Sidechain/ducking audio delay not in sync (desktop audio gets lowered too late)

[normalhuman]

I have a Compressor with the Sidechain/Ducking Source set to my microphone, but the problem is that I have is I have a 200ms Sync offset in the Advanced Audio Properties on my Desktop Audio to sync it up to the microphone audio. This causes the Sidechain to activate late and not when its supposed to causing recordings or streams where the game volume or desktop audio lowers 200ms after it is supposed to

(example: I am playing a game or listening to music that is loud and I start talking, the side chain is now triggered but it is delayed by 200ms from the AAP offset. Because of that the first words I am saying aren't heard as the sidechain is still activating)

I read in this thread someone had a solution for a problem similar to mine but I wasn't sure how to implement that into my setup. If someone could explain it more for me I feel that would likely be the thing I need to solve my problem.

How would I go about having my desktop audio and my my mic audio synced up with my video/stream while also keeping the Sidechain/Ducking in sync as well?

For extra context, I tried removing the 200ms offset from the AAP page and adding the VST mentioned in the thread I referenced as a Filter on the Desktop audio which does bring the mic and the desktop audio in sync while maintaining the Sidechain sync, but, this then causes the video to be out of sync and late by 200ms.

If the process I mentioned is the right idea, would I then just have to add a delay to every video source for 200ms? Wouldn't that cause issues during a stream or recording if I switched to a different scene or added something new to a scene?

Finally, if it was possible to do that mentioned above but with a negative 200ms offset to the microphone in the AAP while also using the Voxengo vst to keep the mic in sync with the desktop audio/video and maintaining the sidechain sync as well I would like to do that but at this point I am open to any suggestions/ideas.

Here is my log should it be needed.

Analyzer | OBS

OBS (Open Broadcaster Software) is free and open source software for video recording and live streaming. Stream to Twitch, YouTube and many other providers or record your own videos with high quality H264 / AAC encoding.

obsproject.com

OBS (Open Broadcaster Software) is free and open source software for video recording and live streaming. Stream to Twitch, YouTube and many other providers or record your own videos with high quality H264 / AAC encoding.
obsproject.com
(Am aware about the problematic mismatched audio bitrates and game/desktop on same scene, for my workflow, I need the setup like that unfortunately)

 

[1030]

I'm getting this issue too. The VST workaround is interesting but I don't want to add delays to everything just to catch up to that one troublesome OBS compressor. I'm wondering if it's treating a symptom rather than a solution. Is there anybody who can attest they've set up sidechain compression on the standard OBS compressor without having to jump through hoops to get the ducking synced between input mic and ducking within the background audio?

 

[AaronD]

Yeah, OBS audio is terrible. Not terrible quality, but the tools are almost trash to use. Nice idea, and it does get a bedroom streamer going with nothing else really to think about, but as soon as you do anything more than that, you really need to get the audio out of OBS and into a dedicated tool for that job alone. Let it do what it's good at, and give the completely finished soundtrack to OBS to pass through unchanged.

That dedicated tool could be a physical mixer, analog or digital, or a Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) on the same machine as OBS. A DAW is essentially a complete sound studio in one app. You can do all of this, for example, in that software, and a TON more:

System Running

www.youtube.com

System Overview

www.youtube.com

There are lots of different DAW's to choose from, some free, some paid. That's just the one that I use. And that's the settings for three copies of the same compressor on the right side of the last screenshot. The bottom one is sidechained. Compare these graphs and meters all over it to OBS's user interface!

 

[AaronD]

For the specific problem in the OP, the Sync Delay happens after everything. So you're not going to affect the timing of a sidechain with that. And there's no other audio delay that I know of, except for whatever you find as a VST. Any decent DAW will have a delay that can go anywhere.

And yes, a major consideration in broadcasting is how much to delay each thing so that the results all line up. Depending on what your sources are, you might have several delays scattered around.