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OMNIBUS: the virtual patchbay (Wednesday 10 December, 2025)
OMNIBUS (Audiomovers) is a virtual audio patchbay (audio router). I already used ListenTo from the same company, to stream high quality audio during online video (Zoom) sessions. OMNIBUS lets you route, combine, monitor, and redirect audio between applications, devices, and networked machines with an intuitive interface. It used to work only on Mac but recently became available also for Windows.
What Is OMNIBUS?
OMNIBUS installs virtual audio drivers on your computer, allowing you to patch audio between applications entirely in software just like you would with hardware. For example, you can send audio from your browser to your DAW, combine multiple inputs into one output and send it to Zoom, record system sound, create custom monitoring paths, or feed multiple applications simultaneously.
Highlights and Core Features
- Virtual drivers + multichannel routing. Route audio between apps without external hardware.
- Up to 4 virtual devices with up to 256 channels each.
- Combine multiple sources. Mix mic, system audio, music players, and DAWs into one output.
- Snapshots & presets. Save routing layouts and switch between setups instantly.
- Flexible input/output management. Send audio to multiple destinations at once — stream, record & monitor simultaneously.
- Network audio support (AVB + NDI). AVB networking is Mac only. AVB networking stands for Audio Video Bridging, a set of IEEE standards designed to enable real-time, low-latency, synchronized audio and video streaming over Ethernet networks. NDI stands for Network Device Interface, a protocol developed by NewTek that enables high-quality video (and audio) transmission over standard IP networks in real time.
- Snapshot automation via MIDI or macro controllers (e.g. Stream Deck).
- Sample rate conversion for mixed-format sessions. Sample rates can be selected from 44.1 to 192 kHz as the global sample rate
Devices
OMNIBUS allows to route various devices (e.g., WASAPI, ASIO, Applications, etc) in addition to four OMNIBUS virtual devices. These multichannel virtual drivers can be used as I/O devices in any software. One can create up to four OMNIBUS devices, each configurable with 2 to 256 channels of I/O. NDI transmitters create an audio device that uses the NDI protocol for network-based audio transmission.
Use cases
Streaming audio during a Zoom session
Zoom (or Teams), by default, only streams your microphone audio (see also here). Although, it is relatively is stream another individual audio source (e.g., Cubase) through Zoom, it is a challenge to stream both your microphone and Cubase audio simultaneously. This requires to combine the audio sources and to stream the resulting audio through Zoom. Omnibus, allows you to do this using the default Omnibus input and output virtual devices. In this example configuration (see image below), I have set the Zoom Speaker to “Outputs (Omnibus)”, and the microphone to “Inputs (Omnibus)” virtual devices. In Omnibus, I have routed the “Outputs (Omnibus)” to channel 3 and 4 of my X32 digital mixer (i.e., output 3 and 4 of the audio interface in the X32). At the same time I have combined (routed) my RODE microphone and Google Chrome (e.g., YouTube music) into “Inputs (Omnibus)”. This will do the job. However, you probably need to disable the noise cancellation in Zoom since otherwise your music will still be filtered out by Zoom, which is why I still prefer to stream audio via ListenTo when doing a Zoom call.
Image: Using OMNIBUS to stream application (e.g., YouTube) audio via Zoom.
Routing the Yamaha MODX M8
I recently bought the Yamaha MODX M8 synthesizer. This synthesizers can be connected via USB to a computer and comes with a 10 channel output/4 channel input ASIO device driver. Thus, I can record directly into an application by selection this ASIO device. However, by routing the MODX ASIO device to my X32 I can directly hear the MODX over my studio speakers without the need to connect the synthesizer to my X32 using two jack cables (through my Behringer Ultra-DI Pro), which is very convenient.
Image: Connecting the Yamaha MODX M8 to my X32 digital mixer using OMNIBUS.
References
Manual
