Thread by @alyssilya

_PART 3: "Better Late Than Never" Edition
I get a lot of questions about this, so here's a guide for all you producers and singers on setting up a digital audio workstation (DAW) with OBS! Strap in, this one gets technical. 🧵 #vtuber #ENVtuber

_Please have split audio sources set up before doing this. It will save you a massive headache especially if you normally just capture desktop audio and call it a day.

_Lets start with the basics:

"WHAT IS A DAW?"
_A digital audio workstation is basically a program that lets you manipulate audio and MIDI among other things. If you're working on music or audio in general on a computer, you're probably using a DAW.

"WHY DO I WANT TO USE ONE WITH OBS?"
_Maybe you produce on stream or record videos about sound design. Maybe you want to use my vocal chain for karaoke and need control over latency. Maybe you watch videos for inspiration but don't get sound while your DAW and chrome are open.

_Alright, here's where things get a little more technical.
Unless you have a dedicated audio interface, are a mac user, or actually followed the manual when you installed Fruity Loops (or cubase ig but that uses its own driver so you're cheating), you probs arent using ASIO.

"WTF IS AN ASIO"
_Audio Stream Input/Output protocol is **THE** sound card driver if you're working with audio routing in any capacity. Biggest perks over the drivers you're probably using (WDM/MME/WASAPI/DX) are lower latency and higher fidelity (faster response, better sound).

_Trust me, you want ASIO drivers.

"BUT NYARLA I DON'T HAVE ANYTHING YOU MENTIONED EARLIER HOW DO I GET ASIO"
_Ok, first pls stop yelling.

"I REFUSE"
_fine fuck you too. here's your ASIO, stinky.
Introducing asio4all.org

_ASIO4ALL is how we're gonna spoof your normal drivers into behaving like the ASIO drivers we want. It can be... temperamental though... Like you! You'll get along just fine~
Step one is to get it installed. RTFM its not that hard. FL and Reaper might've even set it up for you.

_While we're installing things, the other thing you'll need is a VAC.
No, not the thing that banned you from playing DotA. A virtual audio cable. You can find one here:
vac.muzychenko.net/en/
vb-audio.com/Cable/
Get it installed and lets get started.

_I have the paid version of OG VAC (the first link) so that's what I'll be showing screencaps of, but vb-cable (second link) has a free version. This is VAC's control panel. I've made 8 cables for other shit but you really only need one for this.

_Next step is to open your DAW of choice and go to your driver options. I'm using Ableton Live because of how based it is, but if you aren't a gigachad like me then you're looking for something like this in your audio settings:

_ASIO4ALL should show up as a driver option. Select it and go to Hardware Setup. You should be greeted with this window:

_That window is dumb and I hate it. Lets make it less dumb. Click the wrench in the lower right. Yeah, this thing.

_Ah, much better! Ok, VAC made some cables for us and we can see those here. Lets set this aside and go to our sound settings.

_This is just so you can still hear your DAW on whatever you normally listen on. Go to Sound settings, find the "Recording" tab. I've labeled my cable as 2-OUT. You can rename your cable here in its properties. Please rename it. Pls

_Right-click properties on 2-OUT and go to the "Listen" tab. Check the "Listen to this device" box and make sure the playback device is set to default. Hit ok and you can close your Sound settings.

_Ok, back in ASIO4ALL find your cables. set 2-OUT ("Virtual Cable 2" here) as the output. Easy right? Ignore VC1, that's for something else unrelated.

You'll have to find a buffer size your system can handle. Set that on the slider. If you hear pops and cracks that means you have buffer underruns and need to make the buffer size bigger. The sweet spot is the lowest size you can manage that doesn't cause artifacting under load.

_Now your DAW is routing audio through the virtual cable. Time to plug it into OBS. Go to Audio in OBS settings and set MIC/AUX 2 under Global Audio Devices to OUT-2. The AUX 2 channel should have just your DAW audio.

Congrats, you're done! I'm gonna go play valorant now dm me if you have questions ok byeeeee

To explain this better, you want ASIO drivers when working with a DAW. ASIO tends to take exclusive control over your system’s audio devices which fucks with OBS and keeps you from using your mic or listening to other things etc. This method fixes that problem.