Is there any way for me to listen to my background music while streaming without it echoing on stream?

[Loblachi]

How can I set up my stream so I can hear both the music and game audio without any issues? In OBS, I can hear both perfectly, but on the stream, the music plays twice. When I have desktop audio and the music file on "Monitor and Output", the music overlaps, causing duplication. The only fix I found is setting the music file to 'Monitor Off' in advanced audio properties, but then I can't hear the music, only the game audio, while the stream hears both. I need a solution that lets me hear both the music and game audio without the music duplicating on the stream.

 

[PaiSand]

Well, you have set the monitoring and the desktop audio to the same audio output so you caused the issue.
Set Desktop audio to default or to the speakers if the default is the same as monitoring.

 

[AaronD]

Well, you have set the monitoring and the desktop audio to the same audio output so you caused the issue.

Yep, that's it. The Desktop capture comes *after* everything is mixed, and that really does include *everything*! So if you send the Monitor to that same device, then it gets that too. The delay that allows you to hear it as two separate things, comes from your operating system's audio handling, as a direct measurement of how long it takes for something to get through it. (latency)

Set Desktop audio to default or to the speakers if the default is the same as monitoring.

Using Default is asking for a different kind of trouble. It's meant to show that a fresh, know-nothing installation works, as the most likely to pick the device that you're currently using anyway, but unless you change devices frequently and want it to follow that automatically, it becomes a liability after that.

If you plug in a new device that has audio functions, it'll switch to it, and you'll wonder why OBS suddenly stopped working even though you didn't change anything. That's what Default does. (this includes something "going to sleep" and "waking up" again - no difference to the computer) If you want to it stay on the same device, pick that device, not Default.

 

[AaronD]

How can I set up my stream so I can hear both the music and game audio without any issues? In OBS, I can hear both perfectly, but on the stream, the music plays twice. When I have desktop audio and the music file on "Monitor and Output", the music overlaps, causing duplication. The only fix I found is setting the music file to 'Monitor Off' in advanced audio properties, but then I can't hear the music, only the game audio, while the stream hears both. I need a solution that lets me hear both the music and game audio without the music duplicating on the stream.

If you can capture the game specifically, and not the Desktop, then that might be an option, but the app-specific sources tend to have problems. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't. But it's a quick and easy thing to try. Then you can use your one physical device to feed your headphones/speakers, and all is well.

If you must capture a device to get the game reliably, then you need two devices. You could use a cheap USB thing that doesn't actually wire anywhere, and capture *that* with the Desktop source (quality doesn't matter here; you're capturing it before any degradation that it might have), or you could install a virtual audio device and do effectively the same thing with that. Either way, send the game to the device that you capture, and send OBS's Monitor to the *other* device, which is where you have your headphones/speakers.