When does audio starts to distort in OBS?

M

MetalFerret

New Member
I've heard from an insane amount of YouTubers, to keep the audio out of the red zone in audio capture in OBS. The red zone starts at about -8 db. That's a long way to 0 db or digital ceiling. Past that it's when all digital gear distorts or clips. I'm using cheap speakers, so I can't tell if as they say "starts to distort" or the signal gets hot when in the red zone. Is there any truth in these claims or OBS just distorts past 0 db?
 
I've wondered the same thing. The problem with running it at -8 is that viewers complain it's too quiet on their end when I am broadcasting a DJ show. So I have added a limiter effect to each artists audio channel and set it to -1 db. I then bring the gain up to be just tickling the limiter and scan through the whole set looking for loud sections that might cause distortion (easier if the pre-production of the audio is fairly evenly normalized with a limiter already used to render the mix before putting it into audio). It really comes down to your ears though. So far I do not detect any distortion when running OBS at these levels. One possible caveat however: if you are running audio at 0db, you may run into distorting if the recording is rendered as I have seen it stated on the internet quite often that when audio is converted from wav to mp3, due to the encoding process. I myself have not run into this issue as I always tend to play things safe and keep my levels a little lower to avoid issues.
 
Oh and if your source audio is too low even with the volume for that channel turned all the way up in OBS, you can also add a gain effect to that audio channel. Jus tbe sure to have your gain and limiter effects for that channel in the right order or your limiter won't be functioning properly.
 
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