Audio is very bad when using Surround sound (7.1)

[max445]

Hello!
I'm using Logitech G PRO Wireless headset and I love the surround sound feature, I can't play without this option, but when I'm streaming people get very bad quality audio on the stream, it sounds like a cave. I've been looking for solutions but I only found a fix with Voicemeeter Banana. After a few hours of configuration I don't feel the audio correctly (when using it by myself not on the stream) and also a bit of delay, so it doesn't work for me.

Is there any solution possible, like maybe try to simulate 2 audios at the same time so I can use my headset on Windows audio but I can put the other source of audio on OBS so I hear my normal audio as always but people on the stream get it on normal Stereo?

Thanks!

 

[AaronD]

*Where* is the processing done, to go from original stereo to your personal surround stage?

• If it's in the headphones themselves, and the computer only knows about stereo, then I don't have an obvious answer. Some digging is going to be needed.
• If it's in the computer, so that it does know about your personal stage, then OBS is probably picking that up and downmixing it back to stereo. Given what you describe and what typically happens anyway with "normal" outputs, I'd call this the more likely one.

Assuming the second case, you do need to not feed OBS from your headphone output. You have Voicemeeter, so that *should* work. Feed OBS from a virtual output from VM, and feed your headphones from a physical output. Both stereo. Then let the headphone driver do what it does, while OBS continues to get stereo from VM. If you set VM to send the same thing to both, then that should be the only difference.

Yes, VM adds some latency/delay, simply because it's going through Windoze's terrible audio system twice: once to get into VM, and again to get out. If that's a problem, then you're probably looking at not using Windoze...in which case, can you get your headphone surround feature on something else like Mac or Linux?

If the surround processing is actually in the headphones, then the answer to that last question is, "Yes, it doesn't care what operating system you're using," but it would also imply a completely different troubleshooting path that I didn't take here. (the other option up top)

 

[AaronD]

This post here suggests that OBS may FINALLY get a long-needed feature to solve this and lots of other use-cases:

Cant record DAW audio and MIC at the same time

Hi! I have an Orion 32 plus, Pro Tools, OBS, and I can't reach OBS with a microphone and the main out, both at the same time. It looks like OBS is able to only receive audio from outputs 1 and 2, but I don't know if Im wrong or missing something. Thank you very much in advance to any comment or...

obsproject.com

Don't know if your copy of OBS has it or not, but if you can actually choose channels now, instead of being forced into a downmix of all, then you can just take the front corners.

Or maybe you can have 4 different stereo sources, all looking at the same device:

• Front Left, Front Right
• Back Left, Back Right
• Center, Center
• Sub, Sub

Of course, you'll play with the relative volumes of each, and maybe even discard one or more entirely. Essentially creating your own downmix that is different from what OBS normally does. And you might need to trial-and-error which channel is what before any of it makes audible/controllable sense.

So far, I haven't seen that personally. But I do get excited to see someone post that screenshot from the wild!

 

[max445]

*Where* is the processing done, to go from original stereo to your personal surround stage?

• If it's in the headphones themselves, and the computer only knows about stereo, then I don't have an obvious answer. Some digging is going to be needed.
• If it's in the computer, so that it does know about your personal stage, then OBS is probably picking that up and downmixing it back to stereo. Given what you describe and what typically happens anyway with "normal" outputs, I'd call this the more likely one.

Assuming the second case, you do need to not feed OBS from your headphone output. You have Voicemeeter, so that *should* work. Feed OBS from a virtual output from VM, and feed your headphones from a physical output. Both stereo. Then let the headphone driver do what it does, while OBS continues to get stereo from VM. If you set VM to send the same thing to both, then that should be the only difference.

Yes, VM adds some latency/delay, simply because it's going through Windoze's terrible audio system twice: once to get into VM, and again to get out. If that's a problem, then you're probably looking at not using Windoze...in which case, can you get your headphone surround feature on something else like Mac or Linux?

