If you use OBS Studio for recording or streaming, you may have started randomly getting the issue of hearing your own voice or other audio inputs through your headphones or speakers. This is an official option inside of OBS that can be used to tuning audio but it will cause feedback loops or echoes, reducing the quality of your stream or recording. It's also completely useless while you're streaming, so follow along as this guide shows you how to disable it.
Takeaways:
- Why can I hear myself when speaking into the microphone in OBS?
- Learn how to stop hearing yourself speak in OBS Studio.
Table of Contents
Why You Hear Yourself in OBS Studio?
Hearing yourself in OBS Studio usually happens because of a feature called Audio Monitoring. Audio monitoring allows you to listen to audio input or output directly through your headphones or speakers while streaming or recording. This is handy in some situations but will cause problems when you are actually trying to stream something.
The problem is audio input devices, "microphones", having their audio sent back to your audio output device/s, such as your headphones or speakers. This can creates a feedback loop or simply the effect of hearing your voice delayed or echoed.
How to Stop Hearing Yourself Speak in OBS Studio: Fix Mic Audio Monitoring for Better Streaming
- First Open OBS.
- Look at the bottom of the OBS window to find the Audio Mixer panel. This panel shows all your audio input and output sources such as your microphone and desktop audio.
- Next to the audio source that is causing you to hear yourself, such as your microphone input, you will see a small 3 dot icon. Click this icon and select "Advanced Audio Properties" from the dropdown menu.
- This opens a new window where you can control how each audio source is monitored and output.
- In the Advanced Audio Properties window, find the column labeled "Audio Monitoring". This column controls whether the audio source is played back to your headphones or speakers.
There are three options for each source:
- Monitor Off: Audio is captured for the stream or recording but is not sent to your headphones or speakers.
- Monitor and Output: Audio is sent both to your headphones or speakers and to the stream or recording.
- Monitor Only (mute output): Audio is sent only to your headphones or speakers but not to the stream or recording.
To stop hearing yourself, set the audio monitoring for your microphone or problematic audio source to Monitor Off. This ensures you will not hear the source playing back to you, but it will still be captured for your stream or recording.
- After adjusting the monitoring setting, close the Advanced Audio Properties window.
- Speak into your microphone or test your audio source to confirm that you no longer hear yourself in your headphones or speakers while using OBS Studio.
The Best Way to Prevent Audio Feedback in OBS?
On Windows, sometimes the microphone has a setting called "Listen to this device" enabled. This setting causes your microphone audio to be played back directly through your speakers or headphones.
- Open the Control Panel and go to Sound.
- Select the Recording tab and double-click your microphone device.
- Go to the Listen tab.
- Make sure the box for "Listen to this device" is unchecked.
- Click Apply and OK to save.
