Autistic one-man-band guy seeking info/help on recording with OBS

[InterstellarLightningRod]

Hi,

I am an autistic musician, and I didn't learn that I was autistic until my 40s...

I'm looking for someone proficient in OBS that would help me learn how to do what I'd like to do with OBS, my live music recorded on an Akai MPC One+, and a live video feed using a video synthesizer.

I learn best with simple and easy to follow written step-by-step instructions from first step to final step. I can pay someone for their time and knowledge to help me learn how to combine my live music and video feeds into one recorded file that I could then upload to Youtube and various other online outlets.

Is the the best place to ask for that kind of help?

I struggle mightily with understanding and following manuals, especially when it comes to technology, MIDI and tech that I haven't used before. Most of the time, I get "You just need to try harder," or "Read the manual again," and if it were as simple as trying harder or reading manuals multiple times, I'd do that.

I'm a genuine human and not a robot or a spammer. My name is Carl, and I hope no one is annoyed by this posting.

 

[Angelarius]

Hi Carl. I'm new to these forums too, I came looking for my own kind of help and saw your post.

Getting general help in a forum is a difficult and time consuming task, people tend to shy away from engagement until an actual problem is identified.

That being said I'm also Angelarius on the Discord, feel free to give me a shout for a conversation if you want to. I'm not an expert in OBS but I know more than the average person.

 

[InterstellarLightningRod]

Hi Carl. I'm new to these forums too, I came looking for my own kind of help and saw your post.

Getting general help in a forum is a difficult and time consuming task, people tend to shy away from engagement until an actual problem is identified.

That being said I'm also Angelarius on the Discord, feel free to give me a shout for a conversation if you want to. I'm not an expert in OBS but I know more than the average person.

Hey - Thank you for the reply. What I basically need is to know 2 things - First, if I can record both my live sound feed and my OBS video feed at the same time? I saw that OBS has an onboard audio mixer, so I assume my live music signal would be that?

If this is possible, what cable or adapter do I need to run it from my Akai MPC One+ and where do I run it - into my mixer and then to my laptop where OBS is showing my live video feed?

It may seem like a simple thing, but it's frustratingly convoluted to my brain, and I really don't want to mess something up.

 

[JonathanC09]

<I'm a Spanish speaker and I'm using a translator, but I want to help>

As a general rule, to connect a microphone, instrument, mixer, etc to the PC (and OBS) an audio interface is needed.
It can be a cheap usb interface to a scarlett focusrite, through most digital mixers; in such a way that it converts an analog signal into a digital signal.

If among the equipment you already have, there is a mixer with digital output (usb) you would save the interface for the moment. And if you want higher quality or control separate audio tracks in the future, you can buy the audio interface you need.

On the other hand, you can use any cameras to show your face, studio, Instruments, etc in the transmission.

 

[InterstellarLightningRod]

<I'm a Spanish speaker and I'm using a translator, but I want to help>

As a general rule, to connect a microphone, instrument, mixer, etc to the PC (and OBS) an audio interface is needed.
It can be a cheap usb interface to a scarlett focusrite, through most digital mixers; in such a way that it converts an analog signal into a digital signal.

If among the equipment you already have, there is a mixer with digital output (usb) you would save the interface for the moment. And if you want higher quality or control separate audio tracks in the future, you can buy the audio interface you need.

On the other hand, you can use any cameras to show your face, studio, Instruments, etc in the transmission.

Hi Jonathan - Yes, I do have a mixer with a usb audio interface onboard. What cables would I need to do this, and where on the mixer and my laptop would I plug in those cables. I knew I had what I needed, I just don't know how to achieve the result.

I tested and tried all day, and I got as far as perfect video recorded with muddled and terrible sounding audio, so I'm not far off, if I can just get the audio dialed in.

I appreciate your help with this. It means a lot to me.

 

[JonathanC09]

Well, to continue it would be useful if you shared what equipment you are working with (mixer and pc, a photograph of its ports is enough) so that I can give you more precise instructions. For the moment I will tell you what you need for the most common cases.

