Messed Up Sounds, Please HELP

A

AnimeBreaker

New Member
Hello there,
I'm a complete novice in all things OBS as I have just been using this program for about two month now. Two days ago I installed the latest version of OBS and now suddenly I feel like Hell broke loose. Whenever I open up OBS I get a weird flutter noise in the background as well as a mettalic noise whenever there is a ingame noise. I don't need any voice recording or whatever. I just solely want the ingame sounds from my game. I'm using an Elgato HD60+ to record my Nintendo Switch. Every Audio device is disabled except mic. In my previous OBS version I didn't need to enable Mic but now if I don't, I don't get game sounds at all.
Thank you very much
I'm at my wits end..
 
A

AaronD

Active Member
Screenshot your settings and post here. Something could have gotten reset. What you don't post is also an indication of where the problem might be, as OBS tends to hide things in several different places.
 
A

AnimeBreaker

New Member
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A

AnimeBreaker

New Member
AaronD said:
Screenshot your settings and post here. Something could have gotten reset. What you don't post is also an indication of where the problem might be, as OBS tends to hide things in several different places.
Click to expand...
Please tell me if I should upload anything else
 
A

AaronD

Active Member
I forgot to ask for a log file too. Record for at least 30 seconds, even if it's terrible, then go to the Help menu and copy/paste the link for the session that made that recording. Also paste that same link into the automated analyzer that you can get to from my signature. See what it comes up with.

And it's probably good to post the recording itself somewhere that we can see it too, with anonymous access. YouTube Unlisted works well, or its equivalent anywhere else. I've seen permissions problems on filesharing sites, so they're not so good.

---

For the screenshots, what other sources do you have? Uncheck the "Active only" checkbox and post that one again.

And what filters do you have? I've seen people forget that they even have some, and then add more somewhere else to try and fix a problem that was caused by the first set. Of course, that only makes things worse again.
 
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AnimeBreaker

New Member
Where exacty should I turn off "Active Only"? Also it seems that these strange flutter nioses are not on the recording when I try to record them. However I can hear them when I open up OBS. Very strange.
I also installed the "win capture audio" plugin for OBS to get rid of that noise. Should I take it out again?
 
A

AaronD

Active Member
AnimeBreaker said:
Where exacty should I turn off "Active Only"?
Click to expand...
Bottom left corner of the Advanced Audio Properties. It defaults to showing you only what's actually going to the stream and recording right now, when I've *never* wanted that functionality from that window. I always want to see absolutely everything that I have set up anywhere, which is what it does when you uncheck that box. But it doesn't save that setting, so I have to uncheck it every time I open it. Grrr.

AnimeBreaker said:
Also it seems that these strange flutter nioses are not on the recording when I try to record them. However I can hear them when I open up OBS. Very strange.
Click to expand...
So the problem is only in your speakers/headphones? Kinda makes me think of something I posted to a different problem:
I had a rig a bunch of years ago, that used the built-in USB sound card in what was otherwise an analog sound board. Older than this one, but similar function:
I figured that USB was digital and therefore immune to the sort of "ground loop" problems that analog rigs have to deal with. But I still had a "weird warble" that changed whenever the laptop did something at all. Even just moving the mouse was enough.

Unplugging the laptop from the wall, running on battery, fixed it, and plugging it back in to charge brought it back. That's classic ground-loop behavior, but it didn't sound like the typical AC power-line hum/buzz, and it came in on a digital connection! What gives?!

Turns out that yes, it *was* an analog ground loop, that was picking up a switching power supply inside the laptop instead of the usual "shore power", which is why it sounded different. And ANY analog point in the chain makes the entire chain susceptible to picking that up. So when the built-in USB sound card converted to analog to connect to the rest of the board, the perfect-on-USB signal got the ground loop noise added to it at *that* point, inside the board.

A USB isolator fixed it. Still a ground loop, even if it didn't sound like most people are used to them sounding, so it was the same problem with the same solution: break the loop at some point, while still getting the signal across. In my case, that meant breaking a digital connection, but that's because it became analog at a different point that was practically inaccessible.

It doesn't matter where you break the loop, just as long as you do. Radio already does, so bluetooth and other wireless stuff won't cause that problem, though it might cause a different problem that sounds similar. We generally don't like bluetooth here.
Click to expand...

AnimeBreaker said:
I also installed the "win capture audio" plugin for OBS to get rid of that noise. Should I take it out again?
Click to expand...
If it doesn't help and you don't use it otherwise, yes. Keeping things around that are not needed is a good way to have weird problems later.
 
A

AnimeBreaker

New Member
this is my current log file

Analyzer | OBS

OBS (Open Broadcaster Software) is free and open source software for video recording and live streaming. Stream to Twitch, YouTube and many other providers or record your own videos with high quality H264 / AAC encoding.
obsproject.com obsproject.com
 
A

AnimeBreaker

New Member
AaronD said:
Bottom left corner of the Advanced Audio Properties. It defaults to showing you only what's actually going to the stream and recording right now, when I've *never* wanted that functionality from that window. I always want to see absolutely everything that I have set up anywhere, which is what it does when you uncheck that box. But it doesn't save that setting, so I have to uncheck it every time I open it. Grrr.


