How to Simulate an “In-Helmet” Radio

Overview

“I gotta old stereo fer sale if ya want. Ain’t much, but hell, it beats just floatin’ out there with nothin’.”A way to boost your immersion by using a couple (free) programs to simulate a personal music player in your suit.

“You want this thing or what?”

Listening to your own tunes in this game can really boost your immersion. What this guide will show you how to do is to simulate a little stereo that actually sounds like it’s coming from inside your helmet, or through some cheap speakers. This might seem like a lot to do for a simple effect, but it’s quite effective, and really improves the atmosphere of the game for me.

Sure, you could just play your own music without doing this, but it’s probably going to sound way too crisp and hi-fi to make sense.

You’re broke as hell. All you can afford is a crappy old radio. It’s gonna sound terrible, but… beautiful, in a way.

Here’s an idea of what it sounds like (ignore my lack of skill): [link]

Step 1: Get a virtual cable.

A virtual cable allows you to run a program through a separate output device, which you can then manipulate the audio of, separate from the game. Without it, any equalizer you use to alter the sound of your music player of choice will affect everything, the game included, which won’t make sense (unless of course your music player has a built in equalizer that’s sufficient, but this will allow you to manipulate the audio from any program).

This is relatively easy to setup and disable as you like.

To get a virtual cable, go to [link]

Then, download the free ‘VB-CABLE’ package.

Once you install that, you should have new audio device you can manage.
Go to Control Panel > Hardware and Sound > Sound.

Here you should see the new cable listed.

Right-click it to enable/disable. Make sure it is also enabled under the ‘Recording’ tab, and that you are ‘listening’ to the device as shown here:

Step 2: Get an Equalizer

The equalizer allows you to manipulate audio. This way, you can get your music to sound tinny, like it’s coming from a tiny speaker, or have an echo, etc.

I use Peace Equalizer, as it’s free and has a lot of options, but there may be others you can use. Peace is free and easy to use however.

Peace can be found at [link].

This is the Peace interface:

Here you can see the different options Peace allows you to manipulate. There also some presets already. ‘Telephone’ and ‘Radio’ both work really well. But, you can mess around and save your own configurations too. Here I have one I was messing with called ‘in helmet’.

Make sure it’s turned on, and that you have ‘CABLE Input, VB-Audio Virtual Cable’ selected as the device being used.

Step 3: Run your music player through the equalizer.

Now you can have your music player of choice be the only program manipulated by the equalizer. To do this, right-click the speaker icon in your taskbar menu and select “Open Sound settings”, or got to Settings > Sound.

From there, under ‘Advanced sound options’, click ‘App volume and device preferences’.

If your music player is open, you will find it in the list of Apps. Find it, and under Output, select ‘CABLE Input, VB-Audio Virtual Cable’. Everything else should be running through your default audio device. It should look something like this:
(You don’t have to use Spotify of course, but I like it because I can control it from my phone.)

Now, only your music should be effected by the equalizer!

“Enjoy it, Cutter.”