Why are audio recordings are clipping? (below 0dB!)

[Barbarella]

@Jim / Developers

First of all, OBS is just awesome. But there is one single thing that have to be improved: Audio Input handling and we need a "Master audio meter" asap, so we can see the final mix levels that goes out. I'm a professional voice-artist and also a sound engineer being in the business for over 20 years now. My studio includes a SSL Mixing Console, Neumann U87 microphone, Avalon Compressors and many synthesizers like MOOG, you name it. I'm telling you this so that you know I'm not an amateur. I can help you because I have state-of-the-art gear and tools. Please take a look at this screen: https://imgur.com/a/EIjdi
What you see are two recordings. Directly with my DAW and the second is recorded via OBS. They have the exact same volume levels and still 1dB headroom. The DAW recording sounds perfect without any clipping. The recording with OBS have clippings and this must be fixed ASAP. How can OBS create clippings when the audio meters are way unter 0dB as you can see in the screenshot? I did NOT use a filter to raise the volume by the way. Position was default at 0dB. The problem is not at my end, I've talked with other OBS users and they also got clippings when they're reaching the "red zone". This is nonsense, there is no need to make the areas red (AND CLIP!) because the signal is WAY under 0dB. In my entire life working with so many tools I've never encountered such thing that a signal below 0dB get clippings. I want to work with studio levels and not being forced to record audio at -10 or-20 dB. I have to normalize them which is stupid. So please, let the audio input come in untouched until it really goes over 0dB. Keep up the great work! Thanks and cheers.

 

[Barbarella]

I've made another test and the input level handling is unacceptable. I have to record or stream with -10dB audio levels to have a 100% clear signal. Anything above that will result in clippings which you can hear on very good speakers. Please tell me that this is going to fixed soon.

 

[Barbarella]

Update: I've deinstalled everything (OBS, Elgato) installed again and I think the following guide fixed the issue now: https://obsproject.com/forum/resources/obs-studio-enable-coreaudio-aac-encoder-windows.220/
Recordings now just perfect and how they should be. *takingPrayingPosition

 

[kurufu]

Would you mind providing a lossless sample recording of audio for which this issue occurs in the default encoder? (With your DAW or preferably with custom ffmpeg output from under the Settings -> Output -> Advanced ->Recording -> Custom FFmpeg output settings in obs, using a lossless codec like flac).

 

[axd]

I think this is similar to this idea: output volume visualization · OBS Studio Ideas and Suggestions

 

[JimDaneker]

@Jim / Developers

First of all, OBS is just awesome. But there is one single thing that have to be improved: Audio Input handling and we need a "Master audio meter" asap, so we can see the final mix levels that goes out. I'm a professional voice-artist and also a sound engineer being in the business for over 20 years now. My studio includes a SSL Mixing Console, Neumann U87 microphone, Avalon Compressors and many synthesizers like MOOG, you name it. I'm telling you this so that you know I'm not an amateur. I can help you because I have state-of-the-art gear and tools. Please take a look at this screen: https://imgur.com/a/EIjdi
What you see are two recordings. Directly with my DAW and the second is recorded via OBS. They have the exact same volume levels and still 1dB headroom. The DAW recording sounds perfect without any clipping. The recording with OBS have clippings and this must be fixed ASAP. How can OBS create clippings when the audio meters are way unter 0dB as you can see in the screenshot? I did NOT use a filter to raise the volume by the way. Position was default at 0dB. The problem is not at my end, I've talked with other OBS users and they also got clippings when they're reaching the "red zone". This is nonsense, there is no need to make the areas red (AND CLIP!) because the signal is WAY under 0dB. In my entire life working with so many tools I've never encountered such thing that a signal below 0dB get clippings. I want to work with studio levels and not being forced to record audio at -10 or-20 dB. I have to normalize them which is stupid. So please, let the audio input come in untouched until it really goes over 0dB. Keep up the great work! Thanks and cheers.

Agreed - I'm new to OBS but I'm in the exact same boat: I own a high-end film scoring studio and have been doing high quality live streams. Everything's going great and audio is stellar coming from Logic, with zero clipping. But OBS output is clipping on broadcast and recorded video. I'm not sure what the issue is, but it's incredibly annoying as my whole thing is about sound!

 

[kurufu]

Perhaps you could provide a sample then since the OP did not.

 

[JBL]

Same issue here. Streaming to Zoom has no issues. Streaming from OBS to Zoom clips all audio whether it is vocal, video, or played music. Had to stop using OBS for now.

