Question / Help Broadcast console audio/video, external mic, and external camera without output to desktop Audio

[jesses_elsewhere]

I have an Elgato HD60 and the only option I seem to have in order to get my console audio to broadcast through OBS is output to desktop audio. The problem is, I don't want my desktop audio broadcasting. I have things that I monitor for my stream, sometimes music playing, and other things on my desktop like notifications, etc that I don't want disrupting the stream or causing echos.
I want to be able to feed my game audio/video, my external camera, and my external mic to feed directly through OBS to broadcast and have desktop audio MUTED.
Is there a workaround that I'm totally missing? I'm not looking to download any extra software unless it's the O N L Y way, so please don't post any ads for software to download. Thanks!!

 

[Sukiyucky]

The default playback device that is enabled and set in Windows Sound Control Panel is the desktop audio device. It is the catch all audio device for audio playback. Windows will send all audio to this device and applications use it too.

If you don't want desktop audio captured in OBS, then go to the OBS Audio category and disable desktop audio. Doing this now requires you to handle audio on a per device level.

Go to Windows Sound Control Playback and enable all the devices to ready state that you plan to use.
One of those devices will be the default. Mind you, if you are going to use your Windows system, you still need a default playback. If that is your headphones, you can use that. Or speakers where you can just mute on OBS mixer and turn the volume down on the speaker

By default, most Windows applications will direct audio to the default playback device. The better designed apps will allow you to choose those audio devices that are sitting in ready state. So it is up to you to route audio from the application to the enabled, ready state audio playback device.

To capture those ready state devices, add audio input/output sources in your OBS scenes. OBS will see those and list them in a drop down for you to choose.

 

[jesses_elsewhere]

I understand that the desktop audio is what comes out of the default or chosen device. My concern is the only way I've been able to get game audio to broadcast at all is to add a source in OBS for Desktop Audio and have it play through there. Any attempts to add it as a video capture device for my game and game audio instead just results in no game audio being broadcasted at all.

 

[Narcogen]

If the problem is that you can add your capture card as a source that contains audio, and the VU meter behaves as if there is active audio, but that audio is not included in your stream output, check track assignments in Edit > Advanced Audio Properties and make sure that the device is assigned to the track you are streaming (multiple tracks can be recorded, but only one can be streamed) and that that device is also set to "Monitor Off" or "Monitor and Output".