Mic is picking up desktop audio

mrawesome1234q

New Member
I want to start by saying that I am not great with a lot of things related to computers, so this could be something really simple I am missing.

I am trying to record the audio from my desktop and record with my microphone at the same time. I do not have a microphone so I am using the one that is built into the computer. The problem is that the desktop audio also plays quietly through the Mic/Aux on the mixer. I have confirmed it is being picked up by Mic/Aux because I had the audio muted and played a video on my computer with only Mic/Aux unmuted in OBS. My computer volume was also muted so no sound was coming out of my speakers or headphones when I recorded the video, but it still played the audio in the video. I can't hear it all the time, but there are times when it is louder and it can sometimes be heard with the desktop audio and sounds distorted.

Here is the youtube video I was recording without recording desktop audio while my sound was muted. You can hear the audio a little the whole time, especially at about 12 seconds when a louder noise plays in the video, even though the only sound should be coming through the mic. Sorry about the fan noise btw.


Also, I know my computer isn't great to use for OBS, but I haven't had any issues with recording or streaming besides this.

I would appreciate it if anybody could help! Let me know if you need any more information.

 

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AaronD

Active Member
I'd recommend USB audio gear. Don't use the built-in stuff at all.

The built-in stuff may or may not have super-impressive specs to an audiophool - it's cheap and easy enough to do, and makes a good selling point - but the inside of a computer is such a terrible environment for analog audio that it completely wrecks everything. Even with "audiophool" specs, I would not be surprised to see a board layout (where the wires actually go) that would struggle to beat a 1980's consumer cassette recorder in terms of actual quality, because it's just not worth any serious engineering time. Just plop some cheap high-spec chips on there so we can advertise that, and call it a day, if even that.

The output chip almost certainly has a volume and mute function on the chip itself, so the computer's volume and mute controls actually go there and not to a software module. This means that the chip is still receiving audio, even if you have it muted or turned down, and depending on the physical details of the chip and surrounding circuitry, there could still be a speaker signal close enough to the mic wire that the mic picks it up, even if the speaker jack is silent. (we call that "crosstalk", and it's one of the important specs of an analog mixing console: how much do adjacent channels "talk" to each other?)

USB gear that is dedicated to audio, IS worth the serious engineering to make it good. So as long as you don't get a dirt cheap thing, it's not all that hard to compete with a professional recording studio in terms of electronic performance. Still something to be said for skill, of course! :-)
 

mrawesome1234q

New Member
I'd recommend USB audio gear. Don't use the built-in stuff at all.

The built-in stuff may or may not have super-impressive specs to an audiophool - it's cheap and easy enough to do, and makes a good selling point - but the inside of a computer is such a terrible environment for analog audio that it completely wrecks everything. Even with "audiophool" specs, I would not be surprised to see a board layout (where the wires actually go) that would struggle to beat a 1980's consumer cassette recorder in terms of actual quality, because it's just not worth any serious engineering time. Just plop some cheap high-spec chips on there so we can advertise that, and call it a day, if even that.

The output chip almost certainly has a volume and mute function on the chip itself, so the computer's volume and mute controls actually go there and not to a software module. This means that the chip is still receiving audio, even if you have it muted or turned down, and depending on the physical details of the chip and surrounding circuitry, there could still be a speaker signal close enough to the mic wire that the mic picks it up, even if the speaker jack is silent. (we call that "crosstalk", and it's one of the important specs of an analog mixing console: how much do adjacent channels "talk" to each other?)

USB gear that is dedicated to audio, IS worth the serious engineering to make it good. So as long as you don't get a dirt cheap thing, it's not all that hard to compete with a professional recording studio in terms of electronic performance. Still something to be said for skill, of course! :-)
Thank you for the quick response. I had a feeling that was the issue but wanted to make sure there wasn't something else. I'll look into what I can get.
 

AaronD

Active Member
I solved the problem by following this video
Ah! Yep! The default processing - in the audio driver, not OBS - to make a conference call work on speakerphone, doesn't know that the mic can't hear the speakers. So it tries to subtract the speakers from the mic...which is the same as adding the inverse, which sounds exactly the same when there's nothing for it to cancel.
It's supposed to figure that out, as part of figuring out what the acoustics are that it also needs to account for, but I guess it doesn't always go far enough to see that it really needs nothing.

At any rate, always look through ALL of the settings, everywhere, understand what they do, and make the unconscious machine work for you, not the other way around. Anything that is not "a straight dumb wire" between the raw source and OBS, needs to go away. If something is there by default and hidden, find it (because you're going through everything anyway) and turn it off.

Duplicated threads:
 
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