[0:00] What's up, guys? How's it going? My name
[0:02] is Brett. Um, I want to make this video
[0:05] today to talk about how to route your
[0:08] DAW audio through to Streamlabs for
[0:12] streaming. I'm going to be working with
[0:14] Ableton. Um, I'm going to be using
[0:16] Ableton, Voice Meter, and uh,
[0:19] Streamlabs, but these kind of same
[0:21] principles apply um, if you're using a
[0:23] different um, DAW or if you're using OBS
[0:26] instead of Streamlabs OBS. This guide is
[0:30] specifically for Universal Audio
[0:32] hardware owners um that are on PC. So,
[0:36] it's going to be pretty tailored to
[0:37] that. And uh yeah, let's get into it.
[0:41] Okay, so first I just wanted to show you
[0:44] guys what interface I'm using. Um so I'm
[0:48] using the Universal Audio Apollo Solo
[0:51] USB. So we got a Solo USB connection
[0:54] plugged straight into my Windows PC. The
[0:57] problem with these is that they are
[1:00] still running uh older software uh
[1:03] compared to the new Universal Audio
[1:05] stuff. So the new Apollo X's
[1:09] um and some of the bigger rack mounted
[1:11] Apollos are using console 2. Um so if
[1:16] you're using this one or any of the ones
[1:19] I think aren't X um you're still using
[1:22] console one software. Um, why that's
[1:26] important, if you're using console 2,
[1:29] there's a loop back feature, so you can
[1:31] do the DAW straight to OBS. Um, a little
[1:35] easier if you have UAD console 2. Um,
[1:39] but for the rest of us who've got older
[1:42] stuff um, and are stuck on console one,
[1:45] we kind of have to get creative about
[1:47] how we're routing that DAW audio. So,
[1:51] I'm going to pull up my console here
[1:53] real quick. Okay. So, I've got my
[1:56] console here, my UAD console. And if I
[2:00] go to about console, it'll tell you the
[2:03] version. So, like I was saying, we are
[2:05] on version one still. So, there's no
[2:07] loop back feature. So, in a nutshell, I
[2:11] can kind of go over what we're going to
[2:12] do. We're going to send our DAW audio to
[2:16] our virtual channel right here. Um, so
[2:20] depending on which Apollo you have, you
[2:22] could have multiple virtual channels.
[2:23] So, the one I have, the smallest one, it
[2:26] only has uh two virtual channels. Um,
[2:30] and they were split mono, so you might
[2:32] need to uh click link or unlink. So,
[2:35] there you go. They're mono again. You
[2:37] click link to make them linked. Um, and
[2:39] basically, we're going to route our DAW
[2:43] audio to this virtual channel using um
[2:49] kind of the hardware outputs on the uh
[2:51] Apollo. And we'll kind of go over that
[2:53] in a sec. So if we But that's in a
[2:56] nutshell what we're trying to do. So if
[2:58] we open up Ableton, let me work on
[3:01] opening that up real quick. Okay. So I
[3:04] have Ableton loaded up here. I'm just
[3:07] going to try to uh
[3:11] throw in maybe Oliver Tools um
[3:16] loop or something. Yeah. Okay. Here's a
[3:18] drum loop. I'll just do like a kick and
[3:21] snare
[3:22] drum loop
[3:25] loop this. So, if I play this
[3:34] um you guys can't hear anything because
[3:35] it's not routed through uh Streamlabs.
[3:38] So, that's kind of what we're trying to
[3:40] figure out here. So, if we go to
[3:43] console, you know what? I'm just going
[3:44] to keep this drum loop looping. Okay,
[3:46] I'm going to go back to console. Right?
[3:48] Nothing's popping up on here. Okay.
[3:54] So, how do you get this audio to the
[3:57] virtual channels? So, if you go to it's
[4:00] going to be options.
[4:02] All right. I'm going pull up the
[4:03] settings tab. You can see that we're
[4:04] synced up to our universal audio
[4:06] interface. Uh we're going to go to
[4:09] output config.
[4:12] So what's happening here is normally
[4:17] you're sending your main signal out
[4:20] through outputs one and two right here.
[4:22] Those are your main outputs on the
[4:23] Apollo.
