Multichannel Output Audio Monitor

[Robin9]

May be a very simple question for some but I'm a newbie- introduced to OBS for Live Stream of Church Services.

Just found a post from @the Hyphenate on how to monitor audio output - we had been working blind and getting comments about low output level from the YouTube users.

We have a 16 channel audio mixer (Allen and Heath mix-Wizard) and are using one of the aux to output to OBS.

 

[John Hartman]

In OBS, click the "Docks" menu, and check "Audio Mixer"
The mixer dock has a meter bar that shows the instantaneous and peak audio level, and a fader to let you adjust the level.

In most cases, when someone is speaking or singing you want the meter to be in the yellow range or the high end of the green.
If you can't get there even with the fader all way to the right (or up, if you use vertical orientation), then you need a higher input level:

• look at the Input level for your interface in Windows Sound Settings and adjust if it is turned way down
• check the level of the aux bus on the mixer. The MixWizard has knobs for each channel, and one for the bus as a whole. You can use the aux monitor buttons and the mixer's meter to verify a decent level without clipping/peaking
• if your audio interface on the PC has a gain knob, adjust that - but noise-wise it is better to get more output from the mixer and use lower gain on the interface

I don't think you can see it on a live YouTube stream, but if you go to the YouTube recording of your service, right-click the image and select "Stats for nerds". One of the stats is the average audio level. My streams usually show about -5 dB here, for a service with voice and acoustic music.