This is a USB type B to type A cable, you can search for it as a printer usb cable (It is actually used by all kinds of equipment that connect to a PC, the most common being printers). The side with the squarest shape is the one that connects to the mixer, its port is very easy to distinguish; And the normal USB goes to the PC. Depending on your PC you may need a Type-A to Type-C adapter, in case it is a new laptop that only comes with USB C ports.

This cable is the one that will allow you to use your mixer as an audio interface, it is worth mentioning that it may be necessary to download drivers from the mixer manufacturer's website, although there are already mixers that are plug and play.

Once you've managed to connect the mixer to your PC, you can add it to obs as an audio capture source in a scene or as a global audio source from the settings (the latter is so that it plays in all scenes without having to add it one by one)

 

[InterstellarLightningRod]

Well, to continue it would be useful if you shared what equipment you are working with (mixer and pc, a photograph of its ports is enough) so that I can give you more precise instructions. For the moment I will tell you what you need for the most common cases.
View attachment 111468
This is a USB type B to type A cable, you can search for it as a printer usb cable (It is actually used by all kinds of equipment that connect to a PC, the most common being printers). The side with the squarest shape is the one that connects to the mixer, its port is very easy to distinguish; And the normal USB goes to the PC. Depending on your PC you may need a Type-A to Type-C adapter, in case it is a new laptop that only comes with USB C ports.

This cable is the one that will allow you to use your mixer as an audio interface, it is worth mentioning that it may be necessary to download drivers from the mixer manufacturer's website, although there are already mixers that are plug and play.

Once you've managed to connect the mixer to your PC, you can add it to obs as an audio capture source in a scene or as a global audio source from the settings (the latter is so that it plays in all scenes without having to add it one by one)

This is exactly the information I needed - I have those cables, and it didn't occur to me that it was those cables that I needed to try. I'm about to head out to my studio and I'll give it a try.

 

[InterstellarLightningRod]

Hi Jonathan - I saw your message earlier... I went out to try and hook up my gear like you suggested, and I found that I already hooked up the mixer to my Akai MPC unit. I believe that I can't in turn run the Akai (which also has the same USB A to B cable) to my laptop's USB port. I actually tried that, and absolutely nothing happened. I saw no different audio input pop up in the OBS software.


As it is, I have the USB audio interface running from my mixer to the MPC (and I'm incredibly happy with the recording ease and quality I'm getting with this), then the MPC goes out to my amp and speakers.

I just can't figure out how to get the audio from my MPC into the OBS audio input.

I'm attaching some shots of the ins/outs of my gear. I'm really confused and frustrated to being so close to having all my gear communicating together and synced to BPMs, and near-perfect audio recordings, to come right to the edge of having my audio/video combined.

I will appreciate it forever if you or someone else reading this can help me figure it out.


(The white unit in the photos here is the back of the piece of gear that is providing my live video show - my live music audio is run

from the mixer in to the MPC with the cable you mentioned previously.)

I hope this makes sense.

 

[JonathanC09]

First of all, I'm amazed at how the mixer and the akai are connected, I had no idea that you could connect audio equipment to each other with a usb cable.

So I could find (and understand) if it would be possible to use the One+ as an interface, but it is necessary to install the MPC software and download a plugin and I don't know what else... I didn't understand much, and I'm not sure it works with OBS either.
In my opinion, one of the best options is to get an audio interface and connect it between the AKAI and the amplifier. From my perspective, that is the simplest and safest option.

 

[AaronD]

First of all, I'm amazed at how the mixer and the akai are connected, I had no idea that you could connect audio equipment to each other with a usb cable.

Sure! If one's a host that at least understands that device, there's nothing wrong with that at all.

I would not be surprised if it *only* understands that type of device, because true general-purpose like a normal computer, is insanely complicated!
For a different example, a number of cameras take a USB flash drive, and *only* understand mass storage devices. You can't put a USB mic or printer in there, and have it work.

---

Of course, another possibility is that it uses the USB cord as "a convenient set of wires" to do whatever it wants with. That happens a lot with Cat-5 and its improvements. Lots of things use Cat-5,6,7,etc. as just a convenient set of 4 twisted pairs. DMX, analog audio, you name it. Ethernet is just one use among many for that cord.

