Please allow for mono recording of Microphones - I'll explain why...

[DrWolfsherz]

Hello dear people of the OBS Project,

i would like to request the possibility to record mono for Microphones.
When using an XLR Mic with a preamp and audio interface it is standard to have mono input on these mics. You can do something about it (usiny y-cable and other silly things) but it is not common to do in audio processing.
When recording with these kind of setup, the volume of the recording gets halved, because OBS mixes the mono channel up to stereo. I know you can then convert it back to mono, but the volume is 50% nonetheless, as it is not really a mono recording with that option. I also know you can just increase the volume of the Microphone in OBS to 200% to counter this issue, but this causes distortions, as it simply adds gain to both channels...

In other software you can select to record in mono directly and I wish OBS had the same ability. Some people have decent equipment and the mic goes through a channel strip, which does all the required steps (compressor, de-esser, noise gate, expander ...) and then OBS mixes that perfect sound to stereo, halving the volume which makes it a requirement to put gain on it. This is crippling the perfect sound to something which is just not good anymore. Please, please consider my request. Thank you!



English is not my native language, so please ask when I did not explain well enough. I will do my best to clarify. Thank you.

 

[DrWolfsherz]

I just realised that I should have put this under Ideas / Suggestions. Maybe some friendly moderator can move this thread accordingly.

 

[Fenrir]

Have you checked Edit -> Advanced Audio Properties? There is a "Downmix to mono" checkbox already present.

 

[DrWolfsherz]

As I have written, yes. That checkbox is known. But it does not change the recording. Audio is ALWAYS recorded Stereo with OBS (resulting in halved audio for mono mics). That checkbox just mixes the stereo tracks down afterwards, halved volume persists.

 

[Fenrir]

Thanks for the report. I'll check into this.

 

[DrWolfsherz]

Thank you Fenrir.

 

[pkv]

As I have written, yes. That checkbox is known. But it does not change the recording. Audio is ALWAYS recorded Stereo with OBS (resulting in halved audio for mono mics). That checkbox just mixes the stereo tracks down afterwards, halved volume persists.

it's because you've setup audio output to stereo in Settings > audio. This is to be expected.
Select mono and your mikes will be recorded as mono without upmixing.

If on the other hand you want to stream stereo but record mono you're in a bind.
A way out would be to pan your mono to both left and right with the help of rematrixer plugin (search in the plugins section of this forum) which will allow you to route your signal to both left and right and reset the volume to 100%.

 

[DrWolfsherz]

That is a nice plugin, indeed. But it does not help the issue, that the recording is still in Stereo.
What I and others with professional mics severely need is the option to record the game in stereo, and the mic in mono. Everything you do with filters (also the rematrix filter) is applied to the recording AFTERWARDS and at that point the damage is already done, because recording a mono mic in stero results in volume reduction. Putting gain on it AFTERWARDS or mixing it back to stereo damages the audio quality.

Setting OBS to record mono for all sources (Settings > Audio) is problematic for games where you need Stereo for the localisation of enemies for example. You can not use rematrix to mix the audio from game back to stereo as there is only one channel recorded after all.

To conclude: I suggest adding the possibility to set recording mode for several sources. Not mixing them afterwards but how to record them in first place. The OBS wide setting in Settings > Audio is a clue on how this can be achieved. Just add a second setting there for example.

 

[pkv]

not a simple task to develop in the current audio pipeline; i doubt this will be ever implemented. IMO the best thing to do in your case is to capture your mike in a daw and route to obs; look for tutorials on audio routing between apps using virtual audio drivers like virtual audio cable, voicemeeter, synchronous audio router or rearoute included in reaper (though the latter requires asio support).

 

[axd]

Reading phrases like "i doubt this will be ever implemented" makes me crimp because the request is absolutely valid, but being a developer myself I can perfectly understand. To me this is an indication of a flaw in the software architecture that has become too heavy to correct; technical debt, I'd say. (another example is my request: output volume visualization · OBS Studio Ideas and Suggestions .)