If the surround processing is actually in the headphones, then the answer to that last question is, "Yes, it doesn't care what operating system you're using," but it would also imply a completely different troubleshooting path that I didn't take here. (the other option up top)

I was trying with Voicemeeter, I was thinking to use my normal audio source for myself and use the Voicemeeter source for OBS, but when doing this I cant hear from my normal audio source and only from Voicemeeter one, and thats really a problem because there is a bit of delay and I play competitive shooters so It is not optimal, also I hear everything different. I dont know if there is any option to listen from both sides Windows and Voicemeeter at the same time, I think that could work

 

[max445]

This post here suggests that OBS may FINALLY get a long-needed feature to solve this and lots of other use-cases:

Cant record DAW audio and MIC at the same time

Hi! I have an Orion 32 plus, Pro Tools, OBS, and I can't reach OBS with a microphone and the main out, both at the same time. It looks like OBS is able to only receive audio from outputs 1 and 2, but I don't know if Im wrong or missing something. Thank you very much in advance to any comment or...

obsproject.com

Don't know if your copy of OBS has it or not, but if you can actually choose channels now, instead of being forced into a downmix of all, then you can just take the front corners.

Or maybe you can have 4 different stereo sources, all looking at the same device:

• Front Left, Front Right
• Back Left, Back Right
• Center, Center
• Sub, Sub

Of course, you'll play with the relative volumes of each, and maybe even discard one or more entirely. Essentially creating your own downmix that is different from what OBS normally does. And you might need to trial-and-error which channel is what before any of it makes audible/controllable sense.

So far, I haven't seen that personally. But I do get excited to see someone post that screenshot from the wild!

I'm using Windows so as the post you shared says I dont think this will work on Windows and only with MAC

 

[AaronD]

I dont know if there is any option to listen from both sides Windows and Voicemeeter at the same time, I think that could work

That would probably do it, but it's also getting into more of a professional level of audio routing and control, which Windoze just doesn't do. Actually I don't think *any* of the major operating systems do that, but Windoze is the only one that has a bunch of junk in the way that's hard to bypass. The others (Mac and Linux) are just "straight dumb wires" and make you explicitly add whatever processing you want, which also makes it easy to grab the signal at any point you want, since you're adding everything yourself anyway, which would solve your problem.

I use Ubuntu Studio Linux, and the DAW that it comes preinstalled with. Technically, that's the same workflow as what you're doing with Voicemeeter, with multiple trips through the OS's audio system, but UStudio has such low latency that it hardly matters.

Ubuntu Studio – A free and open operating system for creative people.

ubuntustudio.org

 

[AaronD]

If you did switch to Linux for streaming, and kept Windows for the game, then you'd probably end up with two separate physical machines - one for the game and one for OBS - and physical wires between them so that OBS can capture whatever comes out of the gaming machine.

If you physically tap off of that to feed your eyes and ears, then the gaming machine doesn't know the difference, and neither do you. OBS might be a 1/2-second behind after all those steps, but if you're not watching that except for some spot-checks to see if everything's still okay, then that's fine.

And of course, nothing says you *have* to switch to Linux to make this work - the real benefit comes from having two separate machines, with wires and potentially splitters in between - but Ubuntu Studio does work a lot better in my opinion!

 

[magw]

hello was this issue ever solved? I have the same surround sound problem with my logitech G Pro Headsets with g Hub, its like some sort of processing is screwing up the audio in obs when surround sound is on and its fixed when its turned off. Ive tried to use voicemeeter but the problem is i want to hear my own audio when its being processed through g hub but i dont want obs to hear that audio from g hub, i want obs to somehow hear audio before it gets to my headsets for processing. But for any g hub processing to work and let me hear it it need to be set up as default in sound settings.

 

[rockbottom]

It's not OBS it's the headphones. Matrix-ed surround doesn't work all that great with OBS but feed it discrete audio & everything works as it should.

Capture of Dolby can be tricky if the channels are lumped into two PCM channels; in order to be decoded correctly and encoded all the channels should be held in different PCM channels.

Surround Sound Guide | OBS

OBS Knowledge Base. Learn how to make streams and recordings with surround sound

obsproject.com

https://www.hometheaterforum.com/community/threads/what-does-discrete-mean-referring-to-audio.33810/