 

[LoonyGeekFun]

I had a very similar problem and spent hours installing software reading forum posts to see why it was doing it

It turns out that I had another source being recorded to the same track and I didn't even realise, now it's unchecked, everything was normal again!

If you're experiencing the same problem make sure that the only track that is ticked for your microphone is the microphone otherwise it will try to layer the audio of the other track on top of your microphone and make it start peaking

 

[bwbecker]

I don't know if this was the only issue, but I checked the advanced audio settings as recommended by LoonyGeekFun on 2020-10-24 and that solved it for me.

I'm positive I have never fiddled with those settings. I also observe that sometimes OBS clips for me and the majority of the time it does not. There has been at least once where simply quitting and relaunching OBS solved the problem.

I also observe that OBS frequently (> 50%) of the time forgets which audio input and which video input I'm using. I have to wonder whether all of this is related to a bug in reading config/preference files.

 

[567865436]

Are you recording audio from multiple sources simultaneously in the red zone, or is it one source at a time? Multiple signals close to 0db (the red zone) results in a signal over 0db.

 

[Dildano]

I teach audio production. OBS, regardless of codec, or any of the settings described here on this thread or elsewhere, boosts it's input by 6dB. This is with no filters, and literally days of trying everything and searching all forums. Testing with mics is a terrible standard. Here is a 0dB sine wave. The top track is at 0dB, and it is hard clipping the sine. The bottom track is at -6dB. We can see that on the input side of OBS it is taking whatever it gets and boosting by 6dB, as the -6dB drop results in a pure sine.

 

[bro305]

AH!!! This drove me nuts! but I found the issue with my audio! Here's my setup and the steps/checks I took to get to my solution.

Audio routing/setup
Game PC - audio out to mixer
Mixer - audio in from the gamepc and mic
Stream PC - audio in from the mixer

So on my stream PC I had to add a video capture device for the video and a separate audio capture device for the audio jack input (mixer audio). Audio was coming clean out of my mixer, then I took a listen on my line in from the sound settings and that was clean sounding. So then I thought maybe its the stream output settings (it wasn't). Checked the recording audio which I was locally saving and that wasn't clean either.

Solution: I left the listen to this device box checked on the line in properties, and made the sole audio source in my obs as the same output device. In the obs audio properties make sure your audio device selected matches the playback through device you selected in your settings.

probably worth noting - I have some audio from my stream pc that I want to broadcast (its mostly complimentary sounders and whatnot) so I added another audio output source for the real PC audio output

 

[ankish]

@Jim / Developers

First of all, OBS is just awesome. But there is one single thing that have to be improved: Audio Input handling and we need a "Master audio meter" asap, so we can see the final mix levels that goes out. I'm a professional voice-artist and also a sound engineer being in the business for over 20 years now. My studio includes a SSL Mixing Console, Neumann U87 microphone, Avalon Compressors and many synthesizers like MOOG, you name it. I'm telling you this so that you know I'm not an amateur. I can help you because I have state-of-the-art gear and tools. Please take a look at this screen: https://imgur.com/a/EIjdi
What you see are two recordings. Directly with my DAW and the second is recorded via OBS. They have the exact same volume levels and still 1dB headroom. The DAW recording sounds perfect without any clipping. The recording with OBS have clippings and this must be fixed ASAP. How can OBS create clippings when the audio meters are way unter 0dB as you can see in the screenshot? I did NOT use a filter to raise the volume by the way. Position was default at 0dB. The problem is not at my end, I've talked with other OBS users and they also got clippings when they're reaching the "red zone". This is nonsense, there is no need to make the areas red (AND CLIP!) because the signal is WAY under 0dB. In my entire life working with so many tools I've never encountered such thing that a signal below 0dB get clippings. I want to work with studio levels and not being forced to record audio at -10 or-20 dB. I have to normalize them which is stupid. So please, let the audio input come in untouched until it really goes over 0dB. Keep up the great work! Thanks and cheers.

Thanks for bringing this up. I am facing the same problem with audio.

 

[agentslimepunk]

If anyone is still having this issue, there's an easy workaround. Get either GClip or Clipmax (both are free VST plugins), clip the output (this is probably automatic once you have it loaded up) and then drop your main out to -.5 dB. No more red, and if you're still hearing any junk you can simply lower your input into the clipper until it's inaudible.

This is on the output's filter menu > VST2x plugin