Audio setup

How Cariara hears the interview

Cariara captures two streams during a live session:

• Your microphone — picks up your own voice. Used for self-prompting and post-call review.
• The speaker's voice — captured separately so Sona can answer the questions you're being asked.

The first time you open the interview screen, the audio setup wizard runs automatically. It picks the best capture path for your environment, lets you confirm with a live level meter, and saves your choice to your account — so the same setup follows you across devices.

Pick the right method

The wizard auto-selects, but here's how to choose if you're overriding:

Desktop app — easiest

The Cariara desktop app captures system audio natively — anything playing through your speakers or headphones, including the native Zoom / Teams / Webex desktop clients. No virtual cables, no tab juggling.

1. Install the desktop app from Desktop app docs.
2. Open Cariara and start a live session.
3. The wizard detects the desktop app and shows Desktop app · System audio. Click Connect.
4. On macOS 13+, the wizard surfaces a Screen Recording permission card with one-click Open System Settings and Restart Cariara buttons. Grant permission, then restart — required even though we don't record video.

Browser tab share

Works in Chrome, Edge, and other Chromium browsers. The other participant must be in a browser tab — native Zoom or Teams desktop clients can't have their audio captured this way.

1. Open the interview platform in a Chrome tab (Zoom Web, Google Meet, Teams Web). Join the meeting.
2. Open Cariara in a second tab. The setup wizard appears.
3. The wizard detects Chrome or Edge and shows Browser · Meeting tab. Click Share meeting tab.
4. In the browser picker: pick the Chrome Tab tab at the top, select the meeting tab, and check "Share tab audio" at the bottom-left. The checkbox is the most common point of failure.
5. The level meter rises when the speaker talks. Close the wizard — Cariara has saved the choice.

Virtual loopback (BlackHole / VoiceMeeter)

Use this when the interview is on a native desktop client (Zoom, Teams, Webex, Slack Huddles) and you don't want to install Cariara's desktop app. You install a free virtual audio driver that exposes "system audio" as a regular microphone — Cariara picks it up like any other input.

macOS — BlackHole (free)

1. Download BlackHole 2ch from existential.audio/blackhole. Install the .pkg.
2. Open Audio MIDI Setup (Spotlight → "Audio MIDI Setup").
3. Click + in the bottom-left → Create Multi-Output Device. Check both BlackHole 2ch and your real output (e.g., MacBook Speakers, AirPods). Set the real output as the master.
4. Right-click the new Multi-Output Device → Use This Device For Sound Output.
5. Open Zoom / Teams / Webex. Set its Speaker to Multi-Output Device. Keep its mic on your real mic.
6. Open Cariara's audio wizard. Pick Virtual loopback. The device dropdown shows BlackHole 2ch ✓ — pick it.
7. Have someone speak — the level meter rises. Done.

Windows — VoiceMeeter Banana (free)

1. Download VoiceMeeter Banana from vb-audio.com/Voicemeeter/banana. Install and reboot.
2. Open Sound settings → Output → set to VoiceMeeter Input.
3. In VoiceMeeter, set A1 to your real headphones / speakers (so you still hear the meeting).
4. Open Zoom / Teams. Set its Speaker to VoiceMeeter Input.
5. In Cariara's wizard, pick Virtual loopback. Device dropdown shows VoiceMeeter Output ✓ — pick it.

macOS / Windows — Loopback by Rogue Amoeba (paid, $99)

Slicker setup than BlackHole if you want a GUI. Buy from rogueamoeba.com/loopback. Create a virtual device that pulls from Zoom / Teams, then pick it as Virtual loopback in Cariara.

Room mic (Bluetooth speaker / phone-on-speaker)

Use this when there's no system audio to capture — in-person interviews, the speaker is on a phone played through a JBL / Bluetooth speaker, or you're listening on a laptop speaker rather than headphones. Cariara captures the room with your mic and uses voice filtering to drop your own voice from the stream, so Sona only sees the speaker.

1. In the setup wizard, pick the Room mic / any speaker method card.
2. The wizard will require voice enrollment first if you haven't already done it — without it, Sona would treat your voice as the speaker. Read the prompt aloud once (~5 seconds). SeeVoice filtering for details.
3. Click Connect. The wizard auto-enables the Filter and you're done.

Mic-only fallback

When no other path works (Safari, Firefox, locked-down work laptop), Cariara falls back to your microphone alone. Server-side speaker diarization tries to filter out your voice from the stream so only the questions reach the AI.

Microphone & speakers

Step 2 of the wizard picks the mic that captures your voice. The choice persists across sessions and devices.

• Microphone — pick the one labeled with your headset / interface (e.g., "AirPods Pro", "Shure MV7"). Avoid "Default" if you have multiple — the system default can flip mid-call when you plug something in.

Troubleshooting

The level meter is flat — I can't hear bars rising

• The other person might just be silent — wait for them to talk.
• For tab share: did you pick Chrome Tab (not "Window" or "Entire Screen")? Did you check Share tab audio?
• For virtual loopback: is your meeting client's output set to the virtual device, not its input?
• Click Reconnect in the wizard. If the meeting is in a native Zoom or Teams app, use the desktop app, or a virtual cable (it is detected automatically once installed).

"Browser unsupported" banner

You're on Safari or Firefox, which don't expose the screen-share API with audio. Switch to Chrome or Edge, or download the Cariara desktop app, or use the virtual loopback method above.

No virtual loopback device shows up

• You haven't installed one yet — see the BlackHole / VoiceMeeter instructions above.
• You installed it but the browser hasn't seen it yet — close the wizard, hit refresh, reopen.
• The device label doesn't match a known driver name. Pick it manually from the dropdown — Cariara accepts any audio input as a virtual loopback if you select it explicitly.

Microphone permission was denied

Click the lock icon in your browser's address bar → Site settings → set Microphone to Allow. Reload Cariara.

Audio worked yesterday, now nothing

• If you switched headphones / mics, the OS may have shifted to a different default. Open the wizard and re-pick.
• If you're on macOS, sometimes the Screen Recording permission needs to be re-granted after OS updates: System Settings → Privacy & Security → Screen Recording. The wizard's Open System Settings button takes you straight there.
• If everything is wrong: pick a different method card in the wizard. Cariara picks the new one and forgets the previous selection.