**Using Auto Ducking in OBS Studio to Balance Audio**

In this article, we will explore how to use auto ducking in OBS Studio to balance audio levels, particularly for live streams. Auto ducking is a feature that can be used to lower the volume of background sounds or music when a microphone signal becomes active, creating a more balanced and professional-sounding audio mix.

**Setting Up Auto Ducking**

To set up auto ducking in OBS Studio, we need to access the Settings menu and navigate to the Audio section. Here, we will find the "Compressor" settings, which can be used to control the level of the background sounds or music. We want to lower this that way the mute that compressor activates sooner. The range for this setting is typically set between -30 and 0 dB. As soon as my microphone makes any noise up to minus 30, we want the compressor to activate. This should be a good range for most voice levels.

**Adjusting the Attack Speed**

The attack speed of the compressor determines how quickly it activates to lower the volume of the background sounds or music. A faster attack speed will result in more aggressive compression, while a slower attack speed will result in less aggressive compression. The recommended attack speed is 6 milliseconds, which appears to be the fastest setting available. We can adjust this setting based on our personal preference and the specific requirements of our stream.

**Adjusting the Release Speed**

The release speed of the compressor determines how quickly the audio gets back louder when we stop talking. This setting controls how long it takes for the volume to increase again after a silence. Originally, I had set this to very long, but I'm going to try around 500 milliseconds for now. This should provide a balance between not taking too long to recover and not being too fast. We can adjust this setting based on our personal preference and the specific requirements of our stream.

**Adjusting the Output Gain**

The output gain refers to the volume level of the audio signal after it has been compressed by the auto ducker. In most cases, we want to leave this at zero, as any changes to this setting will affect all tracks in OBS Studio. This means that we need to adjust the dials on our actual mixer to get the desired balance.

**Setting the Side Chain or Ducking Source**

The side chain or ducking source refers to the audio signal that is used to control the compression of the auto ducker. In this case, we want to set it to our primary microphone audio, so that the compressor lowers the volume of the background sounds or music when a microphone signal becomes active.

**Testing and Adjusting**

To test the auto ducker, we can play back a recording of us talking with the music playing in the background. We will see how well the auto ducker performs and make any necessary adjustments to the settings. In this case, I find that the volume of the music is not lowered enough, so I adjust the threshold setting to 5-1.

**Easy Settings for Common Use Cases**

If you're using super loud aggressive music like I was using in this test, here are my recommended settings:

* Ratio: 7.5-1

* Threshold: -30 dB

* Attack: 2 milliseconds

* Release: 650 milliseconds

These settings should provide a good balance between compression and audio recovery.

**Using Auto Ducking in Multitrack Audio Recordings**

It's worth noting that auto ducking will still lower and increase the volume of individual tracks, even if you're recording as multitrack audio. This means that you may need to adjust your levels on a per-track basis to get the best possible balance.