[4:25] If you send them out to three and four,
[4:28] that will actually send them to the
[4:31] virtual channels. And it it may depend
[4:33] on uh depending on which uh Apollo you
[4:35] have, but you can kind of just uh test
[4:37] the different outputs. So, I'm going to
[4:39] say yes. So, we're sending everything
[4:42] out through three and four. So, you can
[4:44] see here, I'm going to set this to main
[4:48] through three and four. So, when I play
[4:50] this now, I still hear it coming out of
[4:52] my speakers, but I also see it here
[4:56] visually on um on the DAW audio thing
[5:00] here. And you guys are already hearing
[5:01] it because I've I've already got it
[5:03] routed correctly, but um so that's kind
[5:06] of what we wanted. Um, this virtual
[5:10] channel also feeds the monitor. So, if
[5:13] you didn't want it to do that, you could
[5:15] mute there. Um, you can see like I have
[5:18] my mic muted right now just so I don't
[5:20] like hear it coming out of the speakers
[5:22] as I'm recording it. Um, so yeah, so
[5:25] that's the first step is you want to
[5:27] figure out how uh what output aligns
[5:30] with the virtual channel. Um, so since
[5:32] we figured out that it's three and four
[5:35] for my situation,
[5:37] the next thing we want to do is get that
[5:40] working in Streamlabs.
[5:43] Okay, so let's go over the problem we're
[5:46] trying to solve here. Um, our end goal
[5:49] is to get our DAW into Streamlabs OBS.
[5:53] So here's my Streamlabs OBS. Um, you can
[5:57] see I only have two things right now. I
[5:58] have my desktop audio and I have my
[6:01] microphone. So, what we normally do in
[6:04] this instance, if we go to source,
[6:07] we can go to audio input capture. This
[6:09] is how we normally add audio inputs. Um,
[6:13] just kind of ignore everything I've got
[6:15] there. We're going to click on add a new
[6:17] source. And I'm just going to I'm just
[6:19] going to leave it. We can call this
[6:22] Ableton output. Okay.
[6:26] Now, here we are on our Ableton output
[6:30] um audio source. And if you look at our
[6:32] device,
[6:34] we don't have an output straight from
[6:37] Ableton, right? Like that's not a real
[6:39] option. It's not optimized to do that.
[6:42] Um and so what we need to do is we need
[6:45] to route that DAW audio through voice
[6:49] meter cuz voice meter uh is something we
[6:51] can access in OBS. So, that's kind of
[6:53] like the whole goal of of what we're
[6:55] trying to do. So, here it is. VB Audio
[6:58] Voice Meter. Um, it's completely free.
[7:02] So, you can get Banana for free.
[7:07] And then potato. I have potato. These
[7:10] are like the weirdest names. It's just
[7:11] like more complicated, honestly. I think
[7:13] banana is like totally fine. And so,
[7:16] let's open this up and I'll kind of show
[7:19] you what the next steps are here. Let us
[7:22] look at voice meter real quick. Um, I
[7:25] know this is pretty intimidating the
[7:27] first time you look at it. Um, banana is
[7:30] a little simpler, but it's uh kind of
[7:32] the same concepts here. So, we'll just
[7:35] start here.
[7:38] Pretty much this whole section, these
[7:40] are hardware inputs. Um, so the things I
[7:44] have connected right now are my
[7:47] universal audio inputs, like all the
[7:50] channels that the Universal Audio has
[7:52] access to and uh my capture card here.
[7:55] Um, if I look at other input devices,
[7:58] um, I could also add kind of like my
[8:01] webcam uh, also has a microphone, so I
[8:04] could add that. So, these are things
[8:05] that are like physically plugged into
[8:07] your computer um that you can access
[8:10] over here. This is kind of a
[8:14] a pretty confusing section. These are
[8:16] virtual channels. These are channels
[8:19] that Streamlabs OBS can directly access.
[8:23] Um and other apps can directly access
[8:25] them too. So, it's really good for um
[8:28] routing signals through to other apps.
[8:31] There is also
[8:34] kind of a mixer section over here on the
[8:36] right. You can see that again these are
[8:39] our five hardware channels that we
[8:42] talked about. These are our three
[8:43] virtual channels.
[8:46] So when you're setting this up for the
[8:47] first time with your universal audio
[8:51] interface, what you're going to want to
[8:52] do is you're going to want to click this
[8:54] A1. This is your main out.
[8:58] Um, and you want to click ASIO and
[9:02] whichever universal audio um, interface
[9:05] applies to you. So for me, that's the
[9:07] USB right here. Right. So I can click
[9:08] that. The next thing you're going to
[9:10] want to do, you're going to want to
[9:12] assign the ASIO inputs over here. Um,
[9:17] I'll link a video below that uh talks
[9:21] about how to do that really well. But
[9:24] if you go to
[9:27] if you go to your system settings here,
[9:34] basically you can patch in
[9:37] which ASIO
[9:39] um inputs you want where um into your
[9:42] five hardware channels. Um,
[9:45] so my interface only has six channels
[9:50] total. Um, because it's like the
[9:52] smallest universal audio one, but I just
[9:54] have it like the hardware channel one is
[9:57] one and two, then three and four, and
[9:59] then five and six. So I have it just
[10:01] kind of easy. So over here you can see
[10:04] ASIO 1 and two, three and four, five and
[10:08] six. Um, and I went ahead and made a
[10:10] little cheat sheet of what those
[10:13] correspond to on my interface. So, the
[10:16] ASI inputs one and two, those are your
[10:19] uh mic inputs. So, I really only have
[10:22] two inputs on this thing. So, it's
[10:23] either mic or line, whichever one you're
[10:25] in, or the high Z if you're in the uh
[10:28] front port.
