Sound Issues

[jcmorgan31]

My church uses OBS to live stream our services to Facebook. We've been doing this with OBS for almost 2 years with no issues. This past week, we upgraded our aging streaming PC. My wife and I spent several hours last night trying to get the new system up and running and we are having sound issues that we cannot seem to figure out. All of the hardware is the same as it was last week when we streamed our service. Our sound board is our source of audio signal. Signal runs through a Focusrite Scarlett Solo and into the PC.

We have clear sound at the Focusrite through headphones plugged directly into the device.

OBS shows an audio signal as well. Last night we tried half a dozen private test streams on Facebook but when we played them back, the audio was quiet and muffled (barely understandable). It almost sounds like another microphone across the auditorium is picking up the sound through the main speakers. We do not have any other input devices that should be picking up sound.

Being that everything is the same except the PC, I feel like it has to be in the PCs or OBSs settings. I was not the person who set up OBS the first time we started using it.

We did fire back up the old PC and compared the settings in OBS on that PC with the new one and we are pretty sure they match.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

 

[konsolenritter]

We have clear sound at the Focusrite through headphones plugged directly into the device.
OBS shows an audio signal as well.

I take you seriously. =)
"OBS shows an audio signal" can mean: Any audio signal.

To be specific: If your sound reaches the scarlett clearly, and sounds muffeled and indirected thru playback after streaming, it sounds like there is another mic read-in in OBS. If you pull the line between your soundboard and the scarlett - do you still have audio level showing in OBS?
What is set under settings->audio->mic/aux standard?

It may help if you provide an obs logfile. Here is how:

Please post a log with your issue! Here's how...

OBS Studio creates a log file each time you run it which contains very useful diagnostic information. Without a log file, it's much harder for any support volunteers to figure out problems and your post may be ignored. To upload a log file, go to the Help menu > Log Files > Upload Last Log...

obsproject.com

 

[jcmorgan31]

Did some more testing at lunch and something really odd is happening. When we are actively live streaming on Facebook, the sound coming through the stream is fine. Once we end the live stream session and play back the video, it sounds fine on our phones but when we play it back on our streaming computer, the sound coming out of our speakers is really muffled. If we unplug the cord going to the sound board and listen on the PCs internal speaker, it sounds fine. If we play music from our PC through the sound board, sound is also fine.

It is like something between the facebook recording and the sound board is set wrong. Not sure this has anything to do with OBS.

 

[jcmorgan31]

Here are the last three log files.

 

[Lawrence_SoCal]

It is like something between the facebook recording and the sound board is set wrong. Not sure this has anything to do with OBS.

I'm suspecting what is different is your OS sound settings. probably nothing to do with OBS at all

Have you tried recording on the OBS PC and moving the resulting file to another device and check playback on that (PC, tablet, whatever)?

 

[jcmorgan31]

I take you seriously. =)
"OBS shows an audio signal" can mean: Any audio signal.

To be specific: If your sound reaches the scarlett clearly, and sounds muffeled and indirected thru playback after streaming, it sounds like there is another mic read-in in OBS. If you pull the line between your soundboard and the scarlett - do you still have audio level showing in OBS?
What is set under settings->audio->mic/aux standard?

It may help if you provide an obs logfile. Here is how:

Please post a log with your issue! Here's how...

OBS Studio creates a log file each time you run it which contains very useful diagnostic information. Without a log file, it's much harder for any support volunteers to figure out problems and your post may be ignored. To upload a log file, go to the Help menu > Log Files > Upload Last Log...

obsproject.com

On our OBS Audio Mixer screen we have several inputs.

"Focusrite Scarlet Solo" is the main input from the sound board.
"Mic/Aux" is another one that I'm not sure where it came from. It is the one that shows low levels of audio input on the indicator. I have no idea where that mic would be picking up that sound.

With the sound board disconnected from the Scarlett Solo, the "Mic/Aux" input still shows some signal input.


"Default" is the setting under settings>audio>mic/aux standard

 

[Lawrence_SoCal]

I have no idea where that mic would be picking up that sound.

I suspect that is the default MIc from the Operating System
I'm not a fan on WIn10's new System -> Sound Settings, but you can dig around in there. Personally, I usually simply Start "Control Panel" to get to the old "Hardware and Sound" -> Sound applet and see what is defined there. You may want to heck both Playback and Recording
However, the new Sounds settings section is a good place to start and check privacy/security settings in regards to mic

This is why, for our church livestream to Facebook, I disabled ALL of the default OBS Audio Sources, and then added New Audio Source (our mixer) only to those Scenes where applicable [and Named with Mixer name/model]... that way no guessing

 

[konsolenritter]

If we unplug the cord going to the sound board and listen on the PCs internal speaker, it sounds fine.

Interesting! If you listen thru the internal speaker, what does it mean how you listened to the video before? Are you playing back the video towards the soundboard? Then you might have a loop between the pc and the soundboard.

You should draw a scheme on papersheet for yourself how your audio flow is. I assume: Church sound coming down from the soundboard thru the scarlett into the pc (recording device into obs). Playback device going out of the scarlett back into the soundboard? If the soundboard does mirror _that_ (played back) sound to the pc again, that may cause hollow and comb-filtered sound, even feedback (if the loop is gained strong enough).

With the sound board disconnected from the Scarlett Solo, the "Mic/Aux" input still shows some signal input.

Then for sure there is another mic stepping in. Is the streaming pc a laptop? Anyway. It seems to have an internal mic so far...

For the rest i'm d'accord with Lawrence. If you don't know what the mix/aux source is for (hence you're sure that soundboard comes thru the scarlett now) then best is to disable the mic/aux in the obs->settings->audio path.

Accordingly set a specific audio device on the obs settings as monitoring device. Never let it on "default" or something similar, due to the fact that windows decides on its own what may be the current default device, as Lawrence mentioned.

 

[khaver]

Might sound simple, but make sure your headphones aren't plugged into the mic jack. Speakers are actually inefficient mics too.