In one of the earlier course episodes, we covered most of setting up and using the audio
mixer in OBS Studio.
But there’s a new feature to it that deserves its own dedicated video - Audio Monitoring.
This allows you to, ideally when it works, hear audio sources back in your headphones
without it echoing on stream.
Again, when it works.
Let’s take a look.
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I’m EposVox, here to make tech easier and more fun, and welcome back to my OBS Studio
tutorial course.
I have many, many more videos on the software in the playlist linked in the description.
Check that before asking questions, and check the introduction video to learn how this course
works, if you get confused.
The “Audio Monitoring” feature in OBS Studio allows you to listen to the audio of
a source, even if it’s set to go to the stream only.
This can be used sort of in place of a proper physical audio mixer for hearing your own
microphone through your headphones, or monitoring game sound from a capture card, and so on.
To set this up, first go to “Settings”, click “Advanced” and then find the “Audio”
section.
Here you choose your audio monitoring device.
Don’t leave this on “Default”, choose your specific headphone output.
I recommend leaving “Disable Windows audio ducking” enabled, unless you know what you’re
doing.
Click “Apply” and “Okay.”
Click “Edit” and then “Advanced Audio Properties.”
This can also be chosen by the gear icon next to individual sources.
This opens up the “Advanced Audio Properties” dialog.
In the previous tutorials, I showed you how to use this to separate your audio tracks
and so on.
Here you also have the ability to monitor your audio sources to your headphones.
By default, all sources are set to “Monitor Off” for… obvious reasons.
You have two other options available to choose from: “Monitor Only (mute output)” and
“Monitor and Output.”
These are mostly self-explanatory.
“Monitor and Output” allows you to both loop an audio source to your headphones and
push it back to the stream.
This can be useful if you have an audio track going but for whatever reason don’t want
it directly being checked in the mixer and going straight to the stream.
I… honestly can’t imagine a reason for this other than addressing issues with the
other option.
We’ll come back to this in a second.
“Monitor Only (mute output)” aims to just loop the audio source to your headphones so
you, too, can hear it, without it echoing to your stream.
Typically this is for microphone loopback or hearing game audio from a capture card,
or the like.
But this doesn’t always work.
Before screwing more with OBS settings, right click your speaker icon in your Windows System
Tray and click “Recording Devices.”
Go through each of them - click “Properties” then click the “Listen” tab, and make
sure “Listen to this device” at the top is unchecked.
Having this checked will already loop the sound through your computer speakers as is.
You want this off.
If this doesn’t fix your problem with “Monitor Only,” I suggest heading to the forums.
There are issues with some USB drivers, or just random anomalies that could prevent it
from working properly.
If this is consistently a problem for you, then it might be a good idea to use “Monitor
and Output” and uncheck the audio source from going to your stream the normal way.
This way, the source is consistently pushed to your stream.
Although, if this causes an even bigger echo… put it back on “Monitor Only.”
It can be finicky, just play around with it.
It doesn’t replace a full, properly set up physical audio mixer, but this is a great
feature to reduce the need for one.
I hope this episode of my OBS Studio tutorial course has been helpful for you.
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Until next time, I’m EposVox, Happy Streaming!
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