Monitoring Audio

[jhodges]

I am coming from Livestream Studio where each audio input can be monitored independently of what is current in preview or program. I am trying to archive the same in OBS.

The use case is our Sunday worship service. We play a playlist of pre-recorded songs as a pre-roll before the event starts. As we are not physically in the Auditorium we use the audio monitor to listen to what's happening. Before going life we cut to a slide (Event name, date, etc) and then take the main SDI feed, all while monitoring the audio from the Auditorium. I can't figure out how to do this in OBS. To be able to Monitor audio it seems like my scene has to be live?

We use SDI and DecLink Capture cards. The audio is embedded in the SDI.

 

[AaronD]

 

[fpn]

Hello,

Although the information from AaronD is very clear and helpul,
I am not sure this answers the question from jhodges

What I understand is the need for monitoring audio from a source which is not yet Live/on Program -
and possibly is on preview.
I dont think this is possible natively in OBS. May be I missed something, but to me "Monitoring" in OBS means routing the Program audio to some dedicated device/output, separately from the 1-6 tracks. I would say this acts as a 7-th track, triggered by the combo "Advanced audio properties"/"Audio Monitoring" (values are "Monitoring and Output", "Monitoring Off", "Monitor Only").

I tried a lot around this subject, because I also wanted to monitor sources separately.
Once again I may be wrong (please help me if...!) but
the only solution I found is the plugin "Audio Monitor".
This plugin provides the following:
- the ability to send a copy of the audio from a source, to some output audio device ; this is acheived by adding the plugin as an "Audio Filter" to the source, and setting the "Device" to some output (1st pic below)
- a new dock "Audio Monitor" (to be found also in menu "Docks") that brings a slider and other controls (2nd pic below)

Using both you may direct some audio to the device output you want, mute/unmute this monit. source, and set the monit. volume (you may use an external midi keyboard, I achieved this with a behringer X-touch mini through rotators, and the plugin obs-midi-mg).

Please note that this is does not apply to the "Preview" window, only Source media.
Managing audio remains quite difficult, specially when it comes in addition to mixing video sources Live. I am still looking forward for mere solutions, and ultimately for a dedicated sound engineer.

In some way I would like to have such feature in the "Advanced audio properties" because it looks like an extension to the "Tracks" area (as seen in the picture from AaronD), a.k.a. the 7th track.
A Routing Matrix could be a possible dev/enhancement. There are such Matrixes in the DAW software Reaper...

Please let me know if this helps you.
OBS is great software !

Regards,
FredericP

 

[jhodges]

This is very helpful thank you! I'll try this out in the coming days and see if it meets my needs.

 

[Lawrence_SoCal]

Aaron has a wealth of Audio insight and knowledge. Elsewhere, Arron's comment/recommendation has been to process audio outside of OBS Studio, example in a Digital Audio Workstation [DAW] (or physical mixer) and send post-mix (and monitoring) from an Audio designed tool, to OBS Studio.

For good audio in Sanctuary, you are typically going to have dedicated microphones (not just mics built into cameras) and those connected to a mixer. And from the mixer audio out to some device to combine audio and video. I have an older analog mixer (with USB output), so using like Dante or remotely connecting to mixer and managing it is not an option. But such is very doable on modern mixers. Combine that with an audio mix for in-person listening vs streaming viewer (typically with poor speakers, with low dynamic range) being different (typically targetting a higher average DB level, with compression, for streaming audio, means that at some point, the Audio mixer setup may need an update... and depends on in-house expertise/volunteers, etc. In our environment, the mixer is NOT touched during a typical service (only touched when something goes wrong, like a really soft spoken person, battery dying on wireless mic, etc)
My dream/future-state hope is to run OBS Studio and a DAW on same computer (its powerful enough for that not to be an issue), then send DAW output to OBS Studio. In my case, the OBS Studio computer is in same closet with mixer, but dual monitor, keyboard and mouse setup in pipe organ/choir loft. So if a genie were granting me a wish, I'd get a new mixer with separate in-house vs streaming audio mix capability (my analog mixer has AUX output now), that I can control every individual mic channel via the computer (vs having to run downstairs to physically adjust the mixer on rare occasion). With such a setup, listening to the DAW (instead of OBS) becomes an option.

Why did I mention all of this, as it isn't what you asked? because sometimes re-framing the question, and using the right tool for the job, makes more sense and leads to a better outcome. In your case, assuming you are using mic's into a mixer, do you have a sound engineer who is manning the mixer the entire time? And does that mixer have separate mix for in-house vs stream? if yes, and your question is only for monitoring purposes, using OBS Studio might make sense... though I'd want to set up automation, so you don't accidentally mute the live stream (Monitor only vs Monitor and Output)