Controlling large audio mixer with OBS?

H

huntsterUNC

New Member
Hello all. I have gleaned much knowledge from this forum over the past year. Thank you all for sharing your knowledge!

Back in March, I fell into the pandemic streaming/tech guy role to stream our Church services. It started with a cell phone and now we're using two 30x zoom PTZoptics cameras to simulcast to FB and YT. (Using OBS of course)

Our existing mixer is a 32 channel analog console, so what OBS gets out of the mix, it gets. Obviously, it requires manual button pushing to turn inputs on and off, so software control is not possible. It's been exponentially impossible to teach the OG sound guy that what sounds good in person doesn't translate the same in a livestream.

Since my talent pool at Church is small and aged, my 2 trainees are 70ish and 80ish respectively, I've simplified scenes and cam presets greatly with a streamdeck. They're sharp guys, but as you know, tech is moving ahead so fast that it's hard to keep up.

Now I'm looking for a large mixer that I can add the audio inputs to Windows/OBS and control them with a streamdeck with multiaction buttons. Current mixer is 32 channels, but we really need about 10 more channels. I'll admit, I'm very new to sound mixing, so some of my terms may be off.

Does anyone have any recommendations? I've googled this into the ground. I'm either googling the wrong terms or this type mixer does not exist.

I appreciate, more than you will ever know, any help or nudges in the right direction.

Hunt
Long Memorial United Methodist Church
Roxboro, NC
 
Reaby

Reaby

Member
Hi there,

Now that is alot of incoming channels... I think Behringer X32 is a solid choice especially with the S32 or S16 stagebox.. which enables you up to 64 channels in total to same mixing desk. Be sure to read the manual good before purchasing, so you know better if the desk and stage box is good for your use. Indeed, obs-midi plugin should be able to send the needed midi infos for the mixer.. hmm.. X32 should be able to do OSC protocol as well. I'm not sure if the OBS OSC -plugin can send commands on scene change...

I think, you should try first the MIDI and OSC plugin to see what's possible with OBS, then decide which one is better for your use case.

If you wish to do stream the best quality possible you wish to make it totally separate from the live sound. I would split the inputs for both live and stream at stage and assign own crew (1 to 2 persons) to produce the streams' audio and video... This way the sound guy can still use the familiar sound desk for live audio. Audio for a stream is so so much different from PA/Live sound, basically you're doing a studio work there...same principles apply. My recommendation would be to spend extra 50 bucks on a mastering VST plugin, like: thimeo stereotool, or izotope ozone elements or pro, if in budget... as the x32 is little bit pricey...

If I'm not totally wrong X32 can transfer audio to PC with USB, as you really just want the master stereo output for OBS. so if that's not possible, I would go an external usb soundcard with XLR inputs and midi + optionally SPDIF with Coaxial/RCA from master output.

- - -
ALTERNATIVE WAY

In case you have no possibility to budget such much for the X32... It's still possible to get multi channel audio interface like 4 to 8 channels.
and you can do the audio mix from your current analog desk, it's not as elegant, but can work nicely as well.
You need 4 AUX channels to do 2x stereo mix for OBS... then you remove the default mic-input from obs settings, and do this:
On each scene you just make new "Audio Input Capture" on many multichannel soundcards you get stereo groups of the mic-inputs... so you select "Input 1-2" for the first scene, and "Input 3-4" for the other one. Then just make sure you have that needed mix for the scenes :)
and done, you just save over 4k in budget, no need for such digital mixers surely the mix isn't that good, but this way it's possible to get it working.

Hopefully this helps you with streaming..

Bless,
Petri
 
Reaby

Reaby

Member
Postscriptum: Did i see you mentioned you're not such familiar with sound. I recommend you to search youtube for "Audio Workshop" from "Northlands Church", they have such nice workshop on how to do things. I think the audio workshop consists 5 to 6 sessions starting from Intro. check it out, if you have some 4-5 hours to spend on good sound education.
 
H

huntsterUNC

New Member
Thanks Petri. Some good info in there for me to digest.

It sounds like alot of inputs, but it's mostly a TON of mics. Some headsets, some stick mics, some hardwired mics, and a bunch of room mics. Most services, I only use 8 or so of those inputs, but it varies from Sunday to Sunday as to which ones I am using. Yesterday was a special service in which I used about a dozen.

My end goal is to simplify the dickens out of everything so one person can do it. I can do the whole worship service alone, but anyone else would take 2 people.

I've already got my cameras on a Streamdeck. Now just working on getting audio inputs on it.

Just a skim over OSC, this may be the way to go.
 
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