The same could be true for this use of a USB cord, though it's nowhere near as common to do that. I *have* heard, briefly, of a car stereo that used the same USB-A connector on the front to alternately read a USB flash drive or take an analog line input. Probably used the two USB data lines as left and right in the analog line-in mode. Could have even used the 5V power wire as a mic, to use the car as a handsfree set for a standard phone, but I didn't actually see that it did. It would have required some careful switching behind the panel, but if that and a custom adapter is cheaper than adding another connector (cramped real-estate?)...

 

[JohnPee]

Somewhere in these forums there is the recommendation not to use the OBS sound system to do anything complicated but to use an external mixer to create a single audio feed and to then feed that into OBS. You have a mixer see if you can get Windows to see the audio from your mixer before you load OBS. If you can the obs part should be easy.

Also look through the forum for other posts that may give you a clue, have a look at this example

ASIO sound devices don't work

We stream in a house of worship with OBS*. Our Audio runs through an M-Audio mtrack Duo interface. I remember in Version ~20. or something there was an issue with ASIO, or it just was not native. I had to install a plugin. But since roughly 2 years this setup with ASIO runned perfectly. But...

obsproject.com

 

[AaronD]

Somewhere in these forums there is the recommendation not to use the OBS sound system to do anything complicated but to use an external mixer to create a single audio feed and to then feed that into OBS. You have a mixer see if you can get Windows to see the audio from your mixer before you load OBS. If you can the obs part should be easy.

I've said that all over the place on these forums, and I'm not letting up yet! :-)

Seriously, OBS's audio really is pretty bad. It sounds fine - not a problem there - but the tools and workflow are terrible. MUCH better, like John says, to do ALL of your audio work outside of OBS, so that OBS becomes completely silent except for the final finished soundtrack to pass through unchanged. All of your audio stuff - mics, headphones, other apps, etc. - connects to the external tool, not to OBS, so OBS really is completely silent except for that one global source in Settings -> Audio. No other audio sources anywhere. And no audio filters at all.

If you need to, for example, turn a mic on and off for different scenes, then you'll need to recreate that. The Advanced Scene Switcher can detect the scene changes (and a whole lot more!) and send OSC* messages to a DAW** or physical digital mixer (and a whole lot more!). Read the documentation for your external tool, to see what it wants to receive, and set up Adv. SS to send that.

Advanced Scene Switcher

This plugin will allow you to automate various tasks using "Macros". Macros consist of a list of conditions under which a list of actions will be performed. Examples and guides can be found in the wiki. Feel free to contribute! If you run...

obsproject.com

*OSC = Open Sound Control
**DAW = Digital Audio Workstation: Essentially a complete sound studio all in one app, including a mixing console, recording and playback, effects, etc..... It only does audio, and it does it REALLY WELL!!! You'll use it primarily for the mixer and effects, but of course all of the other features are available too, should you want to use them.

 

[InterstellarLightningRod]

First of all, I'm amazed at how the mixer and the akai are connected, I had no idea that you could connect audio equipment to each other with a usb cable.

So I could find (and understand) if it would be possible to use the One+ as an interface, but it is necessary to install the MPC software and download a plugin and I don't know what else... I didn't understand much, and I'm not sure it works with OBS either.
In my opinion, one of the best options is to get an audio interface and connect it between the AKAI and the amplifier. From my perspective, that is the simplest and safest option.

Hi Jonathan,

Can you help me identify a usb audio interface that would work with my Akai and OBS? I assume any decent interface will suffice, but I don't know what cables to use to hook my Akai MPC One to the audio interface. As it is, my audio comes out of my mixer, into the MPC One, and out to my power amp and speakers. I assume that the USB out on an interface goes into my laptop, and then will be recognized by OBS as an audio source.

 

[JonathanC09]

To begin with, I want to tell you that the final decision will depend on you and your budget. the AKAI has stereo output, so an interface with 2 inputs and 2 outputs would be optimal, in order to preserve stereo audio.

