleanly — you don't lose anything if you forget to stop it manually.

Recording happens in the background, so it doesn't affect the sound or the network. If your disk ever can't keep up, the recorder drops the oldest queued sound (never the newest) and notes it in the log; in practice you'll only see that on a fully-saturated USB stick or a very slow network drive.

Recording settings dialog

Reached via Record → Recording settings. Up to five keyboard-navigable lists, laid out left to right. FLAC's compression level has its own list, but it only shows when the file format is FLAC.

OK (Alt+O) saves your choices to the current profile. Cancel (Alt+N) or Esc discards them. Settings are saved with the profile as usual — changes here mark the profile as having unsaved changes, and you'll be asked about them on exit if you haven't saved.

21. Logs and diagnostics

If logging is turned on (the Enable logs checkbox in the Preferences dialog — Options → Preferences, or Ctrl+P — on by default), RemSound writes a log file each session into a logs folder inside user settings and logs — the same folder your settings and profiles live in. One file per launch.

The file contains two kinds of rows:

The Write logs now button in the Preferences dialog (Alt+W within that dialog) writes a “user requested write logs now” marker into the log, so you can find that moment in the file afterwards.

Logs are plain text and can be opened in any text editor, or in a spreadsheet. The most useful figures when something feels wrong:

• BufferMs — how much sound is queued up ready to play. It should sit close to your latency target.
• Underruns — how many times the playback reserve ran dry. Each one is a tiny click. A few per minute is normal over the internet; hundreds per second means something is broken.
• Drops — packets thrown away because the reserve overflowed. This should stay near zero in normal use.
• Heartbeat — the round-trip time to each connected peer. pending / unreachable / stale mean there's a problem.
• OpusFecRecoveries — a running total of single missing packets that Opus quietly repaired. A number that's growing means Opus is saving you from clicks. Only meaningful when an Opus codec is in use.
• OpusUnrecoveredGaps — a running total of multi-packet losses that Opus couldn't repair. Each one is an audible click. It stays at 0 on a clean connection; small numbers are normal over the internet.

22. Command-line options

RemSound is normally a windowed program you click to open. But it can also take command-line options — short text instructions you type after the program name. They are handy for three things: checking a machine quickly (what devices are present, does the audio path work at all), getting a support report to send to whoever helps you, and starting RemSound a particular way from a shortcut or a script.

To use them, open a command prompt (press the Windows key, type cmd, press Enter), then run RemSound with the option after it. If RemSound is on your desktop you can type the whole path in quotes, for example:

"C:\Users\you\Desktop\RemSound\RemSound.exe" --devices

The options that just report something print their answer straight into the same command window as plain text — a screen reader reads it normally — and then RemSound exits without opening a window. The start-up options open RemSound as usual, just set up the way you asked.

Options that print something and then exit

Options that change a setting or control a running copy, then exit

Options that change how RemSound starts

These open RemSound as normal, set up the way you ask, and are meant for shortcuts and scripts.

Examples

RemSound.exe --devices
RemSound.exe --selftest --opus
RemSound.exe --diagnostics
RemSound.exe --profile "Studio" --minimized
RemSound.exe --connect 192.168.1.42

A common support sequence: ask the person to run --diagnostics and send you the file, then have them run --selftest — if that says PASS, capture, encoding and the audio path are all sound on their machine and the problem is somewhere in the connection between you.

23. Troubleshooting

I don't hear my friend

1. Connectivity tab: is your friend in Connected peers with a healthy round-trip time (for example “192.168.1.5: 27 ms”), not unreachable or pending?
2. Audio inputs and outputs tab: is Receive audio ticked?
3. Same tab: is at least one output device ticked, in the WASAPI or the ASIO output list?
4. Same tab: is the volume slider above zero?

My friend doesn't hear me

1. Audio inputs and outputs tab: is Send my audio ticked?
2. Same tab: is at least one capture source ticked across the three send lists?
3. If you're using a microphone: is Windows allowing apps to use it? RemSound now pops up a warning when you switch on a microphone Windows is blocking — including when a profile loads with one already on — but to check by hand, open Settings → Privacy & security → Microphone and make sure both Microphone access and Let desktop apps access your microphone are on. (When Windows blocks it the mic sends silence rather than failing, so it's easy to miss.)
4. Have they ticked your name in their Discovered peers list?

