Question / Help Audio Monitoring Question

[Luckless_7]

Hi, name's Phil and this will be my first post after lurking for some time and it is about Audio. I have been setting up OBS for teststreams/testrecordings for the past week and I think I got a pretty good handle on the video side of things. But where I'm kind of struggling right now is the Audio Tab.

I'd like to describe what outcome I expect. Then I will describe what happens instead. Third, I will list my gear/specs and finally what I've already done.
Maybe what I want to achieve is not even possible, but it'd be good if I at least knew that :)

Expected, three things:
Monitor my own Voice through my headphones without delay. Adjust volume of game output / other sources' output independently of the output volume of my microphone. Don't adjust the audio levels in-game.

What happens instead:
Either my monitored voice gets delayed to uncomfortable levels, or I cannot hear myself on the monitor. Lowering the "default output device"-Audio also lowers my microphone voice in the recording. Or the quality just mysteriously deteriorates.

My setup:
Dynamic Microphone on a H4N Recorder, connected to the PC via USB or Line In.
Onboard Audio Chip Realtek ALC S1220 on an Asus Prime Motherboard.

What I've already done:
I tried a lot of things and googled many more, but I never got it to work the way I wanted it to. So I ended up sliding everything around to the point that I tried almost any combination possible.
I got to the point that I could achieve the best outcome by setting everything to monitor off and have the "Desktop Audio" slider at about 40% and my Microphone at 100%.

Here is a logfile, in case it is needed: https://obsproject.com/logs/qKadxaD4ow6vMqU9
________


So that is all pretty good for what I want to do right now, the only missing thing is that I could monitor my own voice at the same time as listening to the in-game audio myself.
Now, since I coulnd't find an solution to my problem, is there anyone with more experience and knowledge who could provide me with some tips?
Also, since I'm doing this just for a little fun and nothing more, I don't want to purchase any additional external audio gear at this point.


I have just discovered the streaming community, but I'd like to say thank you already!

 

[Narcogen]

The usual method for completely latency-free monitoring is hardware-- a physical output on your USB interface that sends you audio, possibly with a separate volume control, independently of what signal OBS is getting.

I'm guessing since the H4N is a recorder and not a usual USB audio interface, it doesn't have one?

If lowering your Windows default output affects your mic, something is wrong. You are most likely sending your monitoring output in Settings > Advanced to your default windows output, and then capturing it. Do not do this.

13:36:40.022: Audio monitoring device:
13:36:40.022: name: Default

Yup, there it is.

That feature is intended to send monitor output from OBS to a separate hardware or virtual interface for monitoring-- you cannot also capture this interface, or else you'll get echos on all sources set to "monitor and output".

And if your mic is set to "monitor only" and then it goes to the monitor and is captured there, then you have no independent volume control.