⇒ Audio Interface Options ⇐
from this article I am going to draw these 2 options

• Focusrite Scarlett 2i2
• Behringer U-Phoria UMC22

You can also take a look at the article, it mentions pros and cons of various interfaces, so you can make a better decision. Most are plug and play and the pc (and OBS) will recognize it as a microphone.

Speaking of microphones, how will you connect your microphone? I mean, if it is connected to the mixer, won't the signal be distorted when manipulating the music in the AKAI? if it is distorted, then you should get an interface with more inputs.

 

[AaronD]

...get an interface with more inputs.

Careful with that!!! OBS hates multi-track interfaces!

Originally, OBS was made for the stereotypical bedroom streamer, who has a surround-sound game and a mono mic. That's it. So, no channel selection in OBS, only device, and that device is assumed to be a single source with a surround format determined by the number of channels from that device. OBS downmixes all of that to stereo or whatever it's set for in Settings -> Audio, and then gives you that mess to try and make something of.

If you have, for example, a hypothetical 3-channel interface (I don't think they exist, but we'll go with it for this example), and 3 mics around a conference table, then 1 of those mics would come out the left speaker only, 1 would come out the right speaker only, and 1 would be centered with a 10dB boost because that's the subwoofer channel. (3 channels "must be" 2.1, or stereo+sub) OBS gives you a single volume control for all of that mess, with no other option.

If you must use a multi-channel interface (more than 2 channels through a single box), then you need something between that and OBS (on the OBS machine itself) that can do the channel selection and present OBS with either a separate virtual device for each logical source that you define, or better, do all of the audio work itself and present OBS with a single source that is already finished. With the second option, OBS has no other audio sources whatsoever, and no filters whatsoever. Just a dumb passthrough.

Of course, if you're using another audio tool on the computer, why do you need the physical mixer? You might not.
Or, if you're using a physical mixer, why not have *that* give OBS its completely finished signal to pass through unchanged?

Don't just think at one level of the stack, so to speak. Think all up and down the stack, and arrange things at every level to make the rig work for you. All the way from big-picture-holistic to gritty details deep inside of each product. Draw a diagram of how you want each signal to flow through the rig - one single diagram that includes everything - and then figure out which parts of that diagram should be in which physical or logical box: Akai, OBS, maybe a DAW, etc. Also consider what other "features" you need to keep out of the way, which may or may not lead you to use a different box...

 

[AaronD]

I learn best with simple and easy to follow written step-by-step instructions from first step to final step. I can pay someone for their time and knowledge...

That probably requires personal instruction on your specific rig, in person. And unless you get someone generous or desperate, it's probably going to cost a fortune.

...to help me learn how to combine my live music and video feeds into one recorded file that I could then upload to Youtube and various other online outlets.

I stream a church service on Sunday mornings. Live music with 3 cameras and (very roughly) 10 mics, and an audio mix all to myself, separate from what's happening in the room. I'm in the back, dedicated to that, not on stage playing or singing. (you wouldn't want to hear me anyway!) If you want to be good, that's what it takes: a live, dedicated operator that can tweak things all throughout the show. Are you that operator? Or are you in front of the camera?

Set-and-forget can work for simple things, like a single mic and maybe a guitar, both by the same person, but it falls apart pretty quick once you add multiple parts. They're never like they were the last time they did it, and so the settings need to be tweaked every time.

Even set-and-forget needs you to wear different hats and go through the process several times. The first one is terrible - just expect that - and you make some big changes to address the worst problems. The second one is better, or maybe wrong in the other direction, but still not good enough, so you tweak again. Eventually, you either get to something that you're okay with, or you realize that your variability in performance is more than the amount that you're tweaking.

If you want commercial-broadcast quality, then you definitely need better processing that what you've shown so far. It's fine for live work with a live audience, but it doesn't have the "mastering" that is needed for a commercial-broadcast sort of thing. Most digital mixers do, and any serious DAW certainly will. OBS technically does as well, but it's hard to use and so I don't recommend it. The actual professional tools are much easier!