[10:30] Three and four is actually your
[10:32] monitors. So, it's the two channels out.
[10:35] Five and six, these are the virtual
[10:37] channels. So this is what we assigned in
[10:39] the console earlier. Um so we're already
[10:43] routing our DAW audio here to virtuals 1
[10:47] and 2. So if we go back here,
[10:53] you can see that I've named this already
[10:56] DAW audio. Um and you can rename it like
[10:59] if you wanted to call this, you know,
[11:01] Ableton audio, you can rename it by
[11:03] right clicking it. Okay. So, the next
[11:05] thing that's really important is we need
[11:07] a way for Streamlabs OBS to access this
[11:11] DAW audio, right? Um, and the way we do
[11:15] that is by using voice meters virtual
[11:18] channels.
[11:20] So, one thing,
[11:22] if you look over here, you notice it
[11:25] says B1, B2, B3. Um, that's what these
[11:29] correspond to right here. I'm actually
[11:32] going to rename these real quick just to
[11:33] be super clear. This is B1.
[11:38] This is B2.
[11:41] This is B3. Okay.
[11:46] So,
[11:49] the whole goal is I've got our Ableton
[11:52] audio routed here. I can send this to
[11:56] whichever virtual channel I want. B1, I
[11:59] can set it to B2. I could send it to B3
[12:01] and then I could tap into that virtual
[12:03] channel from Streamlabs. So, for
[12:05] instance, I'm going to send this to B2
[12:08] right now. And that's going to
[12:09] correspond with this channel right here,
[12:12] the one in the middle. And when we send
[12:14] audio through that, we're going to be
[12:16] able to see the audio here, the DAW
[12:18] audio. We're also going to be going to
[12:20] be able to see it on this other mixer
[12:22] right here for B2. And the way we access
[12:25] this, access this in Streamlabs is we're
[12:28] going to grab a channel called Voice
[12:30] Meter AX. Okay. So, if I go back to my
[12:35] Streamlabs,
[12:37] right? Okay. So, I'm going to go to
[12:38] sources again. Audio input capture.
[12:44] I already created this earlier. So,
[12:45] let's add that
[12:50] under this Ableton output portion under
[12:53] device.
[12:54] You could see that there's one called
[12:56] voice meter ox output. Okay. So that
[12:59] directly corresponds to that B2 virtual
[13:02] channel. If I select this, that's how
[13:05] I'm going to be able to access our
[13:07] Ableton output uh in Streamlabs. So once
[13:11] I've done that, I can play audio through
[13:13] Ableton. And you can kind of check the
[13:15] chain. You could check your console,
[13:17] make sure you're getting levels there.
[13:18] Um, check your voice meter. Make sure
[13:21] you're getting levels there for your
[13:23] DAW. And then you can check Streamlabs,
[13:26] make your make sure you're seeing a
[13:27] level here. I'll show a demo of that
[13:29] real quick. So, I'm going to play some
[13:32] of this Ableton audio again here. So,
[13:34] you can see it here. It's playing. I can
[13:37] hear it coming out of speakers. If I go
[13:39] to console, I can see it going into DAW
[13:43] audio, the virtual channel.
[13:46] And I can also see it here on voice
[13:49] meter. I can see my mic and I can see uh
[13:52] the drum loop playing.
[13:55] Turn this off for a sec. All right. So,
[13:57] hopefully you guys can hear my audio. Uh
[14:00] you can hear the drum loop coming
[14:02] through the DAW. So, that's this channel
[14:04] right here. You can go ahead and mix
[14:07] here. You can like lower the volume,
[14:09] raise it, you can mute it if you're in
[14:11] the middle of the stream or something,
[14:12] whatever you need to do. Um, so yeah,
[14:16] just remember that uh we didn't have to
[14:18] use B2. We could also have used uh B1.
[14:22] That's where my mic's on right now. You
[14:24] can use B3. You can also route like
[14:26] Discord uh through B3. You could route
[14:29] capture cards through virtual channels.
[14:32] Um, you know, anything that Streamlabs
[14:34] is not picking up, you can route through
[14:36] a virtual channel. Um, yeah. So, I hope
[14:39] this video was helpful. Um, definitely
[14:41] reach out if you have any questions.
[14:43] It's a bit of a complicated topic doing
[14:47] all this routing and uh, voice meter can
[14:49] get a little weird. I definitely
[14:51] recommend saving uh, like a template
[14:54] once you get uh, something that works
[14:56] for you. But uh yeah, thanks for
[14:58] watching.