Hello, I hope I have found some help with our church "obs" program. If not maybe someone can point me in the right direction. Back in May 2020 like most churches we went live on fb for the first time. My husband was the sound tech with one other person filling in if he was out. We bought a camera and the obs program was installed and running. Was working fine. in a couple of weeks my husband became ill and found out he pancreatic cancer and passed away a few months later. HERE IS THE PROBLEM. We use a big sound board mixer also. When we have any singing the sound is horrible like distorted when listening on fb. In the sanctuary the sound is GREAT! The guy who was filling in for my husband doesn't have a clue what to do. And I know very little. Can anyone give me so advice please? Thank you
help
- Thread starter sndmix0
- Start date
daveb@foth
New Member
It's very hard to diagnose this problem without more information. Do you know if the audio is coming from a mic on the camera or are you getting the sound from the sound board. The sound board is the best option. If that's where it is coming from you probably have a cable from an analog output of the board into the computer. Usually a 3.5mm jack into the computer. I assume your normal audio during the message is OK. The most likely cause during the singing is the audio level from the sound board into the computer is too high and you are overloading the computer. Music performances are often at a higher sound level than someone speaking. Sound boards have multiple options for setting up and adjusting output such as one you might be using to feed the computer/obs. You need to find someone with experience on using the sound board to make sure you have the correct output setting to send to the computer. The computer may also have settings for the input as either a mic or line level input. It should probably be set to line level and then you can adjust the level in the sound settings. The way to do this depends on the type of computer you have.
konsolenritter
Active Member
Either the volume/signal is too hot while worship/singing ongoing (then lower it during singing and raise it again during speech), or...
...have a look into the filters section in the audio track in the obs-mixer where your sound-board is getting into obs. Maybe there is a "noise-suppression" filter set. Disable it by clicking the eye icon.
Noise suppression works well for speech due to its transient (peak) nature. It does terrific harm to sustained sound (like legato held notes from instruments or singing voices).
Thank you so much! I will certainly try this application.
It is getting it from the soundboard for sure. Yes, the audio during preaching using a pulpit mic is fine. I do know our hand held mics are several years old. Didn't know if we needed to update or if that made a difference?
konsolenritter
Active Member
Just keep an eye to the audio levels at first. Sounding distorted is in almost any case sourced by levels too hot (for instance the moment they enter from the sound board into the obs computer).
There are two great things you can do:
obsproject.com
Provide a log that contains a church service.
The second thing is to post a link here to one of your service's recordings that contains good and distorted audio as well. That way people here in the forum may hear the difference and possibly find out whats the problem...
There are two great things you can do:
Please post a log with your issue! Here's how...
OBS Studio creates a log file each time you run it which contains very useful diagnostic information. Without a log file, it's much harder for any support volunteers to figure out problems and your post may be ignored. To upload a log file, go to the Help menu > Log Files > Upload Last Log...
Provide a log that contains a church service.
The second thing is to post a link here to one of your service's recordings that contains good and distorted audio as well. That way people here in the forum may hear the difference and possibly find out whats the problem...
Lawrence_SoCal
Active Member
My suspicion is that the husband (condolences on your loss) was regularly adjusting the sound mixer during the service.
What is common in a House of Worship (HoW) environment is 1 set of sound board settings for in-person attendees (often Main Out), vs different settings in an Aux(iliary) Out going to stream (OBS). And if you have a big sound panel, then it gets even more complex than that
So, some HoW are setup assuming an ongoing/constant adjustment to the mixer. That requires a trained person. Lacking such will result in bad sound. And there really isn't an easy button fix for this. And I'm guessing that is original posters setup. Then there are HoW like ours where the mixer is in a closet and rarely gets touched. depends on service style, mic usage (not age/type) and expectations. For our liturgical style environment, with Choir, Pipe Organ, and occasional piano and/or Bell Choir, fixed audio/mixer settings work ok for us. Certain mics are sent only to livestream (not including/amplified) in Main Out to speakers.
I mention this as the answer is ... it depends
Also, most FB users are listening on absolutely the worst speakers possible (phone, tablet, $10 headphones, headset design for spoken voice, etc). And FB (and YouTube and everyone else) compresses audio in livestream, which doesn't help. So, assuming livestream sounded ok before, but now doesn't, I'm betting a setting (or many) on the sound board was changed, and that is the problem. What to change depends on the board, and a lot of factors having nothing to do with the PC or OBS. What may be complicating matters is if someone changed OBS settings trying to overcome a sound board setting, or changed the audio connection setup between sound board and OBS PC (depending on analog or digital connection). In which case, there could be multiple, compounding adjustments required. And realistically, a person is going to need to be onsite troubleshoot.
