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 suggestion anyone can make. Thanks!
Cant record DAW audio and MIC at the same time
- Thread starter Doyo
- Start date
OBS HATES multitrack sources! The reason is mostly historical, but it still hasn't been changed.
Originally, OBS was made for the stereotypical bedroom streamer, that has a surround-sound game and a mono mic. That's it. Thus, OBS selects a device for each source, with no channel selection because that would be confusing and unnecessary for the original use-case, and it assumes a surround format based solely on the channel count of that device. It downmixes that to whatever it's set for in Settings -> Audio (usually stereo), and THEN gives you the mess that it made of your multitrack session to try and salvage. No way to change that behavior.
So, the way to do much of anything, really, beyond that stereotypical bedroom streamer, is to do ALL of your audio work in an external tool - either a DAW or a physical console - and run the final, finished, already-mastered soundtrack into OBS as its only audio source at all, to pass through completely unchanged. Absolutely everything that has to do with audio - mics, headphones, whatever - connects to the DAW or console, not to OBS. And the DAW or console itself, produces a channel count that already matches what OBS is set for. No more, no less.
If you need to turn audio sources on or off from OBS, like as part of a scene change or whatever, then you'll need to recreate that. The Advanced Scene Switcher plugin can detect all sorts of things, and do all sorts of things in response to them. One of those things is OSC messages (Open Sound Control). Read the documentation for your DAW or console (writing this more generally than just you), to see how those messages need to be formatted, and then set up Adv. SS to send that.
obsproject.com
Originally, OBS was made for the stereotypical bedroom streamer, that has a surround-sound game and a mono mic. That's it. Thus, OBS selects a device for each source, with no channel selection because that would be confusing and unnecessary for the original use-case, and it assumes a surround format based solely on the channel count of that device. It downmixes that to whatever it's set for in Settings -> Audio (usually stereo), and THEN gives you the mess that it made of your multitrack session to try and salvage. No way to change that behavior.
So, the way to do much of anything, really, beyond that stereotypical bedroom streamer, is to do ALL of your audio work in an external tool - either a DAW or a physical console - and run the final, finished, already-mastered soundtrack into OBS as its only audio source at all, to pass through completely unchanged. Absolutely everything that has to do with audio - mics, headphones, whatever - connects to the DAW or console, not to OBS. And the DAW or console itself, produces a channel count that already matches what OBS is set for. No more, no less.
If you need to turn audio sources on or off from OBS, like as part of a scene change or whatever, then you'll need to recreate that. The Advanced Scene Switcher plugin can detect all sorts of things, and do all sorts of things in response to them. One of those things is OSC messages (Open Sound Control). Read the documentation for your DAW or console (writing this more generally than just you), to see how those messages need to be formatted, and then 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...
@AaronD's answer was completely right until very recently. OBD does actually have the ability to select which channels to use from a multi-source input now. It's in the properties of the Audio Capture source. You can create multiple Audo Capture sources, and assign each to a different pair of inputs channels from the same source. It's still better to do all your real mixing in the DAW or console, but if you need to select between sources as part of Macros or something, OBS can do that now.
Really?! That'd be awesome! Can you take a screenshot?
Does v31 finally add that? 'Cause I'm pretty sure v30 doesn't have it. I only have a Linux box to try, and v30 on there does not.
It's long been possible on Windows, with the ASIO plugin, which creates its own new source with that option, but Windoze is still a mess for other reasons...