ffmpeg is an amazing A/V utility, that can handle an incredible amount of input formats. If you can pass audio from a source into ffmpeg, or even a video (assuming you only want the audio), you can configure it to output the audio as 32-bit floating point PCM, which can then be piped to stdinman and streamed to Discord.

You should use the -re flag on the input, to ensure ffmpeg consumes it in real time.

ffmpeg -re -i sample.mp3 -map 0:a:0 -c:a:0 pcm_f32le -ar 48000 -ac 2 -f f32le - | stdinman

Using the incredible work by the people over at librespot , it is possible to create a "Spotify Connect" device your account can play audio to, who's output can be piped to another program.

Using ffmpeg in the middle to ensure the format matches, we can then pipe it over to stdinman and stream it straight to Discord!

librespot -n stdinman_connect --backend pipe -b 320 | ffmpeg -f s16le -ac 2 -ar 44100 -re -i pipe:0 -map 0:a:0 -c:a:0 pcm_f32le -ar 48000 -ac 2 -f f32le - | stdinman

For more information on how to use librespot check out their repo.

Note: Using librespot is probably forbidden by Spotify.

Note: If you're in the VC on the same computer, you would hear a kind of "echo" on the audio - first your headphones / speakers, and then the audio from discord with some latency. In such situations, it is recommended to output the audio to a virtual sink, and then play that via the bot (see the next recipe). This has the additional advantage of sharing a specific application's audio instead of the whole system.

You can use pactl to view the monitor input corresponding to your speakers:

$ pactl list short sources
77	alsa_output.pci-0000_00_1f.3.3.analog-stereo.monitor	PipeWire	s32le 2ch 48000Hz	SUSPENDED
78	alsa_input.pci-0000_00_1f.3.3.analog-stereo	PipeWire	s32le 2ch 48000Hz	SUSPENDED

In this case, alsa_output.pci-0000_00_1f.3.3.analog-stereo.monitor is the speakers' monitor. To use it with stdinman:

parec -d alsa_output.pci-0000_00_1f.3.3.analog-stereo.monitor --format=float32le --rate=48000 | stdinman

This would route all audio from the app to the virtual sink, who's monitor you can then pass to stdinman to stream to Discord.

To do this, we first need to create a virtual sink via pactl. You can replace stdinman-demo with whatever name you want.

pactl load-module module-null-sink media.class=Audio/Sink sink_name=stdinman-demo channel_map=left,right

Then, using some GUI like pavucontrol , set the output of the program to this new sink:

(Note: you won't be able to hear this application on your normal speakers anymore)

Then, use this sink's monitor with parec and pass the output to stdinman!

parec -d stdinman-demo.monitor --format=float32le --rate=48000 | stdinman