Zoom and Live Performance Question

[dantvman]

Hi all
I have a bit of a unique situation. I teach theatre and we are trying to live stream an upcoming performance. All but three of the students will be in person, while three of them will be on zoom. The three students on zoom are performing together. I was hoping to use OBS to both record and live stream the performance but I've hit a bit of a snag. Hope I can explain what I'm trying to do

Normally during class, I project the students on Zoom onto the backdrop of the theater, and run the audio through the house speakers, which works great. I want to be able to do the zoom students' scene on the live stream, while also being able to watch the zoom in the theater, but I'm having issues with the audio. The cleanest audio for the stream would be outputting zoom to source-nexus, but then I cannot hear the zoom in the theater. Is there a way to output zoom's audio so I can have it go cleanly to the live stream, and be able to be heard in person, but then not have a feedback loop?

Thanks

 

[ShadowBark]

Howdy! I know exactly what situation you're in. I do live streaming for performances at school theaters as well. I haven't used OBS for this before, but there are three programs that immediately come to mind that are worth checking out (all three of them are free). One of them is NDI's (AKA Newtek) tools for Mac. They have all sorts of tools for OBS Studio that allow you to do specific actions (such as the one you are describing). There's a lot of options, so I suggest taking a look at what they have to offer. I know the NDI tools works the other way around (going from OBS Mic/Audio/Video inputs being outputted through zoom) so I'm sure there is probably a way to make it go the other way around.

The other one is a program called VB-Cable Virtual Audio Device. I have no personal experience with this program, but I have heard a lot of good things about it. I believe is essentially exactly what the title says it is. It's a "virtual audio cable" allowing you to "connect" audio without actually having to physically connect it. Meaning you could still route sound through your class speakers. Again, never used this program, so I am only going off of what other people have told me.

Lastly is a program called Background Music for Mac (this only works if you are using a Mac). This is by far the simplest and my most recommend one to check out if you are on MacOS. This program allows you to control the volume of specific programs within MacOS (like the native volume mixer feature on Windows). However what I learned was that it can also be used as a input into OBS. This allows you to select whatever your output device is (in your case, your class speakers) and also have that sound be directed into OBS through software. I can confirm this works on MacOS, but the program is not available for Windows.

I really hope this helped! I know how frustrating it can be teaching hybrid. You are doing a great job, and clearly care about your students and program for going through all this work to make it as best as possible! Keep it up!