Is there an "advanced wishlist" ? There are several feature requests that appear to be very good, but difficult (or impossible) to implement (because of decisions taken in the past, for example, or due to lack of understanding of the issue).

Such an issue could until then be categorized as a "known issue" or "limitation".

 

[Fenrir]

Just to jump in here, I'm talking with the rest of the team and we're looking in to fixing the downmix to mono checkbox. There is no need for any further complication of the audio settings, the checkbox already exists and this functionality is supposed to already be present, but there is a bug currently. The correct resolution here is to fix the bug, not invent complicated alternate workarounds.

 

[pkv]

Reading phrases like "i doubt this will be ever implemented" makes me crimp because the request is absolutely valid, but being a developer myself I can perfectly understand. To me this is an indication of a flaw in the software architecture that has become too heavy to correct; technical debt, I'd say. (another example is my request: output volume visualization · OBS Studio Ideas and Suggestions .)

Is there an "advanced wishlist" ? There are several feature requests that appear to be very good, but difficult (or impossible) to implement (because of decisions taken in the past, for example, or due to lack of understanding of the issue).

Such an issue could until then be categorized as a "known issue" or "limitation".

the request is indeed valid; I investigated allowing different audio channel setups for Recording and Streaming outputs when I was working on adding surround sound support to obs (mono for recording, stereo for streaming for instance). At that time I talked about that to Jim who told me it would be very difficult to implement. It's do-able IMO but I think the API changes would be too much for Jim for a very niche case. So the balance between maintaining more complex code and user benefits is not good. imo.

Edit: in my setup which may or may not apply to you, I capture xlr mikes in an asio sound device. They are mono of course. In order to achieve what you want with right levels, I would use my asio plugin (check my repo on github, pkviet) . With obs audio settings at stereo, two channels are requested by the asio plugin: I would pick twice the mono mike.

 

[DrWolfsherz]

@pkv That is wonderful! I am now using your plugin and record the audio from my mic your way. Instantly the distortions (which were caused by the gain applied) are gone and my Mic sounds like the 400€ it cost me to buy. Too bad this can not be done by the OBS Team.
Also, do you have any suggestion how to work with push to mute for the asio-solution?

@Fenrir Not sure which bug you were referring to regarding my issue. The problem is not that the feature of downmixing does not work, it is just that this way of handling mono recording is just not good. You might do something to detect which track (of the stereo recording) contains no audio and just delete that specific one. The issue with downmixing would be solved because eliminating the quiet track does not lower the audio volume.

 

[pkv]

push to mute works with asio ... did you setup the hotkey and enable push to mute in Settings > audio > asio source ?

 

[DrWolfsherz]

Actually no, i did not. Thanks for pointing this out. I did not notice the new options :)

 

[Suslik V]

Just wondering, how you get mono in your modern PC (in the first place)?

 

[DrWolfsherz]

Actually all Microphones record mono only. USB Mics (or mics directly connected to a soundcard) are usually just handled in a way that stereo is simulated by putting the mono recording in both tracks of a stereo signal.
This is not the case with mics connected via XLR and an Audio Interface. Every modern software usually has a method to record a mono source these days. Even Audacity does have this "feature". So this is not an issue usually. Unfortunately OBS doesn't do it "right" by mixing the mono source down to stereo, effectively halving its volume (see first thread for further explanation why this is bad). The correct way to handle this would be to eliminate the track that does not have audio in it or just allow recording of mono directly.

 

[Suslik V]

I cannot imagine that your interface cannot do stereo while it has 2 inputs... Is this USB device? Is there any options in Windows Recording devices>Properties>Advanced tab?

 

[DrWolfsherz]

The interface is connected via USB to the computer. I am using the line input from port 1, coming from the dbx 286s mic preamp, which is connected to the microphone via XLR. It just is a fact, that the way to do it right is to enable recording in mono as does every DAW and other modern software.

 

[Suslik V]

And what model of the device that has this USB that is connected to the PC?