---
uid: Guides.Voice.SendingVoice
title: Sending Voice
---

**Information on this page is subject to change!**

>[!WARNING]
>This article is out of date, and has not been rewritten yet.
Information is not guaranteed to be accurate.

## Installing

Audio requires two native libraries, `libsodium` and `opus`.
Both of these libraries must be placed in the runtime directory of your
bot. (When developing on .NET Framework, this would be `bin/debug`,
when developing on .NET Core, this is where you execute `dotnet run`
from; typically the same directory as your csproj).

**For Windows users, precompiled binaries are available for your convenience [here](https://github.com/discord-net/Discord.Net/tree/dev/voice-natives).**

**For Linux users, you will need to compile [Sodium] and [Opus] from source, or install them from your package manager.**

[Sodium]: https://download.libsodium.org/libsodium/releases/
[Opus]: http://downloads.xiph.org/releases/opus/

## Joining a Channel

>[!NOTE]
>`GatewayIntents.GuildVoiceStates` and `GatewayIntents.Guilds` intents are required to connect to a voice channel

Joining a channel is the first step to sending audio, and will return
an [IAudioClient] to send data with.

To join a channel, simply await [ConnectAsync] on any instance of an
@Discord.IAudioChannel.

[!code-csharp[Joining a Channel](samples/joining_audio.cs)]

>[!WARNING]
>Commands which mutate voice states, such as those where you join/leave
>an audio channel, or send audio, should use [RunMode.Async]. RunMode.Async
>is necessary to prevent a feedback loop which will deadlock clients
>in their default configuration. If you know that you're running your
>commands in a different task than the gateway task, RunMode.Async is
>not required.

The client will sustain a connection to this channel until it is
kicked, disconnected from Discord, or told to disconnect.

It should be noted that voice connections are created on a per-guild
basis; only one audio connection may be open by the bot in a single
guild. To switch channels within a guild, invoke [ConnectAsync] on
another voice channel in the guild.

[IAudioClient]: xref:Discord.Audio.IAudioClient
[ConnectAsync]: xref:Discord.IAudioChannel.ConnectAsync*
[RunMode.Async]: xref:Discord.Commands.RunMode

## Transmitting Audio

### With FFmpeg

[FFmpeg] is an open source, highly versatile AV-muxing tool. This is
the recommended method of transmitting audio.

Before you begin, you will need to have a version of FFmpeg downloaded
and placed somewhere in your PATH (or alongside the bot, in the same
location as libsodium and opus). Windows binaries are available on
[FFmpeg's download page].

[FFmpeg]: https://ffmpeg.org/
[FFmpeg's download page]: https://ffmpeg.org/download.html

First, you will need to create a Process that starts FFmpeg. An
example of how to do this is included below, though it is important
that you return PCM at 48000hz.

>[!NOTE]
>As of the time of this writing, Discord.Audio struggles significantly
>with processing audio that is already opus-encoded; you will need to
>use the PCM write streams.

[!code-csharp[Creating FFmpeg](samples/audio_create_ffmpeg.cs)]

Next, to transmit audio from FFmpeg to Discord, you will need to
pull an [AudioOutStream] from your [IAudioClient]. Since we're using
PCM audio, use [IAudioClient.CreatePCMStream].

The sample rate argument doesn't particularly matter, so long as it is
a valid rate (120, 240, 480, 960, 1920, or 2880). For the sake of
simplicity, I recommend using 1920.

Channels should be left at `2`, unless you specified a different value
for `-ac 2` when creating FFmpeg.

[AudioOutStream]: xref:Discord.Audio.AudioOutStream
[IAudioClient.CreatePCMStream]: xref:Discord.Audio.IAudioClient#Discord_Audio_IAudioClient_CreateDirectPCMStream_Discord_Audio_AudioApplication_System_Nullable_System_Int32__System_Int32_

Finally, audio will need to be piped from FFmpeg's stdout into your
AudioOutStream. This step can be as complex as you'd like it to be, but
for the majority of cases, you can just use [Stream.CopyToAsync], as
shown below.

[Stream.CopyToAsync]: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh159084(v=vs.110).aspx

If you are implementing a queue for sending songs, it's likely that
you will want to wait for audio to stop playing before continuing on
to the next song. You can await `AudioOutStream.FlushAsync` to wait for
the audio client's internal buffer to clear out.

[!code-csharp[Sending Audio](samples/audio_ffmpeg.cs)]