Best Audio Levels For Obs

It seems crazy, merely information technology's true. You could have 4K quality streams with a bazillion FPS and visual effects flying all over the place. Still, the elementary truth is if your audio sounds like you lot're recording with a white potato, nobody is going to spotter!

Recent enquiry suggests that sound quality matters more to viewers than visual quality. Especially when it comes to gaming and stream interaction.

This puts a lot of importance on your audio setup and settings in Streamlabs OBS, which can be quite complicated to master at times. Don't sweat; nosotros're hither to help your audio stand out from the rest!

We have compiled 5 elementary steps to chief your audio settings in Streamlabs OBS:

Choose your mic carefully
Listen to yourself with sound monitoring
Set audio delay
Become your levels just correct
Ready your room for peachy audio

The All-time Streamlabs OBS Audio Tips & Settings

1. Choose Your Mic Carefully

We've all been there. You lot go to the electronics store, head to the gaming department, and take about a hundred headsets and microphones waiting for you. Some cost an arm and a leg, others the aforementioned equally a hot chocolate.

The question is, why is there such a huge difference betwixt pricing, and what does that hateful in terms of sound quality for you and your viewers?

As tempting as it is to become an all-in-one headset and microphone because they look pretty and functional, please don't. The chief consequence with these sets is that yous cannot individually control your mic input in some software.

Be sure to make 2 separate purchases; a microphone and a headset.

The headset naturally should exist comfortable and provide expert sound quality. We would recommend a set up with seven.1 surround audio compatibility like the Mad Dog GH705. Ultimately, your headset won't affect the viewer experience, and and then you don't demand to spend a fortune unless yous desire to!

To start with, a USB microphone should be excellent for your streaming needs. There are multiple ways in which a microphone collects sound, but most importantly, you should be trying to pick up a Cardioid USB Microphone for the best sound and connectivity.

Cardioid microphones are mics that only collect the sound made in front end of them (run across below). There are 3 other major microphone types that are not best suited to streaming, so stick to Cardioid if at all possible!

A couple of popular mics in this category right now would be the Bluish Yeti X or the Blue Yeti Nano. Neither of which breaks the bank or requires a split up processing unit.

Spending pennies on a microphone volition increase the amount of background noise and full general grain that your viewers hear.

Whereas spending a little more than ($60+) should provide you with a clean, pleasant-sounding recording!

TL;DR: DON'T buy a headset and microphone combo, Do buy your Mic and Headset separately!

two. Listen to Yourself With Audio Monitoring

This is one of our favorite tricks. Almost every day, people tell us how they are bored of having to record themselves to examination their microphone and sound settings in Streamlabs OBS. Hither'southward the skillful news; it's way easier than this to examination your mic in Streamlabs!

In the bottom correct-mitt corner of your Streamlabs app, yous should see the Mixer department. In the top right of the mixer, there is a pocket-size settings cog. Click it to enter your Mixer settings.

Once you're in, discover the line of the mixer, which is your microphone (it volition normally be named your microphone brand and model or mic/aux).

Under the 'Audio Monitoring' column, switch this setting to 'Monitor and Output,' and voila, you tin now hear your microphone through Streamlabs!

The audio yous can hear when you speak is your microphone audio and any filters that you may have activated (we'll come to audio filters in a separate article very soon!). It's a much quicker and less data-intensive fashion of checking out your mic quality.

Pre-warning: You will want to switch this setting back earlier yous go live! If yous don't change back, it won't affect your stream sound, but you volition be able to hear yourself the entire fourth dimension, which can be super distracting!

TL;DR: Apply the sound monitoring setting to mind to your mic quality in existent time!

three. Set Audio Delay in Streamlabs

Sometimes, there is an unavoidable delay that tin take place between yous speaking and Streamlabs receiving your audio.

Now apparently, if yous don't utilise a webcam, a 2ms difference won't make any difference to your stream at all. Still, if you have a video source that is slightly off with what y'all're actually saying, it tin can be channel ending!

The style to battle this delay is not actually fixing the effect from the mic, equally this isn't possible. It'southward to add together a small amount of delay to your webcam to match the mic lag (clever, right?!).

To practice this, simply correct click on your Webcam source, click filters and add 'Return Delay' as a filter.

Typically, the filibuster volition be anywhere between 20-100ms (if you have any at all!), so you will need to test in this range, with recordings, to find out exactly how much delay you need.

Fundamentally what you've only done is told your webcam to wait only a tiny bit for information technology to broadcast the aforementioned time every bit your microphone audio. It may look a bit strange to yous at first in SLOBS, just it will wait far amend to your viewers on stream!

Delays can too be caused by lag in Streamlabs that are unrelated to the mic or sound settings. If that is the instance, we recommend this commodity.

TL;DR: Fix sound filibuster acquired by the microphone only by adding a short delay to the webcam in the settings.

4. Get Your Levels Simply Correct

Getting the mix right between game audio and your mic is ane of the nearly important factors of good stream audio, and information technology's relatively unproblematic to set up upwards.

Whether your game sound is controlled by 'Desktop Sound' or an external device like an Elgato, you desire to brand sure the level never reaches the yellow office of the audio monitor. In fact, it should really only be showing 80% of the green section at its loudest. This can be easily edited past scrolling the white bar beneath the source (see beneath).

For your microphone, y'all want the level to always be in the yellowish, preferable mid-way, simply careful not to have it reaching the crimson monitor level, or your audio volition get-go to prune and sound terrible!

To test how the mix sounds, you tin monitor both inputs using the steps from tip #3; only this fourth dimension use it to both your microphone and your game sound sources!

Some other popular audio source that people similar to take in their streams is some background music. Keep this level at most 30-40% of the green. This volition ensure it doesn't overpower your vocals or the game audio.

TL;DR: Use your mixer sliders in SLOBS to keep your game audio in the green and mic audio in the yellow.

five. Prepare Your Room for Nifty Audio

Do yous have a closet nether the stairs complimentary? Funnily enough, this would actually be the perfect place to stream from in terms of audio quality!

When working with audio, information technology'southward important to cancel out as much background noise and reverb as possible.

Reverb is that roomy echo that you lot hear when talking in a large room without much furniture and tin be quite a problem in rooms with tall ceilings or undecorated walls.

To gainsay reverb, endeavor to stream in a small-scale, well-busy room and preferably close your curtains over any flat surfaces. Apartment surfaces like walls or windows will reflect your sound and can touch your live vocals.

Some other flat wall resolution is using audio-visual foam. You can catch meters of acoustic foam from online retailers for relatively cheap, but don't expect it to perform miracles in a big room! Try to place them in repeat hotspots like corners and walls in direct proximity to your figurer setup.

The biggest sources of troublesome groundwork racket for some streamers are fans … both PC and normal stand-upwardly fans. Our biggest advice would be, no affair HOW proficient your PC looks on your desk, to place information technology on a different surface away from your microphone.

Besides, if you accept a stand-up fan, you might need to indicate it into the room instead of straight at yous then that your mic doesn't collect that awful gusty noise!

TL;DR: Stream in a modest room and place the PC far away course the mic.

In Conclusion

The tips above will help you nail clean and pleasant sounding audio in your streams, just we can practice so much more inside the Streamlabs OBS audio settings. Stay tuned for more Streamlabs audio tips, including compression filters, equalization, and generic ways to stand out from other streamers online!