I struggle mightily with understanding and following manuals, especially when it comes to technology, MIDI and tech that I haven't used before. Most of the time, I get "You just need to try harder," or "Read the manual again," and if it were as simple as trying harder or reading manuals multiple times, I'd do that.

There isn't really a manual for OBS. If there was, it would probably be a mess because OBS itself is a mess! We use it because it's free and actually quite capable once we wrap our minds around the mess that it is. But it requires (at least for me) two different simultaneous thought processes: one of what I want to do, and one of how OBS actually works. Line those two up, and it tells me how to use OBS.

I try to explain how OBS works, so that you can have that second thought process. Only *you* really know what you want to do. Line those two up, and it should tell you how to use OBS, and by extension, what your other tools need to do to support it.

Do the same for your other tools, and you either have a complete solution, or a set of required functions to go shopping for.

I'm a genuine human and not a robot or a spammer. My name is Carl, and I hope no one is annoyed by this posting.

Nope, you're good! :-)

 

[InterstellarLightningRod]

To begin with, I want to tell you that the final decision will depend on you and your budget. the AKAI has stereo output, so an interface with 2 inputs and 2 outputs would be optimal, in order to preserve stereo audio.

⇒ Audio Interface Options ⇐
from this article I am going to draw these 2 options

• Focusrite Scarlett 2i2
• Behringer U-Phoria UMC22

You can also take a look at the article, it mentions pros and cons of various interfaces, so you can make a better decision. Most are plug and play and the pc (and OBS) will recognize it as a microphone.

Speaking of microphones, how will you connect your microphone? I mean, if it is connected to the mixer, won't the signal be distorted when manipulating the music in the AKAI? if it is distorted, then you should get an interface with more inputs.

Thank you Jonathan for the recommendations - I don't use a mic because I don't sing or speak while I play. Maybe someday, but not for now. I appreciate your help.

 

[InterstellarLightningRod]

To everyone who chimed in here on my issue - I have an audio interface on the way, and I believe that should fix my original problem I asked about. Thank you for offering tips and suggestions.

 

[InterstellarLightningRod]

Hi,

I am an autistic musician, and I didn't learn that I was autistic until my 40s...

I'm looking for someone proficient in OBS that would help me learn how to do what I'd like to do with OBS, my live music recorded on an Akai MPC One+, and a live video feed using a video synthesizer.

I learn best with simple and easy to follow written step-by-step instructions from first step to final step. I can pay someone for their time and knowledge to help me learn how to combine my live music and video feeds into one recorded file that I could then upload to Youtube and various other online outlets.

Is the the best place to ask for that kind of help?

I struggle mightily with understanding and following manuals, especially when it comes to technology, MIDI and tech that I haven't used before. Most of the time, I get "You just need to try harder," or "Read the manual again," and if it were as simple as trying harder or reading manuals multiple times, I'd do that.

I'm a genuine human and not a robot or a spammer. My name is Carl, and I hope no one is annoyed by this posting.

***SOLVED***

Buying and properly installing an audio interface solved my no-audio-recording (and bad-muddy-audio-recording) issue in OBS! I went with the Behringer U-Phoria UMC404HD interface over the Focusrite Scarlett 212. I know the Behringer doesn't have the 'prestige' of the Scarlett models, but there are a ton of used Scarletts available online, and quite a few negative comments about quality control. I had the Behringer up and running in about 10 minutes of actual work, with an added 2 hours of frustration and swearing... I'm autistic, and I struggle a lot with pathways and routing, tech and midi, and after some panic swearing on my part and lots of time staring at the mass of cables, I decided to just unplug a cable at a time, write down where I'd just unplugged it from (and took a photo of it), and then traced it back to where it was running in to, and I wrote that down and took a photo there, too. Once I started doing that, everything fell into place. I had to fiddle with the OBS audio settings here and there to get the proper boxes checked or un-checked, but it's now working nearly perfectly! I have some tweaking to do to get it all as close to perfect as I can. Thank you to everybody here who chipped in with tips and recommendations. I really appreciate it a lot.

Behringer U-PHORIA UMC404HD​