How to play soundboard sounds through your mic in Discord & OBS

You press a key, your sound plays — but nobody in Discord hears it. Here's why, and the 5-minute fix that every soundboard on Windows uses: a free virtual audio cable.

Why your friends can't hear your soundboard

Windows does not let any app inject audio into a real microphone. Your mic signal goes straight from the hardware to Discord, OBS or your game — a soundboard has no way to write into that stream directly. That's not a limitation of one particular app; it's how Windows audio works, and it applies to every soundboard out there.

The universal solution is a virtual audio cable: a virtual device that shows up as both a speaker (its input) and a microphone (its output). The soundboard plays into the virtual speaker, and Discord listens to the virtual microphone. Everything played into the cable comes out the other end — as if it were your voice.

Step 1 — Install VB-CABLE (free)

1. Download VB-CABLE from the official site: vb-audio.com/Cable (donationware, free to use).
2. Unzip it, right-click VBCABLE_Setup_x64.exe and run it as administrator.
3. Click "Install Driver", then reboot your PC — the cable only appears after a restart.

Step 2 — Point your soundboard at the cable

In SoundLord, open Settings and select CABLE Input (VB-Audio Virtual Cable) as the output device. From now on every sound you trigger plays into the cable instead of your speakers.

SoundLord also forwards your real microphone into the cable, so your voice and your sounds are mixed into one stream — you don't lose your voice by switching Discord to the cable. Make sure your actual mic is selected as the input device in SoundLord's settings.

Step 3 — Select the cable as your mic

• Discord: User Settings → Voice & Video → Input Device → CABLE Output (VB-Audio Virtual Cable).
• OBS: add an Audio Input Capture source (or change Mic/Aux in Settings → Audio) and pick CABLE Output.
• In-game voice chat: select CABLE Output as the microphone in the game's audio settings.

Step 4 — Hear your own sounds too

Since sounds now play into the cable, they no longer come out of your own headphones by default. SoundLord solves this with local monitoring — you hear your sounds on your normal output while the cable carries them to everyone else. Check the audio section in Settings if you want to adjust what you hear locally.

Troubleshooting

• Nobody hears anything: double-check Discord's input device is CABLE Output, not your real mic — and that SoundLord's output is CABLE Input. The two names are easy to mix up.
• Your voice is gone: mic forwarding is off or the wrong input device is selected in SoundLord.
• Sounds are quiet or distorted: open Windows Sound settings and set both CABLE devices to the same sample rate (e.g. 48000 Hz, 16 bit).
• Discord cuts sounds off: disable Discord's noise suppression (Krisp) for the cable input — it can classify sound effects as noise.

That's it

One free driver, three device dropdowns — and every sound you trigger is live in Discord, OBS and your game. If you're still looking for the soundboard half of this setup: SoundLord turns any USB keyboard into a dedicated soundboard with zero-delay playback, per-key actions and a built-in live mixer.