Problem With Sound on Livestream!

[PANDAPANDELO]

Hey there, guys! I hope some of you, with a lot of experience, could help me with some problems I'm having here.

I am using a SSL2 as audio interface for a while, and I was thinking about upgrading to a Babyface for a better stability. I don't have a LOT of problems with the SSL2, but I did had some. For example, on my last YouTube livestream, I had some issues with my audio at the middle of it. I don't know exactly what happened, and I was thinking it might be the SSL2. Maybe it was just user error, on my OBS configuration... I really don't know.

The problem starts at around 1h 13m and 30s of this livestream video:

[YOUTUBE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOeUUKUOq6w&t=4080s[/YOUTUBE]

Do you guys had any problem like this, or have any idea if it might have been something related with my audio interface or user error?

Thank you!

 

[AaronD]

Sounds like clipping, but a lot of digital problems can sound like that. Since you didn't change settings or performance, it's probably not actually clipping. Not in the computer anyway, and the meter in the bottom left corner of your frame also shows that it's okay. Don't know where that meter is in your signal chain, but it's probably good up to there at least.

I wonder if you have a buffer somewhere that takes that long to get out of sync? Do you have OBS's Monitor output anywhere in the chain that makes it to the stream? Normally you wouldn't, but if you have two copies of OBS with one of them feeding the other, then the easiest way to do it by far is to use a loopback audio device, which looks like a virtual speaker and a virtual mic. And the only way to feed that from OBS is with the Monitor out.

OBS's Monitor out has had a known problem for years, that it locks itself to the output device's sample clock, instead of resampling to keep in sync with everything else. It's much easier to write that way, but it slowly drifts out of sync until it becomes completely useless. OBS simply allows it to get horribly out of sync, but if something else is doing the same thing and frequently tries to bring it back by dropping samples or creating gaps, then the dropped samples or gaps can sound like your problem.

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Another (remote) possibility is that something *is* actually clipping, because a power supply is failing. I had a cheap analog sound board / mixing console do that about 10 years ago, but it only affected 2 input channels if I remember right. If I kept those 2 channels quiet (preamp down), and turned them up later in the chain (fader up), they were fine, but if I tried to use the "standard level", they would clip prematurely. The other channels were fine. The single meter always read accurately for each signal that I connected it to, so the meter's power supply was still okay, as were the rest of the input channels'.

If you have a failing analog power supply, then the meter could show it's okay, and it would still clip. As the supply drops further, the same input level sounds worse and the output gets softer.

That only happens for analog processing, like an analog mixing console or a signal-conditioning circuit to feed an analog-to-digital converter. (ADC) Digital processing doesn't do that. Digital is perfect in this regard until it stops running altogether.