WARNING: Newbie Inquiry - Please Reply with Patience & Compassion

[Rick D.]

Hi OBS Peeps, just joined and YES, I am very new to OBS, but I believe I am making the most of this amazing software.
Ok, let's get to the question with a little background...
- First off, I am a semi-terrible musician that is desperately trying to find ways to make my lifelong struggle with music creation a more satisfying experience.
- Second, I believe I have all the gear I need to make this work; I am just missing a bit of the 'know how' that all you fine OBS folks possess.
Question: I can set up my captures for all of my MIC's, CAM's and audio sound processing hardware. BUT, I cannot seem to get my sound software to record !!!! To be a little clearer, I would like to record my guitar running through my audio interface into my windows 11 PC using Guitar Rig 6. I can hear the processed signal from my amplified speakers, but OBS only records the dry (unprocessed) sound of my guitar. The same holds true if I were to use my Native Instruments suite of virtual standalone instruments where no sound is recorded but sound is definitely being produced. Yes, I can record the sound produced from the system speakers through the mics but I would rather record direct-in to eliminate background noises and such. So, who here knows the golden fix to this illusive problem ????
I would appreciate any helpful advice and many thanks in advance!

 

[Lawrence_SoCal]

So... NOT going to be easy to address, as you are dealing with well-documented limitations of the Windows (Operating System) audio sub-system.
Some people use ASIO to bypass Windows audio.
But beware, form here on in, it will get technical, and I'm not aware of an easy way to address your issue without getting into the details (no easy button)

For example, your virtual instruments - what EXACTLY as they outputting to? the windows audio system (which OBS Studio can pick up by default) OR the physical interface (ex, speakers) which OBS Studio may not be able to capture. it depends.
I do NOT know Guitar Rig 6, but if like other audio software (DAW; Digital Audio Workstation), there are kind of videos and blog articles about getting DAW output into OBS Studio. My understanding, is that due to the design of the Windows audio sub-system, many 'professional' audio software packages will NOT output to Windows Audio (due to latency, sync, jitter, etc issues, as well as inconsistency of those)

So, your challenge is to make sure you understand, at a technical level, EXACTLY how your audio is being routed. One you figure that out (unique to your system, its drivers, installed audio related software, etc), the fix may be obvious... or you may need to set up a loopback adapter (physical or virtual)... ie, your audio software (possibly Guitar Rig, sounds like definitely Native Instruments) requires audio output to a 'real' interface, and your challenge is routing that back to OBS Studio (restream VST plugin, vb-banana, and more are possibilities), as are physical audio interfaces
Or, in my case, my DAW has a Pro version that can output to Windows Audio (a 'listen bus'), but I've avoided due to cost ... ymmv