Selecting Audio Input To Record & Turning Off Audio

[Bryan in Hawaii]

Aloha . . . apologies if this has been addressed somewhere else.

Everything is working (recording) fine from streaming work conference calls. I am wondering how I can
1) Turn off the audio from my computer while OBS continues to capture the audio
2) Turn off system sounds and audio from other applications (bings, chimes, etc.) from being recorded, or have those sounds play but not recorded

I tried playing around with some of the audio settings but didn't dig too deep. I have only used the software 4 times so far and love what I can do so far. Now I'm just trying to fine-tune it for my needs.

 

[konsolenritter]

If you record the conference calls by capturing your audiocard output, then _all_ sound output to this device will be captured, as you noted.
As intended you would have to mute all unwanted sources by hand (muting system sounds, for instance).

The only clear solution is to have an additional audio device. The trick is to have two distinct (split, separated) playout paths in the windows sound system at least. Then you could switch the second audio device to be the windows standard audio device (all upcoming apps will play there, not being captured) BUT to route the conference calls playout manually in the software - as original - to the internal soundcard where the capturing by OBS will pickup the calls sound separately.

There are deadly expensive devices like RME firefaces that are many-in-one-soundcards (lets say a complete mixer with a bulk of separated audio paths), that could do such separation (and more) in a single hardware device, but thats the overkill for you.

 

[AaronD]

Some of the first things I do with a new computer, after updating, are:

• Set the desktop background to solid black with no icons, and keep it that way. In case the audience display app crashes and I end up showing my desktop to the audience.
• Disable power saving entirely. No sleep, no lock, no screensaver, no turning off, no...... Just on, period. Nothing like having a projector go into an uninterruptible cooldown when you really need to show something NOW!
• Turn off all system sounds. Period. Then I can keep that channel on in the audio rig, and not have to think about it. Less workload live that way, which is always welcome!