Question / Help Streaming 4 channels (2 x guitar and 2 x vocals) from Garageband to Facebook live via OBS

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sifteruk

New Member
Hi,
I am very new to streaming on Facebook live. I"ve used a single room USB 'Blue' mic to record my vocal and guitar and run into volume issues (guitar was louder than voice, due to mic positioning).
I am thinking of buying an audio interface to give me separate volume control and to future proof my investment I was thinking of buying one with at least 4 inputs so that my band can also plug in and have separate channels via Garageband. I could use a different DAW, but I am familiar with Garageband and so that keeps it simple to get going.
My hope is to get a nice live mix and then stream that mix via OBS to Facebook live.
However, I've read that OBS only supports 2 channels and I don't want to waste my time and money buying a 4+ channel interface if its just going to give me a big headache and/or only 2 channels are possible. I want to keep it simple and so if its easier to just keep the band out of this and do this as a solo thing with 2 channels or stick with room mic, then so be it. But ideally, I want to adjust the volume of between 2 and 4 microphones/guitars using a mixture of interface and garage band.
Does anyone have any tips on how to achieve 4 channels in Garageband and have them output to Facebook live? I've spent hours reading already, but many articles are dated 3 or 4 years ago so Im not sure what to trust.

Thanks in advance.
 
Narcogen

Narcogen

Active Member
OBS supports stereo or surround sound. It does not natively handle multichannel audio. If you connect a multichannel device to it, you either need to manage those channels with other software, or else you might get all channels muxed into one stereo pair, or have some missing.

On MacOS I use LoopBack for this purpose.

https://rogueamoeba.com/loopback/

You can create an arbitrary number of virtual audio devices, assign portions of multichannel devices to those virtual devices, and add those virtual devices to OBS as separate sources, allowing you independent volume control as well as separate filters for each channel of your multichannel interface.
 
S

sifteruk

New Member
Thanks, thats really helpful.
Out of interest, what multi chanel interface are you using and is there anything else you use aside from Loopback and OBS?
E.G. Do you use a DAW at all or ?

Narcogen said:
OBS supports stereo or surround sound. It does not natively handle multichannel audio. If you connect a multichannel device to it, you either need to manage those channels with other software, or else you might get all channels muxed into one stereo pair, or have some missing.

On MacOS I use LoopBack for this purpose.

https://rogueamoeba.com/loopback/

You can create an arbitrary number of virtual audio devices, assign portions of multichannel devices to those virtual devices, and add those virtual devices to OBS as separate sources, allowing you independent volume control as well as separate filters for each channel of your multichannel interface.
Click to expand...
 
Narcogen

Narcogen

Active Member
No, I don't use a DAW. I use LoopBack and a plugin host called Blue Cat Patchwork. I use LoopBack to create multichannel devices from various sources (different hardware inputs, or virtual devices that other programs output to) and then I use Patchwork to run VST and AU plugins to process them and output to another device that OBS can capture.

Basically I am using LoopBack in the place of SoundFlower/iShowU for the purposes of capturing desktop audio on the Mac, but LoopBack gives me more control, as I can make as many virtual devices as I want, and I can easily and visually route between them and different hardware inputs and outputs.
 
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