What is Mumble?
Mumble is a group voice chat application where tons of people can join in to talk together. It allows groups and multiple channels so that people can talk about different things at once. It also does support both private and channel text message support.
Why Mumble Instead of Skype?
Well, Mumble has a lot of advantages over Skype. That’s not to say it’s perfect, but it does a lot of things well.
- The audio quality is generally better because of noise removal.
- Mumble is server-based, so chat won’t die if someone disconnects.
- Mumble is also like IRC in that people can hop on and join in whenever. There’s no calls, so people can come and go as they please.
- We can have multiple channels, so we can have channels for streaming stuff or making quests.
- People can be set as the primary person in the channel, meaning when they talk, everyone else is quieted (which would be great for streams).
- This doesn’t use the Skype program.
To be more precise, Mumble is a lot less resource intensive and is less buggy. - This has better push-to-talk support and a mode where it’ll only record your audio if you’re loud enough.
- There can be multiple simultaneous chats going on at once. For example, if someone wants to have a channel for streaming something, they can do that while other people are in the main channel.
Sounds good! So How Do I Connect?
First of all, you’ll need to download Mumble here. There’s a version for Windows, Mac, and Linux. Apparently there’s even an iOS port.
When you first launch Mumble after installing, you’ll go through a series of prompts the setup your audio settings. Pay close attention to these instructions. These settings can be redone, but they are important since they change how other people will hear you.
You’ll eventually be asked to create a certificate. This is important. Instead of usernames and passwords, Mumble uses certificates. I’d suggest using just the Automatic certificate creation option.
When prompted to join a server, add a new server with the following information:
Server: purezc.mumble.com
Port: 8904
Once you join, you should see a list of channels. You’ll want to register the nickname you use most likely, since that’s required if you want to be able to have permissions set for you. To do that, go to Self->Register.
Random Q&A
How do I get it to stop letting me know when people mute/unmute themselves?
For this, you’ll need to go into the advanced settings. Go to Configure->Settings. Check the box on the bottom left for Advanced. Then go to Messages. Uncheck the box under Console for “Other self-muted/demuted”.
There’s no usernames or passwords? What about if I want to use multiple computers?
Like I said, Mumble uses certificates. So if you want to use the same username on multiple computers, you’ll need to export your certificate on the first computer you setup (Configure->Certificate Wizard). Select the “Export current certificate.” Save that certificate and bring it to the other computer. Now you’ll do the reverse process, selecting “Import a certificate” and selecting the certificated you saved before.
How many users does this support?
Right now it supports up to 15 users simultaneously. Though, if this is heavily used, we can bump that up.
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Let me know if there’s anything you all have questions about.
Note that this doesn’t mean that we’ll stick with Mumble necessarily, but I wanted to give it a shot, at least.