**Conclusion**

Auto ducking is a powerful feature in OBS Studio that can help create a more balanced and professional-sounding audio mix for live streams. By adjusting the settings of the compressor, we can fine-tune the level of compression to suit our specific needs. With practice and experimentation, we can get the best possible results from auto ducking and take our live streaming setup to the next level.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enif you're tired of having to balance your game sound or your music sound or some other background sound in your live stream um across your voice and having to figure out which one's gonna override the other and not getting your levels right doing a whole recording and it just doesn't turn out very well at all this is the video for you in this video I'm gonna walk you through the steps to set up audio ducking or sidechain compression in OBS studio which allows you to basically tell your alternative audio sources to lower whenever you start talking and it's actually really cool it was added in the OBS 21 update I gave a super rough overview of it in that video but in this boom I'm gonna show you exactly how to set it up right after this useful tech education and gaming nostalgia that won't put you to sleep get subscribed and turn on notifications so you won't miss the next guide this video of course assumes that you have OBS studio installed and you understand the general basics of how to use it if you don't I have a full masterclass linked in the video description down below where I walk through pretty much everything you need to know about OBS studio so we're gonna skip past the obvious basics and jump right in here so I have already added some audio sources if we go to my audio settings here I have added my microphone input and then two audio outputs and one of them I will run some music from VLC player here in a moment but you can see my audio levels right now I just have a little bit turned down on all of them for my microphone for my and for my alternative ones so if I go ahead and hit play on the music I am not hearing it because I haven't routed through a different input but I have it running here through desktop audio track and if these are running to a live production that loud music is probably making it very impossible to hear what I'm saying here we're gonna flip over to and do a quick test that sucks but we can set up with a quick plug in change we can set this up to automatically lower for our needs so go ahead and hit the gear icon next to the track that you want to lower the one that you wish to automatically reduce whenever you're talking so not your microphone track but your game sound your music whatever that may be go ahead and hit the gear icon and hit filters now click the plus right here to add a compressor and click on compressor we're gonna give this the name we're gonna call this duck ink not burning it that's what this process is called is ducking the audio under your source we're gonna hit OK now once this window pops up you're probably gonna be pretty confused as to what of all of these options are we're gonna actually walk through them and make this a little bit easier to understand so in your filters menu you have the ratio which is basically you know a basic math ratio of how much you want to squish or silence your other audio source based on your first one Tyndale one is very aggressive for every you know one level of input it will squish it down ten times which isn't ideal so we're actually gonna set this to a ratio of about three or four to one I'm gonna drag this over I'll say about three to 0.5 we'll see how that turns out now the threshold is something different the threshold is kind of the ceiling of the audio that you're side-chaining it to so your original microphone audio source basically the highest there like the the the highest point your microphone can reach before it triggers the compressor so that means if we have it at minus 18 my voice has to reach all the way up to minus 18 DB before the music will lower we want to lower this that way the mute that compressor activates sooner so if we lower this to say minus 30 then as soon as my microphone makes any noise up to minus 30 which should be a good range for my voice you will have to adjust that based on how much background sound you have in your line anything at minus 30 or louder will trigger this to happen the attack speed the attack speed is basically just how quickly it activates the compressor to lower your music or games you want this as fast as possible which appears to be six milliseconds I'll see if I can set it's like two okay it does actually let me set it so I'm gonna set it to two milliseconds so as soon as it can it's going to activate release on the other hand is how quickly the audio gets back louder when you stop talking so if you stop talking and the music starts to increase the release is how long that takes I have originally in my older video had it set really really long I'm gonna set it to about we're gonna try around 500 milliseconds for that's how long it takes it to start going back up that way it doesn't start coming back up just in between words but it doesn't take forever to climb back up either this may be not enough we're gonna see here in a minute and then output gain you just leave at zero because that's just apply to everything and you just want the normal music volume left alone and you adjust those dials in your actual mixer lastly is the most important one the side chain or ducking source you need to set this to your primary microphone audio or whatever you want to cause it to lower so this is our music sound we want it to lower based on our microphone so I click that and hit close now as I am talking you can see the music going down as I am talking and then when I stop talking it rises back up that doesn't seem to be quite enough of a threshold so maybe I pushed it up towards 5 to 1 now when I'm talking talking talking talking it gets quite a bit lower so we're gonna go ahead and play a test recording here of me talking with the music going and I'm honestly probably going to lower it just a tiny bit more you can i I'm doing this live in video because I want to express that this is something that you will want to fine-tune based on your audio sources and what works for you as I'm looking at the audio levels it really doesn't look like the music is lowered enough so if I come over here to 50 or 2 filters not 250 I can go let's say 7 point 5 to 1 this is a microphone test that lowers quite quite a bit more inactive microphone here because I'm not peeking yet pig pig pig pig yeah we're good now in theory this should be fine and you can tweak as your own so if you want some easy settings if you're just in it for the easy settings here are my recommendations if you're using super loud aggressive music like I was using a mind test then here are my recommended settings with ratio of tinda one threshold minus 30 attack of to release of 650 if you are using you know more quiet and variant game sound then I recommend being a little less aggressive with ratio of 5 to 1 and the rest of the settings are the same but these look to be good settings that you can start with when setting up your auto ducking this feature is super clutch super handy for getting your audio balanced and mixed well within OBS studio which can be a huge pain when it comes to live streams in fact that was one of my biggest turn offs of live streaming for a long time was getting a balance of your game sound or mic set or music sound rather or whatever background sound and your microphone sound to feel good enough that they can still hear what's going on but still hear you primarily and this can really help you to fix that without having any hard set levels and of course while the auto ducking will be running on that track permanently if you do have multiple audio tracks going you can further balance within your editing if you're just recording as well however this will still lower and increase and lower the volume or the levels rather of that track even in a multitrack audio recording so that's worth keeping in mind hope you found this video helpful if you did hit the like button subscribe for more awesome tech coning go check out my OBS masterclass if you want to know how to do anything in OBS studio I cover everything you need to