I can hear them but the sound crackles

• First, try raising Buffer smoothness by 1 or 2 on the Audio profile tab (Alt+B). It usually fixes crackles for a smaller delay cost than raising the latency does.
• Then, try raising the Audio latency value (Alt+L). Internet connections often need 30–80 ms.
• If you're using PCM, switch to Opus — Opus can repair single missing packets automatically, which PCM can't. It's much more tolerant of an unsteady network.
• If you're on Wi-Fi, try wired Ethernet — Wi-Fi adds 5–20 ms of unpredictable jitter.
• If you previously set Packet size to “Small (LAN only)” but you're now on the internet rather than a same-house network, switch it back to Standard. Small packets double the packet rate, which makes internet clicks more likely.

The sound is fine but the delay feels long

• Lower the relevant latency value on the Audio profile tab, step by step, until clicks just start, then nudge it back up by one step. With an ASIO driver chosen, this is two separate controls (one for each path).
• Or, turn on Continuous auto-tune for the path that feels slow and let RemSound find the right level.
• Lower Buffer smoothness towards 3 if you'd been running it high “just in case”.
• If only WASAPI matters for your session, set the ASIO driver picker to (none) — that turns ASIO off entirely.

The ASIO sound is grainy or constantly micro-clicks

Most likely your ASIO latency target is below the network's real-world jitter level. The receiving side fights to hold the reserve at the target, and that fight is audible. Raise ASIO latency in milliseconds (Alt+L) on the Audio profile tab to 25 ms or more and the graininess should disappear. Even pure-ASIO setups can't safely sustain a receive reserve below about 15 ms over real networks; aim higher on Wi-Fi.

I can't see my friend in Discovered peers

• If you're on the same local network: are both computers on the same Wi-Fi or Ethernet network? Some guest networks deliberately keep devices from seeing each other.
• If you're using Tailscale: type their Tailscale address into “Add peer by IP” (Connectivity tab, Alt+A) once. After that, both sides see each other automatically.
• Check that Windows Firewall isn't blocking RemSound. The first launch usually asks; if you said no, you'll need to allow it by hand.

A peer rebooted or changed address and the sound didn't come back

RemSound follows a peer to its new address on its own. If the address you connected to stops responding but the same peer is still reaching you from a different address on your network — because they rebooted onto a new address, for example — RemSound re-points to the live address within a few seconds and the sound resumes without you doing anything. If it doesn't recover, the peer is genuinely unreachable (off, asleep, or a firewall is blocking the new path).

One side says “unreachable” even though sound is flowing

The health check-ins use the same channel as the audio, so if the sound gets through, the check-ins should too. If one side shows “unreachable” while the sound plays fine, make sure both computers are running the same version of RemSound — an older version on either end can speak a slightly different check-in language.

My other audio went silent or crackly when I selected an ASIO driver

You probably picked Realtek ASIO. It's a generic driver, not tied to Realtek hardware, and it tends to grab whatever Windows treats as the default sound device — usually the same one your screen reader is using. Set the ASIO driver picker back to (none), or pick a different ASIO driver.

The device list shows old devices that are no longer plugged in

RemSound reacts the moment a device is plugged in or unplugged, so an unplugged device should disappear within a second or two. If one lingers, restart RemSound — Windows' own device list occasionally needs a nudge.

No sound after the computer wakes from sleep

RemSound notices when the computer has just woken up, waits a moment for any USB sound devices to come back to life, and rebuilds its audio engine from scratch — you'll briefly see a small “Reconnecting to audio driver” window during the rebuild, then sound should resume on its own. If sound still doesn't come back, click on the ASIO driver picker on the Audio inputs and outputs tab and re-pick the same driver (or pick (none) and then re-pick your driver). That triggers the same full rebuild manually. As a last resort, quit and reopen RemSound.

A sound card you were listening through was unplugged

If a sound card you're playing received audio through is unplugged and then plugged back in, RemSound now re-opens it on its own and the sound resumes — you don't have to re-tick it in the output list. This works when the card comes back as the same Windows device, which is the usual case when you plug it into the same socket. If you move it to a different USB socket and Windows treats it as a brand-new device, just tick it again in the output list.

UPnP says “no router found” even though my router supports it

The most common reasons:

• UPnP is disabled in your router's settings. Look for a checkbox marked “UPnP”, “NAT-PMP”, or “Allow apps to automatically forward ports” in the router's admin page. It's often off by default.
• Your Windows network is set to “Public” rather than “Private”. Public mode blocks the discovery messages RemSound uses to find the router. In Windows' network settings, switch your home network to Private.
• Your computer is on a Wi-Fi guest network or a corporate / hotel network. These networks usually block the kind of discovery messages UPnP needs.

If none of those apply, just fall back to Tailscale — it works without involving the router at all.

24. Glossary