Question / Help Question about audio possibilities

[Zirgotv]

Good day people!

So I have this question that I want to bring to the experts at this forum.
The reason why I bring it here is because I use OBS ofcourse and this question concerns OBS to some extent.

I would like to know first of all how OBS handles audio from games. If I capture a game screen, does OBS capture the audio coming out from that screen or where does it grab the audio?
I have a usb headset that I have setup to grab microphone conversation and this works. So sound from game works and from microphone as well.

Now for my plan. I want to be able to setup obs so that I can stream games, talk in a microphone and at some times be able to go into "pause" mode so loading a scene where I will send out game music in the stream. For this plan I have two laptops. One I want to be streaming from, playing the games etc, and one laptop that I want to have running Foobar with all the music. I want to send the music from the foobar laptop over to the streaming laptop by audio cable into the 3,5" microphone jack of the streaming computer. Now I want to control the music flow so that I can have obs streaming the music from the game when I play it and mute it and play the music from the foobar laptop when i am in pause mode.

I haven't tried all my thoughts out yet. One idea is to use a program called VAC, or Virtual Audio Cable and reroute the audio if possible so that I can mute each audio respectively when needed. But this is just one idea and I would love to hear it out from you guys if you have some suggestions.

I also want to state that I don't want to have foobar running on the streaming computer since it is not high end enough, so I would prefer a setup where I keep things separated.

 

[rasty]

OBS Captures all the audio going through windows, regardless of display. No way to make it only listen to specific applications or screens.
Now comes the complex bit. Don't try to plug in your line-level output into a high-gain microphone jack. It will sound shit. No way to fix it other that to plug the laptop output into a line-input jack. And you won't be able to listen to the music. Unless you have the features my soundcard had.
I did this a few months ago.
Microphone->Laptop playing music and outputting microphone->computer's line in port(line in unmuted to hear and record)

Spoiler

By outputting microphone I really mean without delay. My laptop had the feature to do so without any sound going into Windows which would delay it. If you heard youself talking with a small 60 ms delay you won't be able to utter a single word. It's a brain problem, everyone has it and that's why any audio delay is evil.
My computer soundcard had the same feature. I just set OBS to record the line input and set the soundcard to output the line input directly. The windows mixer and the soundcard mixer are different and OBS and any recording software cannot record the soundcard mixer, unless drivers support this. Which is why I stated in the first sentence that OBS records sounds going through windows, not everything you hear coming out of your speakers.
The awesome side of this setup was that it allowed me to talk to others on laptop's mumble during a pause. I had to play the music out of my computer though.

EDIT: I didn't read that you had USB microphone. What I said will not work. As of now, OBS does not support multiple inputs. No streaming program does(SOMEONE MAKE IT, IT WOULD HELP ALOT). You could unmute the microphone jack from widows and enjoy the 60ms delay windows puts on it, which is okay if you listen to music. However it's still going to sound like shit. Microphone input boosts sound by a few orders of magnitude, thus adding distortion. Unless you plan on making everything you play sound like played by an garage indie band, don't try it.

 

[Zirgotv]

Actually Wirecast supports multiple sound inputs, which is the reason why I first tried to use it to see if it met all my needs. Had to drop that for the reasons that 1. The software is EXPENSIVE!! and 2. Because my laptop couldn't meet up to the needs of the software when it came to CPU, especially if I wanted to go for better quality.

My thought was that I could use the program mentioned above, (VAC), to reroute the audio going out from the speakers of my streaming laptop and in that way I could control the sound and send it into a different VAC cable which then OBS would use as capturing a MIC, and then I would be able to mute the audio for the streaming computer and send in the signals coming from my second laptop. Though if someone knows a way or a better way to do that, it would be much appreciated!

 

[Muf]

What you describe can currently be achieved using Virtual Audio Cable. The process is complex but it works. The only gotcha is that you need to set VAC as your microphone input in OBS, and not use it as your default output device in Windows, or else you will get desync (this is a bug between VAC and OBS).

In the future, multiple audio devices will be supported without needing Virtual Audio Cable. Sit tight.

 

[Zirgotv]

Yeah, I was guessing that it can be achieved by using VAC, but how do I go about with the audio from the game? Is it as easy as switching a scene in OBS where the gamewindow isn't included to filter out the sound from that and then just press play on my foobar laptop and then use VAC to move the music over to a VAC line that OBS uses as a microphone?

 

[Muf]

You'd have to make two VAC lines. One only contains the sound you want to hear over your headset, and the other contains the first VAC line and your microphone (you don't want to hear yourself back).

Set your game to output to VAC Line 1, set your Line in (the audio from your laptop with the music player) to output* to VAC Line 1 as well, and set VAC Line 1 to output to your headset. Use VAC's "Audio Repeater" utility to copy Line 1 to Line 2. Then use VAC Line 2 as your microphone input in OBS and mute desktop audio in OBS.

When you want to mute your game sounds, simply mute your game on Line 1 from the Windows Audio Mixer.

* When I say "output to" I mean the "listen to this device" function available from the recording devices properties.

 

[Zirgotv]

Ok Muf, I think I follow you on what I need to do, it's not so far off from what I had imagined either, making some setup on paper. So from your post I gather that I can just mute the sound in the WAM and that will shut off the sound being played in OBS and I can then feed OBS the music and/or microphone input through the same line that OBS listens to for microphone input.

Just to be clear on this point though. OBS will NOT clear away the sound automatically if I have one scene with the game window and one scene that is the pause scene. So switching between the two will not end the sound from the game being played in the other window even though I have the pause scene activated? I think not though from your post and the fact that other streaming software I have tried didn't have such option with scene change, or only partially.

 

[Muf]

Just to be clear on this point though. OBS will NOT clear away the sound automatically if I have one scene with the game window and one scene that is the pause scene. So switching between the two will not end the sound from the game being played in the other window even though I have the pause scene activated? I think not though from your post and the fact that other streaming software I have tried didn't have such option with scene change, or only partially.

No, OBS picks up all sound played through the default audio device. In fact to simplify your setup you probably don't need VAC lines, as long as you play the line in sound through your default device and set your mic input to your mic. Just use the mute from Mixer trick.

 

[Zirgotv]

I guess that will work as well. I will give it all a try tomorrow.

Thanks for everyones suggestions