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Guide · Mac

How to play music through your mic on a Mac

Playing music, a clip or a game into Zoom, Discord or Google Meet means getting your voice and the music into one microphone. Here’s what the call apps can do on their own, and how to set up a virtual mic that works in all of them.

The short version

  • A call app listens to one microphone, and macOS has no setting that adds an app’s sound to it.
  • Zoom, Meet, Teams and Discord can send your Mac’s sound as part of a share, in that app only, not mixed into your mic.
  • A virtual microphone mixes your voice and the music into one input that any call app can pick.

Why the call can’t hear your music

Zoom, Discord and Meet each listen to one input device: your microphone. Music playing on your Mac goes to your speakers or headphones, not to that input, so the call never hears it. Holding your phone up to the mic works, badly.

macOS has no setting that adds an app’s sound to your microphone. To mix the two, you need either the call app’s own screen-sharing sound, or a virtual microphone: an audio device that apps see as a mic, fed by software that mixes your real mic with the music.

Option 1: share sound with your screen

Most call apps can send your Mac’s sound as part of a share.

  • Zoom: click Share Screen and tick “Share sound”. To send sound without your screen, choose Advanced, then Computer Audio.
  • Google Meet: present a Chrome tab with “Also share tab audio” on. With Chrome 142 or later on macOS 14.2 or later, presenting a window or your entire screen can include “Also share system audio”.
  • Microsoft Teams: turn on “Include sound” when you share. On a Mac, Teams asks you to install its audio driver first.
  • Discord: screen share includes the app’s sound on macOS 13 or later.

That covers a one-off video in a meeting. The sound only travels with a share, only in that app, and it isn’t part of your microphone, so it can’t reach a Discord voice channel without a screen share, a podcast recording, or an app with no share-sound option.

Option 2: a virtual microphone

A virtual microphone takes your real mic and the apps you choose, mixes them, and hands the call app a single input. The call hears your voice and the music together, whether or not you share your screen.

Patch is the one we make. It mixes your microphone and up to four apps into a virtual mic called Patch Mix, with a level for each and a limiter on the way out.

  1. Install Patch. Download Patch and follow its setup. It installs a small audio component that adds Patch Mix, a virtual microphone. Your Mac’s sound pauses for about a second while it installs.
  2. Add your microphone and the music app. Add your microphone as a source, then add the app that plays the music: Music, Spotify, a browser or any other Mac app. Patch asks for permission to capture app audio the first time.
  3. Send both to the call. Turn on Send for your microphone and for the music. Set the music well under your voice with its fader, and watch the meters.
  4. Choose Patch Mix in your call app. In Zoom, Discord, Google Meet or OBS, choose Patch Mix as the microphone. Patch shows when the app starts listening.
  5. Preview, then go live. Preview lets you hear the whole mix in your headphones while the call hears silence. When it sounds right, click Go live.

The same setup covers “mix my mic and system audio” jobs: a podcast intro, a game on a stream, or an app demo with its sound. Other tools can do it too; see how Mac audio routers compare.

Pick the mic in your call app

Choose Patch Mix once in each app. Always choose your headphones as the speaker, never Patch Pass-Thru, or the call hears itself.

Zoom

  1. Open Settings and choose Audio.
  2. Under Microphone, choose Patch Mix.
  3. Turn off “Automatically adjust microphone volume”, so Zoom doesn’t fight the levels you set.
  4. Under Speaker, choose your headphones.

Zoom treats music as noise. Under Microphone modes, choose “Original sound for musicians”, and turn Original sound on in the meeting before you play anything.

Discord

  1. Open User Settings and choose Voice & Video.
  2. Under Input Device, choose Patch Mix.
  3. Use Voice Activity with automatic sensitivity off and the threshold at its lowest, or use Push to Talk, so Discord doesn’t cut quiet parts of a song.
  4. Under Output Device, choose your headphones.

Turn Noise Suppression off, and turn off Echo Cancellation and Automatic Gain Control. Each one removes or squashes music.

Google Meet in Chrome

  1. In the call, open More options, then Settings, then Audio.
  2. Under Microphone, choose Patch Mix. If Chrome asks for microphone access, allow it.
  3. Under Speakers, choose your headphones.

Play your music in a different browser, such as Safari, or in an app. Chrome is running the call, so Patch can’t also capture Chrome without sending the call back to itself. If your account has Noise cancellation in Meet’s audio settings, turn it off.

OBS Studio

  1. Open Settings and choose Audio.
  2. Set Mic/Auxiliary Audio to Patch Mix, and set the other Mic/Auxiliary slots to Disabled so your mic isn’t added twice.
  3. Set Sample Rate to 48 kHz to match Patch Mix.
  4. Under Advanced, set Monitoring Device to your headphones.

If a scene also captures the same app with OBS’s macOS Audio Capture source, viewers hear it twice. Use one or the other.

Stop the call app filtering music

Call apps clean up your voice with noise suppression, echo cancellation and automatic gain. All three are built for speech, and they treat music as noise to remove. If your music cuts in and out, pumps or sounds underwater, turn them off or down, as in the app notes above, and keep headphones on so your mic doesn’t pick the music up a second time.

Questions

Can I play Spotify or YouTube through my mic?

Yes. Add Spotify, or the browser that plays YouTube, as a source in Patch and turn on Send. For Google Meet, play YouTube in a different browser from the one running the call.

Will I hear the music too?

Your call app doesn’t play your own microphone back to you, so turn on Hear locally for the music in Patch. You hear it in your headphones while the call hears it in your mic.

Why does the music cut out or sound underwater?

The call app’s noise suppression is treating it as background noise. Turn noise suppression, echo cancellation and automatic gain off, or use Zoom’s Original sound for musicians.

Do I need headphones?

Yes, when you mix music into a call. Through speakers, your real microphone picks up the call and the music a second time.

Does this work on Windows?

Patch is for Mac only: a Mac with Apple silicon, running macOS 26 or later.