Good day people! Cas here, and as promised today, I’ll share how I record gameplay
audio on the Oculus Quest for those who are looking to record or live stream from their
PC.
Sorry, this is a little later than expected.
I hope you forgive me.
But I get this question a lot, so it’ll be nice to have a video to link to from now
on.
Now, let's get started, but first, consider subscribing if you like to see more VR videos
like this one!
😉
And now, join me beyond reality.
So before we get started, let me first explain who this video is for because not everyone
needs to do this!
If you want to make a regular video and do not want to live stream, it’s actually much
easier just to use the integrated recording feature of the Quest, which you can find under
the “Sharing” tab in the menu inside the Quest.
Doing it this way gets you a nicely cropped video with gameplay audio that looks decent.
I recommend just doing that if you are making regular videos.
It’s just much easier as you don’t need any third-party tools to record the gameplay.
However, if you want to live stream, then you do need a different way because Oculus
doesn’t allow you to live stream on other platforms except for Facebook.
So if you only want to live stream on Facebook, then you -can- use the integrated live stream
feature.
But if you want to live stream on other platforms like Twitch or YouTube as we do, then you
do need a way to get real-time video and audio onto your streaming PC.
You can do this using Android Debug Bridge; short, this is called adb.
This is a command-line tool that lets you do stuff with Android devices like the Oculus
Quest.
This can get pretty tech-savvy, so thankfully, SideQuest makes this a lot easier.
SideQuest uses adb too, but the SideQuest devs built a user interface around it so you
can execute adb commands with only a press of a button or multiple buttons.
If you don’t know how to use SideQuest to live stream, I recommend watching our video
on it first, which I will link in the description.
So to get started, you have to connect your Quest to your PC with a cable.
Then launch SideQuest, I have it launched already right here.
And you gotta wait until it connects at the top left here, once it turns green, you know
it is connected.
And if you want to do this wirelessly, which I’m going to do now.
You have to press this button “Enable Wireless Mode”.
Click connect and wait until it connects again.
If you see this arrow right here, then you know it is connected wirelessly as well.
You can remove the cable and you can now start the streamer right here.
Here we go!
What you see now, is gameplay directly from my Oculus Quest.
Now, here’s the thing.
When capturing gameplay with adb and thus this method with SideQuest, then gameplay
audio does -not- come with it, unfortunately.
So what I do to capture game audio is this.
There are multiple ways, but this is my favorite way.
I use a wireless microphone setup that consists of an audio receiver and an audio transmitter.
I have this one, which I’ll link in the description below, but anything else that
has both a receiver and transmitter should work, like the more known Rode Wireless Go
for example.
These devices are usually used to record voice with a lavalier microphone, but instead of
voice, we capture the gameplay audio from the Quest.
Both the Rode version and the one I have are handy because they are small and they come
with a secure clip that you can easily attach on the Quest’s strap.
So if you turn these on, you’ll most likely see which is the transmitter and which is
the receiver.
If you’re not sure, read the manual, it’ll usually explain what is what.
I then connect the transmitter to the Quest.
The transmitter is the one you attach a lav mic on.
But instead of the lav mic, I connect a short aux cable into the transmitter, and the other
end goes into one of the Quest’s audio jacks.
In case you haven’t noticed yet, your Quest has two audio jacks, and it doesn’t matter
which one you use.
Now get the receiver and another aux cable.
Plug the cable in the receiver’s recording output.
It doesn’t work in the headphone output so be aware that.
I then plug the other end of the aux cable in a USB audio adapter, which I put into my
PC.
If I make some sound in my Quest now, you can see that there is audio sent to my PC.
If you don’t see anything moving, sometimes turning the aux cable a little can help.
Most of the time, these devices also have volume buttons, you can try turning that up
as well.
Now to capture this, I use Streamlabs OBS, and I use this source which is called “Audio
Input Capture”.
And here, I select my USB audio receiver, which is this one and I click done here.
And if you see it moving here, then you know that it’s capturing sound.
Then I also use a “Window Capture” source, which is this one, to select the SideQuest
stream.
I have it off right now, but if I turn it on then you see that it is capturing my gameplay
together with the sound.
This method will get you a lot of noise, though, so on my “Audio Input Capture”, I also
add a filter called “Noise Suppression” filter and I put it on like minus 30.
You can play around with this to deal with that noise.
This is what we do for all our Oculus Quest live streams.
It’s great as it’s real-time, and you can do this wirelessly.
If you’re interested in what that sounds like, you can check out one of our previous
Quest live streams; I’ll put a link in the description.
Be aware that some USB audio adapters will not work, I tried multiple, and I only found
one that works to my satisfaction.
For some reason, some audio adapters will generate more noise and some less.
Also, by the way, you don’t actually need a USB audio adapter, you can also put the
aux cable directly into the microphone input of your PC and record that input by mirroring
the sound to a speaker.
So you can mirror the sound by going to the sound settings in Windows by right-clicking
this icon right here.
Then go to “Speaker setup”, “Advanced Setup” and you will get the good old configuration
screen.
Go to the recording tab here, find your microphone input.
Which is for me, this one.
Might be different from you.
Then right-click it, click on properties, go to the “Listen”, and then click on
“Listen to this device” and choose a speaker.
For example, I’m just choosing my monitor speaker.
Apply.
Click okay.
Then after this, you can record this speaker by selecting it in any of the recording software
that you use.
For example, in Streamlabs Obs.
I just use an audio output capture and I select my speaker here and I start recording it.
But I find that this method causes a lot more background noise, so that’s why I got a
USB audio adapter.
When you use this method, the player doesn’t have sound anymore.
But thankfully, the Quest has another audio jack as I mentioned before on the other side.
I plug in a headphone here so that I can also get gameplay audio as the player.
And if you want to record your voice too, you’ll need an extra microphone.
I use a wireless ModMic for this that I put on my headphones.
So yeah, your headset won’t look pretty, but I feel like this is the best setup that
you can get as it’s most reliable and sounds reasonable enough.
Plus, I still have the freedom to move like a crazy person 😉
While you’re watching this video, leave me a like if this method is going to help
you out!
So that is the method that we have been using and will continue to use.
But there are other options, which I’ll briefly go over now.
Option 1) You can use a Bluetooth receiver & transmitter like this one instead.
Same kind of setup, except with Bluetooth.
But I find Bluetooth not that reliable, it can cause lag.
So I returned this.
You can probably only get a Bluetooth receiver-only and use the new Bluetooth function in the
Quest to transmit audio, but I haven’t tried this out myself.
Option 2) Get a very long aux cable and put that in the USB audio adapter, this is what
we were using at the beginning.
But this method means you are not wireless, which is not my preferable way to show off
the Quest.
Option 3) You can also get a shorter aux cable and put it in an audio recording device like
a Zoom H1 to record gameplay audio, but because this isn’t real-time to a PC, you can’t
use this to live stream, instead this is just for regular videos.
So I hope this was helpful.
If you have more questions, then put them down below in the comments, and I’ll try
to answer as many as possible.
And in case you are going to use this method, send me a link, I’d love to see.
Thanks for watching once again, I hope to see you in the next video.
Or maybe you can watch more videos that are on the screen right here.
And a special thanks go to our Patrons and Right-Hand, BaxornVR.
Support him supporting us by checking out his YouTube channel.
As always, VR on!