Scenario: You’re setting up for a JGC Open Mic, and using OBS (and potentially a DAW). Sound is getting to OBS but not making it to Zoom! What could it be?
It was probably working fine before… and now it’s not! Like the magical PC gremlins stepped in and decided to cause chaos with your OM setup. It feels like you haven’t changed a thing…
if you don’t follow those acronyms, this post is probably not for you
The problem: OBS’s buggy audio loop detection
OBS has a quirk that I’ve run into, it seems undocumented but I found references to it on the OBS forum. It tries to prevent an audio loop by silencing its monitoring output in certain situations, and seems to happen to people that use OBS the way we do for livestreaming. I think OBS’s audio loop detection is buggy and is triggering. I haven’t spent time investigating all scenarios… however, this is how I have solved it, and it consistently works for me now. I think it will fix it for you if it happens again… hopefully it does.
What causes it? OBS thinks the microphone device set for your DAW input/reastream device is causing an audio loop. So we need to make sure it’s not.
How to fix
Basically (generic instructions same applies to PC/Mac). Assuming you’ve already followed Toby’s guide!:
Set computer’s operating system audio output to the speakers you’re going to use in the zoom meeting
In OBS set your monitoring device to blackhole / vb audio virtual cable (depending on which one you’re using)
In OBS, your reastream source always has a device associated with it. Ensure it’s a microphone that is a different device than you’re using for Zoom (i.e. not your focusrite). Make sure it is definitely not blackhole / vb audio cable. This is the critical bit! This is what causes the muting. But it’s important to set everything else as well, because if you - for example, change your PC audio output to something else, it can trigger the muting.
Mute that microphone in your operating system, not in OBS. Otherwise the sound will get mixed when you perform (reastream & the actual mic will get blended, yuck).
Quit OBS and open it again. OBS needs that done to it to unmute, if it thinks it detects a loop and mutes the monitoring output. A reboot is not required, just quit and re-open.
Tada, working audio. Assuming everything else is OK!
@jkahn thanks for this article - it might be the issue that’s keeping my OBS sound from getting out to Streamyard/Zoom but I can’t tell how to do the last step you mention:
In OBS, your reastream source always has a device associated with it. Ensure it’s a microphone that is a different device than you’re using for Zoom (i.e. not your focusrite). Make sure it is definitely not blackhole / vb audio cable. This is the critical bit! This is what causes the muting. But it’s important to set everything else as well, because if you - for example, change your PC audio output to something else, it can trigger the muting.
Jesse you only had one source. Try to add another one like your laptop’s mic. Then go to windows setting like we did earlier and drop levels of mic to 1%. Then follow the post from JK and do a trial run. When you finish just remember to turn your mic volume up to 100% if you use it outside JG time.
Sorry wasn’t aware of auto muting when we tried it earlier! We live and learn
It’s the last screenshot above - click on your “DAW” source on set up with reastream as a filter. Right above it in the main window will appear the device it is using - highlighted here.
If you don’t have enough devices, you might need to plug in something else (e.g. a headset) to get an additional mic device - which ironically you aren’t going to actually use - or maybe you can create a virtual one somehow.
@jkahn i am not getting that same device listing as you are in this screenshot. lMK if you’re up for a quick zoom session at some point. I’m US Pacific Time Zone
Weird, it’s an audio input but not showing audio device. You could right click on it and hit properties to see what device, or just delete the source and re-create it. You also have two audio sources, which is a bit strange for this kind of setup.
@jkahn I’m sure there’s a tickbox somewhere that’s not properly checked. Would love to set up a quick 15 min call at some point when you’re able. I"m taking off now but will be back later this evening my time or tomorrow (or whenever really…no rush)
I’m not really keen on doing tech support via Zoom Would make me feel I’d stepped back 20+ years in my career to my first part time IT job… no zoom then though.
Update - started everything from scratch making sure to follow every single step carefully and still no dice. Everything seems to be working perfectly except Zoom/Streamyard etc not receiving audio.
So I’ll give it a test for a while and come back to it in a few days and see what happens.
I may have experienced this same issue. I found a workaround.
A short description of what I observed is that my OBS program audio was making it through OBS just fine. It was being fed into a VB-Audio Cable which was then connected to the ZOOM mic input. I was able to verify that the OBS Program audio did appear at the end of the VB-Audio Cable by using its GUI. However, Zoom was not indicating that there was an input signal.
During testing we found that it was ZOOM that was the sole culprit.
This is how we discovered what was happening.
I used a USB to analog mic level adapter cable to connect a handheld mic to the Zoom Mic input.
This worked fine.
I unplugged the handheld mic and fed in a mic level analog signal that had OBS program audio in it. This sounded fine on earphones and Windows saw it just fine as well.
The same USB analog mic level adapter used above, resulted in no signal being seen by Zoom.
So, the question became, why did one analog signal make it through, but another would not.
It turns out that there was something in the OBS Program test signal that the Zoom audio processing didn’t like, and it would not allow anything to pass through.
The ZOOM GUI presents these choices under Audio profile”
Zoom background noise removal
Background noise suppression
7. Auto
8. Low
9. Medium
10. High
Personalized audio isolation
Original sound for musicians
Live performance audio BETA
If you click on “Original Sound for Musicians” The four choices under Background noise suppression disappear.
One would assume that this disables the Zoom audio processing, however THAT IS NOT WHAT HAPPENS.
Whatever setting it was in when the “Original Sound” selection was made is what the system stays in. It does not turn off the processing. Since the default was Auto, Zoom decided that the incoming signal needed to be muted.
All that was necessary to “fix” the issue was to switch the choice to “Low”. There isn’t an OFF option. If you then check “original sound for musicians”, Zoom stays in this state. It is still filtering in the Low level but at that level enough of the signal makes it thru to be usable.’
Something must have changed in Zoom. I assume there is still a way to turn off audio processing entirely, but I haven’t found it yet.
I assume I’m not the only person who has been tripped up by this and that Zoom will fix this eventually. Nov 2024