know in that video or actually it's a playlist of videos it's like 5 and a half hours worth of video so go check it out I will have links to my other OBS content in the description down below as well and I will see you in the next oneif you're tired of having to balance your game sound or your music sound or some other background sound in your live stream um across your voice and having to figure out which one's gonna override the other and not getting your levels right doing a whole recording and it just doesn't turn out very well at all this is the video for you in this video I'm gonna walk you through the steps to set up audio ducking or sidechain compression in OBS studio which allows you to basically tell your alternative audio sources to lower whenever you start talking and it's actually really cool it was added in the OBS 21 update I gave a super rough overview of it in that video but in this boom I'm gonna show you exactly how to set it up right after this useful tech education and gaming nostalgia that won't put you to sleep get subscribed and turn on notifications so you won't miss the next guide this video of course assumes that you have OBS studio installed and you understand the general basics of how to use it if you don't I have a full masterclass linked in the video description down below where I walk through pretty much everything you need to know about OBS studio so we're gonna skip past the obvious basics and jump right in here so I have already added some audio sources if we go to my audio settings here I have added my microphone input and then two audio outputs and one of them I will run some music from VLC player here in a moment but you can see my audio levels right now I just have a little bit turned down on all of them for my microphone for my and for my alternative ones so if I go ahead and hit play on the music I am not hearing it because I haven't routed through a different input but I have it running here through desktop audio track and if these are running to a live production that loud music is probably making it very impossible to hear what I'm saying here we're gonna flip over to and do a quick test that sucks but we can set up with a quick plug in change we can set this up to automatically lower for our needs so go ahead and hit the gear icon next to the track that you want to lower the one that you wish to automatically reduce whenever you're talking so not your microphone track but your game sound your music whatever that may be go ahead and hit the gear icon and hit filters now click the plus right here to add a compressor and click on compressor we're gonna give this the name we're gonna call this duck ink not burning it that's what this process is called is ducking the audio under your source we're gonna hit OK now once this window pops up you're probably gonna be pretty confused as to what of all of these options are we're gonna actually walk through them and make this a little bit easier to understand so in your filters menu you have the ratio which is basically you know a basic math ratio of how much you want to squish or silence your other audio source based on your first one Tyndale one is very aggressive for every you know one level of input it will squish it down ten times which isn't ideal so we're actually gonna set this to a ratio of about three or four to one I'm gonna drag this over I'll say about three to 0.5 we'll see how that turns out now the threshold is something different the threshold is kind of the ceiling of the audio that you're side-chaining it to so your original microphone audio source basically the highest there like the the the highest point your microphone can reach before it triggers the compressor so that means if we have it at minus 18 my voice has to reach all the way up to minus 18 DB before the music will lower we want to lower this that way the mute that compressor activates sooner so if we lower this to say minus 30 then as soon as my microphone makes any noise up to minus 30 which should be a good range for my voice you will have to adjust that based on how much background sound you have in your line anything at minus 30 or louder will trigger this to happen the attack speed the attack speed is basically just how quickly it activates the compressor to lower your music or games you want this as fast as possible which appears to be six milliseconds I'll see if I can set it's like two okay it does actually let me set it so I'm gonna set it to two milliseconds so as soon as it can it's going to activate release on the other hand is how quickly the audio gets back louder when you stop talking so if you stop talking and the music starts to increase the release is how long that takes I have originally in my older video had it set really really long I'm gonna set it to about we're gonna try around 500 milliseconds for that's how long it takes it to start going back up that way it doesn't start coming back up just in between words but it doesn't take forever to climb back up either this may be not enough we're gonna see here in a minute and then output gain you just leave at zero because that's just apply to everything and you just want the normal music volume left alone and you adjust those dials in your actual mixer lastly is the most important one the side chain or ducking source you need to set this to your primary microphone audio or whatever you want to cause it to lower so this is our music sound we want it to lower based on our microphone so I click that and hit close now as I am talking you can see the music going down as I am talking and then when I stop talking it rises back up that doesn't seem to be quite enough of a threshold so maybe I pushed it up towards 5 to 1 now when I'm talking talking talking talking it gets quite a bit lower so we're gonna go ahead and play a test recording here of me talking with the music going and I'm honestly probably going to lower it just a tiny bit more you can i I'm doing this live in video because I want to express that this is something that you will want to fine-tune based on your audio sources and what works for you as I'm looking at the audio levels it really doesn't look like the music is lowered enough so if I come over here to 50 or 2 filters not 250 I can go let's say 7 point 5 to 1 this is a microphone test that lowers quite quite a bit more inactive microphone here because I'm not peeking yet pig pig pig pig yeah we're good now in theory this should be fine and you can tweak as your own so if you want some easy settings if you're just in it for the easy settings here are my recommendations if you're using super loud aggressive music like I was using a mind test then here are my recommended settings with ratio of tinda one threshold minus 30 attack of to release of 650 if you are using you know more quiet and variant game sound then I recommend being a little less aggressive with ratio of 5 to 1 and the rest of the settings are the same but these look to be good settings that you can start with when setting up your auto ducking this feature is super clutch super handy for getting your audio balanced and mixed well within OBS studio which can be a huge pain when it comes to live streams in fact that was one of my biggest turn offs of live streaming for a long time was getting a balance of your game sound or mic set or music sound rather or whatever background sound and your microphone sound to feel good enough that they can still hear what's going on but still hear you primarily and this can really help you to fix that without having any hard set levels and of course while the auto ducking will be running on that track permanently if you do have multiple audio tracks going you can further balance within your editing if you're just recording as well however this will still lower and increase and lower the volume or the levels rather of that track even in a multitrack audio recording so that's worth keeping in mind hope you found this video helpful if you did hit the like button subscribe for more awesome tech coning go check out my OBS masterclass if you want to know how to do anything in OBS studio I cover everything you need to know in that video or actually it's a playlist of videos it's like 5 and a half hours worth of video so go check it out I will have links to my other OBS content in the description down below as well and I will see you in the next one\n"