Question / Help Capture Application Audio, but NOT DESKTOP AUDIO?

[Zaralyth]

Hello, due to a predicament, I have to keep desktop audio capture disabled. (I have to run my game sound through the Mic port and use "listen to this device" in order to hear my game through headphones -- so this means I have to disable desktop audio as OBS will capture the Capture Card audio and the TV audio, but without the TV audio feeding through my PC I can't hear my game). This is all fine, but I would like to play music in my stream.
Is there a way to do this without using desktop audio capture (since I have to keep that muted)? I thought about maybe using another game capture source for the program, but it doesn't appear in the list (since game capture sources will capture the device's audio as well). I want to capture the app audio so that is plays through my stream, but without capture it through the desktop.

I have already tried such solutions as the DirectShow audio plugin but cannot get it to work with a program...

 

[FerretBomb]

Look into VB-Audio or VAC (Virtual audio cable). These will allow you to set up a custom audio mixing/routing chain with multiple paths, assuming your audio sources can be assigned to a specific output device (in this case one of the virtual input devices created by VAC/VB-Audio).

Beyond that, no. Due to how the Windows audio subsystem works, audio cannot be captured from only a specific application/process.

I'd more suggest a revamp of your cabling setup, possibly splitting the audio source physically. Alternately, coming up with a way to bypass whatever is disallowing the use of your default desktop audio output would be advised, but that'd take more explanation on exactly what the underlying problem there actually is. Generally it's a good idea to go after a fix for the root cause, rather than layering on workarounds.