Open Mic is designed for those players that use music streaming services. Windows allows apps to 'listen' in on audio input and output devices. This means the game can 'hear' what I coming out of the speakers, microphone or line-in devices.
Setting up Open Mic From the main menu go to 'Manage Music' -> 'Open Mic Settings' Here you can choose which mode open mic is in (Desktop, Line-in, or Microphone) You can then choose which device the game will listen too. The game will automatically pick the default device, so in most case it should start to work right away. Make sure some music is playing on the device, you'll be able to tell the game is picking it up as you'll see the visualiser flashing in the background.
Desktop Audio Use this mode if you are running your music in an app or web browser. Important Note: Unfortunately, in this mode the game can only play SFX in the left speaker. It needs a clear signal in the right speaker to listen to and SFX would corrupt this.
Line-In With line-in you can connect your phone via an audio cable to your PC. You can then play music from your phone in the game.
Microphone This is more for fun, but you can play along to anything coming in for the microphone, inducing your singing and vocal sound effects!
Using Open Mic Make sure 'Open Mic' is active. If not got to 'Manage Music' -> 'START Open Mic' Select 'Play' from the main menu, and continue to the 3 2 1 count down screen. At this point the game will wait for 'silence'. This gives you the chance to choose and play your music from the start. Once the music starts the game will grab focus back and the level will start. As you play the game will attempt to ID your chosen track.
Music Identification Service Although the game can 'hear' the music it doesn't know what is being played. To fix this I've added a Shazam style music ID service to the game. During the first 20 seconds of a track, the game creates a music finger print. This is then sent to a 3rd party server which attempts to ID the track. If successful, the game gets back the track details, inducing title, artist, duration etc. The service is about 90% accurate, so most of the time it'll work fine. Unfortunately, some times the track is not in the database or the track might get miss-identified.