29.1.3 Advanced Audio Mixer Channels Grayed Out in Settings

JooosBox

New Member
Here's a log, just in case. I'm new to this so Idk if this actually helps: https://obsproject.com/logs/R8f34pZB4eqi7vmr

Basically I'm trying to record three channels separately on the same recording: one for game volume, one for Discord, and one for my mic. I've separated the inputs in the Advanced Audio mixer into their respective channels: 1, 2, and 3. Simple enough, right?

I thought I did it correctly, but I cannot manually select to record channels 1, 2, and 3 in Settings under Output, see below:
1688602797523.png


Each is grayed out and I cannot select one or the other or multiple. Is this a common issue?

Any help appreciated, thanks.
 

deFrisselle

Member
It's because you have selected Same as Stream for Recording Quality
Choose one of the custom options then you will be able to select the audio tracks

You also have a few other issues
 
Last edited:

Suslik V

Active Member
This thread only ensures that Output Mode: Simple is not "simple".

Since the multi-track options were added to the simple mode there is no much sense in use of Output Mode: Simple, better to switch to Output Mode: Advanced and thus learn about OBS a bit more.
I don't know why Simple mode still exist when its 3 quality options (High, Indistinguishable, Lossless) can easily be fitted into Output Mode: Advanced.
Really, why? (almost rhetoric question, doesn't require an answer)

@JooosBox Do you know how to reset OBS settings? (I'm wondering how you see OBS user interface. Is it understandable for you? For example, do you really know how to get OBS default settings?).
 

koala

Active Member
Since the multi-track options were added to the simple mode there is no much sense in use of Output Mode: Simple, better to switch to Output Mode: Advanced and thus learn about OBS a bit more.
I don't know why Simple mode still exist
I see it the other way round: Since simple mode got the function to record multiple tracks, there is no reason to switch to advanced output mode any more. Simple mode is a wrapper around the encoder. It exposes the same options and makes it so that the output is roughly the same, no matter the encoder. That's convenient and produces best quality. Most people just want to stream or record something. They don't have a clue about different behavior of different encoders, of rate controls and quality parameters. And with simple mode, they don't need to.

Simple mode is the coded version of encoder configuration best practice. Why bother with testing and evaluating all the parameters manually, when there is already established best practice how to set them? The vast majority of users gets worse output quality if they use advanced output mode. Just observe how many people use CBR with either much too low bitrate or ridiculously high bitrate for recording.
 

Suslik V

Active Member
...The vast majority of users gets worse output quality if they use advanced output mode. Just observe how many people use CBR with either much too low bitrate or ridiculously high bitrate for recording.
Default settings for both modes is the same - "Same as stream", so users make mistakes in both cases equally.

Edit:
when there were less options in the Simple mode - it had advantage of simplicity.
 

deFrisselle

Member
Really, the devs should have it so that the multiple channels are not shown when "Same as Stream" is selected or just remove it from Simple mode
 

JooosBox

New Member
It's because you have selected Same as Stream for Recording Quality
Choose one of the custom options then you will be able to select the audio tracks

You also have a few other issues
Thank you, I appreciate it. Yeah, Simple mode doesn't let you record multiple audio tracks, so gotta do Advanced Custom mode to do that. Also, how should I remove the outdated plugin? I'm not quite sure how to remove plugins.
 

Harold

Active Member
Well that screenshot I just provided was from 29.1.3, so you need to make sure your recording quality isn't set to "same as stream"
 

JooosBox

New Member
And I know you switched the Recording quality, but I wanted to keep it as Same as Stream. So this still applies.
 

AaronD

Active Member
And I know you switched the Recording quality, but I wanted to keep it as Same as Stream. So this still applies.
The stream can only have one track. So if you record "Same as Stream", then the recording can also only have one track. It's just a dumb copy of what the stream comes up with.

Use it to reduce the encoding load if you really don't need anything different. But if you do want something different, then you can't use "Same as Stream", and you have to have the additional load of encoding twice.
 
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