Hi everyone, Kevin here. Today I want to show you how you can record multiple USB microphones
all at the same time and as separate tracks. This works on Windows, Mac and also Linux,
and best of all, this is completely free. This is ideal for things like podcasts where you want
to give everyone their own microphone. That way you get the best possible sound quality.
Let's check this out. First, we need to download a free tool called OBS Studio. You can click on
the link right up above or also down below in the description. On the OBS website,
choose your operating system and then download it and install it. OBS Studio is primarily a screen
recorder and I use it to record my screen for many of my different videos that you'll find on this
channel. But it also happens to have a fantastic audio mixer, and that's what we're going to use
today. Once you finish installing OBS studio, you'll land in an interface that looks like this.
In the bottom right-hand corner, let's click on this option that says settings. Within settings,
over on the left-hand side, let's click on the option that says output, and right at the top,
you have a drop down for output mode. Let's click on this and then switch it to advanced.
Within advanced, let's click on the tab that says recording, and right at the top here,
you can define where you want to place your recording. Here I'll change the directory to
music. Underneath that, you can select the recording format. Here I'll click
on this drop down and I'll switch it to MP4. I found that this is a good format to work with.
Underneath that, you can also select how many audio tracks you want to record. Now
I have two microphones today that I want to record with, so here I'll select two,
but you can record with up to six individual mics that will all go to their own tracks. Next, let's
go up to the tab titled audio, and right here, you can configure the audio bit rate for each one of
your tracks. Here when I click on this list, you have all sorts of different options. In general,
the higher the number you choose, the better the audio quality, but keep in mind, you do
have diminishing returns and you might not even hear the difference if you go too high. For now,
I'll simply stick with the default of 160. Here you can modify the bit rate for all six
of your different tracks. Over on the left-hand side, let's now click into the audio category.
Within audio at the very top, here you can define what the sample rate is, and here too, the higher
the number the better, but you only have two options, so I'll leave it set to the higher value.
You could also decide how many channels you want to record. Do you want to record mono, stereo,
and you have some other options as well. I'll leave it set to stereo. Down below is where we add
all of our different microphones. At the very top, you can decide if you want to record your computer
sound as well. So, let's say that maybe you're on a Zoom call or a Teams call, and you want to make
sure you also record that audio. You can select the speaker that that sound goes through and then
that will show up as another audio source. I'll leave this disabled for now. Down below, we see
all of the different microphones, and currently they're all disabled, but here I'll click on this,
and here's where I can select my two different microphones. Here I'll select microphone #1 and
then I'll click on this drop down and here I'll select microphone #2. All together you can add
up to six different audio sources. Down below, you have some additional settings that you can
configure, but I'm going to leave those all as is. Down in the bottom right-hand corner, I'll click
on apply and then click on OK. Back in the main interface, here I now see my two microphones in
the audio mixer, and it looks like they're working properly. Now one of them is just called mic and
the other is mic 2. To make it easier to identify which microphone is which, here I can click on the
three dots or the ellipsis and right here I have the option to rename this microphone. I'll click
on this. Here I'll call this first mic Kevin's Mic. Then I'll click on OK and here I can do the
same with the second microphone. I'll click on the three dots, go up to rename, and here I'll
give this a name. This will be Cookie Monster’s mic. Here I'll click on OK. Now I can very quickly
identify whose microphone is who's. Within the audio mixer, I also have other controls.
Here I could adjust the volume of each individual microphone. Here I could also mute, or I could
unmute specific mics. If we click on the three-dot menu or the ellipsis, here I'll click on filters.
This opens up the audio filters dialog, and in the bottom left-hand corner, you can click on
this plus icon and here you can apply all sorts of different audio filters. There's a compressor,
an expander, you can adjust the gain, and there are many other options to adjust the way your
sound sounds. I'm not going to apply any, I'll just leave it set to the default and then click on
close. We now need to configure one more setting before we're ready to record audio in OBS. Within
the audio mixer, let's click on these settings gear. This opens up advanced audio properties
and I'm using mono microphones, so right here I want to make sure I check this box under mono
for both of my microphones. Over to the right-hand side, I see this section called tracks and all of
these checkboxes are checked. What this means is that the audio from here Cookie Monster’s mic will
be recorded to all six tracks and the same with Kevin's mic. That means I'll get the same audio
on every single track from both microphones, and that's not what I want. I just want Kevin's mic on
track one, so here I'll uncheck all of these other boxes. Here with Cookie Monster’s mic,
I just want it on track two, so I'll uncheck one and then uncheck three through six.
Now that we're all done with this, let's click on close. We've now configured all of the settings
and we're now ready to start recording our audio, but I do want to call out that OBS Studio can do
so much. Right over here there's a category called sources, and when you click on this plus icon,
you can add all sorts of other sources. Here I could record my computer screen. You could
record a game. Down here you could record a video camera. So, let's say you want to
include additional content alongside your audio, you have those options. You probably noticed that
OBS Studio is capable of doing so much. If you're interested in learning more about what some of
those capabilities are, feel free to check out the video right up above. We're now ready to record,
so over on the right-hand side, let's click on this button that says start recording. Here I
get a message telling me that I haven't added any video sources. That's fine. I just want to
record audio, so here I'll click on yes. This is microphone one and this is microphone two.
I'm now all done with my recording, so I'll click on stop recording. Now that I'm all done with my
recording, up in the top left-hand corner, you can click on the file menu and then select show
recordings. This opens up File Explorer and here I see my MP4 file with both audio tracks. Now that
we've recorded the audio and all of the separate tracks, you probably want to edit it and you can
use any audio editing program to do that, but one that I recommend is called Audacity. It's free and
it's also open source. You can click on the link right up above or down below in the description.
Once you land on the Audacity homepage, you can click right here to download Audacity and this
works on Windows, Mac and also Linux. Once you finish installing Audacity, you'll see
an interface that looks like this. To get your MP4 file into Audacity, simply select the file
and here you can drag and drop it into Audacity. Here you see a prompt asking you what tracks you
want to bring into Audacity. Now I want to bring both tracks in, so here I'll select this one,
press control and select the second one and then click on OK and it has now imported
both of my tracks into Audacity. If you got an error message when you dragged and dropped the
MP4 file into Audacity, it may be because you need to get a library that supports opening MP4
files. Up in the top left-hand corner, click on the edit menu, and then go down to preferences.
Over on the left-hand side, click into the libraries category and you need to make sure you
have the FFmpeg library. You can click on this to download it, and once you download and install it,
you can click on locate and then you'll be able to open MP4 files in Audacity. I already have it,
so I'll click on OK. Audacity is such a powerful audio editor, and it has so many
different capabilities. Let's say maybe I just want to listen to my first microphone. Here I
can click on solo and then I can click on play up above. This is microphone one. I'll click on
stop. Here I'll turn off solo, and here too, I could also just listen to my second microphone.
Over here, I could adjust the levels or the gain for each individual microphone. Right up above,
I could apply different effects to each individual track, and let's say that maybe one microphone
picked up sound that I don't want to include. Here I can highlight that section and here I
can insert silence, or I could press CTRL + L and that inserts silence. As we've been walking
through this, you probably noticed that Audacity has so many different capabilities. Here too,
if you want to learn about them and how you could take full advantage of Audacity,
be sure to check out the video right up above. All right, if you were able to successfully
record multiple USB microphones all at the same time, please give this video a thumbs up. To
watch more videos like this one, please consider subscribing, and I'll see you in the next video.