I need advice for streaming in a living room setting

[longbridge]

I'm having trouble with this situation, probably because I have a cheap generic condenser mic.

I wan't to record gameplay in a living room with multiple players and with the television sound on.

I can't seem to get the microphone configured right to record multiple people, without picking up audio from the TV also, and creating feedback/echoes.

The space might just be too small, but I was hoping there was something i could change about my OBS configuration or set up that might help?

I'm wondering if anyone has any advice for this scenario. I'm probably going to buy better equipment soon too and could use advice for what would work best in this scenario.

 

[carlmmii]

Living room gamer here.

Audio is very difficult in a livingroom situation. If you aren't using headphones for all your audio, then it is absolutely important that all of your audio is properly sync'd between what is recorded and what is played out in the room.

In our situation, the only audio that is played in the room is via speakers connected directly to our mixer, so the only delay involved is due to physical placement.

For audio coming from a separate source like your TV, you will need to adjust the sync of your microphones to match the delay of your TV. Adjust this in the advanced audio settings of OBS (the gear icon in your mixer). This adjustment will normally be anywhere from +50 to +150ms, depending on your own specific audio chain (both for your microphones, and your TV). Do test recordings to get this set up correctly (do not trust audio monitoring, as the sync is not applied here) -- get a good test sound to play over your TV (like a click track, or just someone talking), adjust by 20ms increments, record, play back, see how things sound. Adjust until there's minimal reverb.

Once you have sync set, the best thing you can possibly do is follow the rules of microphones:
- As close as possible to you to improve signal-to-noise ratio
- Pointed correctly (pickup to you, null to your TV)
- Consider reverb spots (carpeting is great, but open walls are reverb heaven)

There's only so much you can fix with filters. Having a good starting signal is the most important thing for audio.

There is a limit though when dealing with surrounding audio, and one of the tried and true methods is to reduce background noise
- Have the TV at a lower volume
- Wear headphones instead