So the problem is only in your speakers/headphones? Kinda makes me think of something I posted to a different problem:



If it doesn't help and you don't use it otherwise, yes. Keeping things around that are not needed is a good way to have weird problems later.
Click to expand...
to be honest I'm not completely sure as to what the solution is here? So I should buy an USB Isolator? I'm using a tower PC and not a laptop btw. Additionally I now have lags in my recording. Don't how how this happened now. I'm going to post my different settings again..
Thank you for your help
 
A

AaronD

Active Member
AnimeBreaker said:
Here's a vid how you recommended. It's very laggy as I said and the sound is not aligned with video..
youtu.be

OBS Bugs

youtu.be youtu.be
Also I was able to record that noise. It's in this video:
youtu.be

Flutter Noise

youtu.be youtu.be
Click to expand...
They're set to Private, so I can't see them. Can you make them Unlisted please?

AnimeBreaker said:
Also I found out that I even get these flutter noises if my Capture Card is disconnected from my computer
Click to expand...
So it's probably not that then.

AnimeBreaker said:
this is my current log file

Analyzer | OBS

OBS (Open Broadcaster Software) is free and open source software for video recording and live streaming. Stream to Twitch, YouTube and many other providers or record your own videos with high quality H264 / AAC encoding.
obsproject.com obsproject.com
Click to expand...
That shows a few problems. HAGS comes up a lot. It tries to be smart and falls flat on its face. Follow the instructions that the analyzer links to, to disable it. That might solve the problem all by itself.

The recording format is also a good idea to change. Like the analyzer says, if something goes wrong, you lose the whole thing with the setting you have now. If you use the recommended format - MKV - it's like an old-school tape machine running out of tape: everything before that point is still there and easy to use; you just don't have anything after. Compared to the MP4 or MOV that you're using now, which loses everything. If you must have MP4, it's fast and easy to convert after the fact. File -> Remux...

Running as Admin has been known to fix things too, but that's also a security risk. See if the other things fix your problem first.
 
A

AnimeBreaker

New Member
Ok, they are unlisted now. Can you please check again?
I had changed my video format from mkv to mp4 in hopes it would solve the problem. But I guess it's better to change it back as it obviously did not help and your explanation makes a lot of sense as to why mkv is better
 
A

AnimeBreaker

New Member
After I changed the HAGS setting the sound problem seems to be gone even though I had sequences where they were gone before. So I'm gonna wait in that regard. These laggy frames however are still there :(
 
A

AaronD

Active Member
AnimeBreaker said:
Ok, they are unlisted now. Can you please check again?
Click to expand...
Works now. Thanks!

AnimeBreaker said:
Here's a vid how you recommended. It's very laggy as I said and the sound is not aligned with video..
youtu.be

OBS Bugs

youtu.be youtu.be
Click to expand...
To someone not familiar with that game, and not really interested in gaming in general, it's hard to tell what the sound is supposed to align with in the first place. Even what I know is perfect alignment, with constant action and similar sound effects for everything, seems like two independent streams to me, that have nothing to do with each other.

Do you have something that makes it obvious? Maybe use the game's settings (not OBS) to mute it and turn it back on, so I can watch you do that and hear the result?

AnimeBreaker said:
Also I was able to record that noise. It's in this video:
youtu.be

Flutter Noise

youtu.be youtu.be
Click to expand...
Does it sound like that, even in what's supposed to be dead silence? Not just a quiet mic, but does a literal string of all zeros still do that?

Most digital problems end up with either:
  • Misinterpreting the bits to form a different number than it was supposed to, which usually results in horrendous loud noise, or:
  • Skipping or stuffing samples where things don't quite line up, which results in periodic "pops" at a similar volume as what is currently playing through the problem point. If the "pops" are frequent enough, they collectively form their own "zipper" or "buzzing" sound.
  • Depending on how the digital samples are represented, it might clip too, where the signal is mathematically supposed to go beyond what can actually be represented, and so it makes a "flat shelf" at that maximum where there should have been a "round peak". That makes a "buzz" or "splat" sound that gets worse at higher volumes, or the difference between a sine wave (not clipping) and a square wave (maximum clipping). Analog signals do that too, and the solution is easy either way: turn it down *before* the point in the chain where it's clipping.
For all three of those, dead silence - literally all zeros - should still be silent through any of those problems. So if silence still does that, then you're getting it added somewhere, and the question becomes, "Where?"
 
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A

AnimeBreaker

New Member
Ok so I cannot get rid of the noise but as you have recommended I turned down the volume of my tracks and the capture card to -60dB and now it's no longer audible. I'm not sure if this is going to be a problem but I'm very thankful for helping me. That noise was really getting on my nerves xD so thanks again!
 
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