Assuming in-person mixing is working fine, I'd start with
1. figuring out how audio from mixer is getting to OBS PC. And make sure that is still setup correct (sorry, what that means?... depends on your specific setup)
2. Assuming large mixer board, then I'm assuming sophisticated setup, so separate audio mix for livestream vs in-house amplification (and possibly more for cry room? overflow room? etc). Someone trained/familiar with the sound board will have to figure that out (has nothing to do with OBS, livestream, etc)
3. Once livestream audio path determined, then during rehearsal or test session, adjust this livestream audio mix (Aux or ??) to sound good on the OBS PC. With OBS you can Record and not stream if need be (for when sound board isn't in sound-proof room, so you need to record, then check sound, which is what I have to do cause when Pipe Organ is going, it overwhelms the best headphones ;^)
4. then (sorry, not done yet) as Step 3 provides quality audio to livestream, however, it is not yet optimized for common listening environment (crappy phone speakers)... Be aware that good/optimal sound for home theater setup vs smartphone won't be the same, so you have to pick what to optimize for. In our case, and I suspect most livestreams, will optimize for worst -case scenario (smartphone) and call that good enough for the rest. The setup is not all that dissimilar to radio broadcast audio optimization/settings. A typical setup is to use compression, which reduces dynamic range. Whether that is ok depends on service and music style.
I've not heard of a HoW doing 2 streams, 1 for smartphone/bad speaker users, and another for those wanting high-fidelity audio experience, but it would be possible (I mention this in terms of the 'art of the possible', not a recommendation)
What is common in a House of Worship (HoW) environment is 1 set of sound board settings for in-person attendees (often Main Out), vs different settings in an Aux(iliary) Out going to stream (OBS). And if you have a big sound panel, then it gets even more complex than that
So, some HoW are setup assuming an ongoing/constant adjustment to the mixer. That requires a trained person. Lacking such will result in bad sound. And there really isn't an easy button fix for this. And I'm guessing that is original posters setup. Then there are HoW like ours where the mixer is in a closet and rarely gets touched. depends on service style, mic usage (not age/type) and expectations. For our liturgical style environment, with Choir, Pipe Organ, and occasional piano and/or Bell Choir, fixed audio/mixer settings work ok for us. Certain mics are sent only to livestream (not including/amplified) in Main Out to speakers.
I mention this as the answer is ... it depends
Also, most FB users are listening on absolutely the worst speakers possible (phone, tablet, $10 headphones, headset design for spoken voice, etc). And FB (and YouTube and everyone else) compresses audio in livestream, which doesn't help. So, assuming livestream sounded ok before, but now doesn't, I'm betting a setting (or many) on the sound board was changed, and that is the problem. What to change depends on the board, and a lot of factors having nothing to do with the PC or OBS. What may be complicating matters is if someone changed OBS settings trying to overcome a sound board setting, or changed the audio connection setup between sound board and OBS PC (depending on analog or digital connection). In which case, there could be multiple, compounding adjustments required. And realistically, a person is going to need to be onsite troubleshoot.
Assuming in-person mixing is working fine, I'd start with
1. figuring out how audio from mixer is getting to OBS PC. And make sure that is still setup correct (sorry, what that means?... depends on your specific setup)
2. Assuming large mixer board, then I'm assuming sophisticated setup, so separate audio mix for livestream vs in-house amplification (and possibly more for cry room? overflow room? etc). Someone trained/familiar with the sound board will have to figure that out (has nothing to do with OBS, livestream, etc)
3. Once livestream audio path determined, then during rehearsal or test session, adjust this livestream audio mix (Aux or ??) to sound good on the OBS PC. With OBS you can Record and not stream if need be (for when sound board isn't in sound-proof room, so you need to record, then check sound, which is what I have to do cause when Pipe Organ is going, it overwhelms the best headphones ;^)
4. then (sorry, not done yet) as Step 3 provides quality audio to livestream, however, it is not yet optimized for common listening environment (crappy phone speakers)... Be aware that good/optimal sound for home theater setup vs smartphone won't be the same, so you have to pick what to optimize for. In our case, and I suspect most livestreams, will optimize for worst -case scenario (smartphone) and call that good enough for the rest. The setup is not all that dissimilar to radio broadcast audio optimization/settings. A typical setup is to use compression, which reduces dynamic range. Whether that is ok depends on service and music style.
I've not heard of a HoW doing 2 streams, 1 for smartphone/bad speaker users, and another for those wanting high-fidelity audio experience, but it would be possible (I mention this in terms of the 'art of the possible', not a recommendation)