Very frustrated with OBS audio

J

Just Push record Studios

New Member
Hey everyone, so I've had issues with OBS for about a year now. I finally solved all the stuff how to properly export (Mkv instead of MP4) and all that and I'm still having issues.

We opened up a brand new podcast studio which is doing very well but the files we're sending out renters are so off that I'm having to manually update the audio on every single clip. It's a joke.

The first issue is that we'll have a 3-mic podcast and the files will all be off from each other which causes a huge echo. It's very frustrating to try to line the clips up. I just spent about an hour trying to fix this one video and it's still not perfect.

The second issue is the audio sync to video. Sometimes we'll have an hour-long podcast with 2 mics and it's perfect. No issues. Send to the guest and call it a day. And then out of nowhere the audio will be completely off and I'll have to download + update the episode. And thennnnn we'll have another episode which is 100% perfect but 30 minutes in it will randomly be .5 seconds off and ruin the episode.

Does anyone have solutions for the audio issue. We've done everything and nothing is help.
 
A

AaronD

Active Member
What are your sources?

When I first built the streaming rig at my church, I used 4 cheap HDMI -> USB captures, not knowing that they were garbage. The picture was...okay. Good enough to learn with. But the latency from each capture was independently random. So they were always out of sync with *each other* by different amounts every time the rig turned on, not to mention the separate audio source.

And of course the audio sync was random too, not because there was anything wrong with *that* side of things, but because the *picture* was all over the place. A solid signal with a wacky reference is the same as a wacky signal.

I replaced the 4 cheap USB captures with a 4-input PCIe card, and a bunch of problems cleared right up! Better picture, lower latency all around, and what latency there still is, is constant! No more wandering! Adjust the sync delay for the new video latency, and it's rock-solid now. Same audio gear that I started with.
 
L

Lawrence_SoCal

Active Member
Part of the desync could be as Aaron indicated - the camera.
But the audio getting out of sync with each other? I'd start with physical path. Hopefully you aren't mixing network (Dante, WiFi, NDI, whatever/etc), vs USB vs analog (all different paths)
If those are USB Mics... well, yea, easy to see have varying latency can come into play, depending on exact chipsets involved and OS config (consumer vs professional PCs tend to have different USB Root Hubs and other associated parts... so such variances on consumer motherboards... not completely out of the range of reasonable).
Then there is basic OS hygiene, attention to background processes, etc. In my experience, what most people refer to as random, rarely is actually random. In those case, more often than not, the issue is the user isn't observing the cause-and-effect. Or expecting too much from the equipment they are using, and not doing an real-time hardware resource utilization monitoring (and leaving adequate buffer 'space').

You could be well aware of all of the above... but that wasn't clear form first post, so when guessing/assuming, I intentionally go more basic, to be on the safe side (you can always ignore what you already know). Your audio sources are all using the same sampling rate, right?

If you read Aaron's other posts, you'll come across a re-occurring recommendation to do audio mixing outside of OBS, and the Windows Audio sub-system.
 
J

Just Push record Studios

New Member
AaronD said:
What are your sources?

When I first built the streaming rig at my church, I used 4 cheap HDMI -> USB captures, not knowing that they were garbage. The picture was...okay. Good enough to learn with. But the latency from each capture was independently random. So they were always out of sync with *each other* by different amounts every time the rig turned on, not to mention the separate audio source.

And of course the audio sync was random too, not because there was anything wrong with *that* side of things, but because the *picture* was all over the place. A solid signal with a wacky reference is the same as a wacky signal.

I replaced the 4 cheap USB captures with a 4-input PCIe card, and a bunch of problems cleared right up! Better picture, lower latency all around, and what latency there still is, is constant! No more wandering! Adjust the sync delay for the new video latency, and it's rock-solid now. Same audio gear that I started with.
Click to expand...
So I didn't even consider that the video was off and I just looked at the video from the left camera and it's like 1/10th of a second off from the dual-shot camera we have in the middle. I'll try to figure out how to update that. That makes SO MUCH SENSE too since the guest that sits on the right (left camera) always seems to be off.

I'll look into buying this. Is it this? https://www.sharbor.com/4-channel-hdmi-pcie-x4-capture-card.html
 
J

Just Push record Studios

New Member
Lawrence_SoCal said:
Part of the desync could be as Aaron indicated - the camera.
But the audio getting out of sync with each other? I'd start with physical path. Hopefully you aren't mixing network (Dante, WiFi, NDI, whatever/etc), vs USB vs analog (all different paths)
If those are USB Mics... well, yea, easy to see have varying latency can come into play, depending on exact chipsets involved and OS config (consumer vs professional PCs tend to have different USB Root Hubs and other associated parts... so such variances on consumer motherboards... not completely out of the range of reasonable).
Then there is basic OS hygiene, attention to background processes, etc. In my experience, what most people refer to as random, rarely is actually random. In those case, more often than not, the issue is the user isn't observing the cause-and-effect. Or expecting too much from the equipment they are using, and not doing an real-time hardware resource utilization monitoring (and leaving adequate buffer 'space').

You could be well aware of all of the above... but that wasn't clear form first post, so when guessing/assuming, I intentionally go more basic, to be on the safe side (you can always ignore what you already know). Your audio sources are all using the same sampling rate, right?

If you read Aaron's other posts, you'll come across a re-occurring recommendation to do audio mixing outside of OBS, and the Windows Audio sub-system.
Click to expand...
Yes I do believe that when we have 3 cameras/2 mics it makes 100% sense and I just checked the video and it's definitely off.

And yes all audio sources are using the exact same process. Still trying to figure out what the issue is here.

Appreciate the responses!
 
L

Lawrence_SoCal

Active Member
Just Push record Studios said:
Yes I do believe that when we have 3 cameras/2 mics it makes 100% sense and I just checked the video and it's definitely off.
And yes all audio sources are using the exact same process. Still trying to figure out what the issue is here.
Click to expand...
Are all the cameras and the mics USB? if yes, see this forum for USB Root Hub overload/troubleshooting discussions
 
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