Question / Help Can't Mix Game Audio By Itself

[odb_tna]

I have several scenes I will be using in my stream, an intro, a break, a primary gaming screen, etc. Each one has an audio track or sound effect added to it (like music playing during a logo reveal, audio for viewers to listen to while waiting for me to come back from break, stuff like that). Because each audio track is a little different, I have each dB level set custom, in order to keep them all in the peak of green without clipping into yellow. Everything is mixed perfectly across the board.

Until I add my game audio...

I will play a variety of games, new and old. Because of this, I can't just set my default "Desktop Audio Device" at one consistent dB. Some older games are softener, so I have to raise those up. But newer games would be blaring at that level, so I have to lower those. It's a constant up/down adjustment, depending on the game.

And there is the problem. How do I slide my dB level of my "Desktop Audio Device" up and down to adjust my game audio without touching the dB levels of the other audio tracks? As far as I know, this is the only way to send everything out to the stream, but it's moving all the levels globally and I don't want that. I need to only focus on the game audio, and make sure the other scene's audio remain static. Is it possible to control this independently, while keeping the other sounds at the dB level I've already set?

 

[koala]

How are you playing your added audio? If you use media sources for integrating them into your scenes, they all get individual entries in the OBS mixer and you are able to adjust each level individually. And these entries are independent from the desktop audio device.
To mix these individual entries into your stream audio, open advanced audio settings of OBS and check track 1 for all of these sources, if it is not already checked (track 1 is what is usually used as stream audio).

 

[odb_tna]

How are you playing your added audio? If you use media sources for integrating them into your scenes, they all get individual entries in the OBS mixer and you are able to adjust each level individually. And these entries are independent from the desktop audio device.
To mix these individual entries into your stream audio, open advanced audio settings of OBS and check track 1 for all of these sources, if it is not already checked (track 1 is what is usually used as stream audio).

Thanks for following up, but I'm not sure if we're talking about the same thing.

You're right that all of my audio are seperate media sources, which is how I mixed the individual DB levels that I mentioned earlier. But unless I'm wrong, the only way to output my game audio is to set my desktop audio device to default and then pull that slider down if the volume level is too loud. The problem is, it also reduces the DB levels of everything else globally. That means the rest of my audio will not be at the correct levels I've set.

Make sense?

 

[koala]

I'm also not sure if we are looking at the same side of things. Let's take a look at this screenshot:

Look at the sources. I added a "Media Source 3" and "VLC Video Source " to the scene. These sources represent your audio resources. They are set so they start as soon as you switch to these sources. You see each of the media sources have an entry in the mixer. You are able to set the level of each audio source individually. And you are able to set the Desktop Audio source individually as well. This way you are able to set the level of you game individually, if it outputs to the default audio device, which ends up in the Desktop Audio source.

From which other slider are you talking about? Are you talking about the Windows audio mixer? Your audio resources should not be played through the Windows mixer. If you monitor your OBS audio, make sure it does not play back to a device that ends up on the default windows audio device - in this case you are looping back your audio through Windows and not playing it back directly. In this case you really change the level of everything if you change the level of the desktop audio.
To make sure you play back your audio sources directly within OBS, make sure you check track 1 for them in the advanced audio properties:

And really make sure that monitoring your OBS audio takes place on a completely different device than any device you use for capturing and producing your stream audio. For example, set your speakers as default audio device in Windows, so every sound from Windows is playing through your speakers and your headset is ignored completely. Then set your headset as monitoring device in OBS (Settings->Advanced->Audio->Audio Monitoring Device and configure audio monitoring appropriately in the above advanced audio settings.

 

[odb_tna]

First off, thanks for the being so in-depth! I really appreciate the effort. While this is all great info, I'll lay out my sceneario based on your example above, and I think you'll see the problem I'm having. We'll actually put you in my shoes.

Let's say your "media source 3" is an audio track. You set that track at -20dB and it is in perfect green. Let's say your "vlc video source 2" is a logo, and you set that at around -10dB, again it's in perfect green. Now you want to add your game audio so the viewer can hear it. You would set the "desktop audio device" to "default" in the settings. This is the only way (I know of) to capture that output and send it to your stream. Let's assume the game audio is way too loud for the viewer and drowns out your mic volume. So you lower the "desktop audio device" in the mixer by -40dB. Now, as before, it's in perfect green.

BUT, by doing this, you have lowered all the other dB levels globally by -40dB as well in your final output to video file or the stream. However, these were perfect before. Do you see what I'm saying? Those once perfectly set green levels are all now way too low, because they we're adjusted with the "desktop audio device," since all this goes out to Windows anyway. Your alerts have their own volume level in Streamlabs as well. If you have those set to the correct volume level, and then lower the other setting globally, is that not also dragging those levels down with it (since this is all going out to the desktop, and that's how it's captured)?

So I see no way to isolate the game audio as its own independently track, without globally effecting what the streamer hears on the other tracks as well. That is my problem.

How would you do that? Is there something I'm missing?

 

[koala]

BUT, by doing this, you have lowered all the other dB levels globally by -40dB as well in your final output to video file or the stream. However, these were perfect before. Do you see what I'm saying? Those once perfectly set green levels are all now way too low, because they we're adjusted with the "desktop audio device," since all this goes out to Windows anyway.

Hm, no, if you adjust the level of one source in OBS, it does not affect the volume of any other source. If you adjust the desktop audio source in OBS, on the stream only this source will change its level. The level of the other sources that are mixed to the stream as well, our media sources, are not affected.
How do you monitor your audio? Did you actually check the volume of your stream, for example by downloading and watching the VOD from the streaming service after your stream has finished? If you don't really record your audio sources via advanced audio properties but by feeding them back through monitoring via desktop audio, it can result to the behavior you mention.
I just did a test of recording an audio file through a media source and audio of some app that outputs to default (desktop audio) and I was able to adjust their audio in the OBS mixer independently in the stream resp. recording.

You mention Streamlabs. I don't know anything about this app. If you are running Streamlabs OBS, everything I wrote is null and void and I wasted my time, and you should contact Streamlabs for support. If you use some widgets from Streamlabs with the browser source, I cannot help as well, since I don't know how audio is handled by the browser source.