UAD + Voicemeeter Audio Routing Explained | DAW & Windows Setup Tutorial for Streaming

[00:00] What's up, guys? How's it going? My name

[00:02] is Brett. Um, I want to make this video

[00:05] today to talk about how to route your

[00:08] DAW audio through to Streamlabs for

[00:12] streaming. I'm going to be working with

[00:14] Ableton. Um, I'm going to be using

[00:16] Ableton, Voice Meter, and uh,

[00:19] Streamlabs, but these kind of same

[00:21] principles apply um, if you're using a

[00:23] different um, DAW or if you're using OBS

[00:26] instead of Streamlabs OBS. This guide is

[00:30] specifically for Universal Audio

[00:32] hardware owners um that are on PC. So,

[00:36] it's going to be pretty tailored to

[00:37] that. And uh yeah, let's get into it.

[00:41] Okay, so first I just wanted to show you

[00:44] guys what interface I'm using. Um so I'm

[00:48] using the Universal Audio Apollo Solo

[00:51] USB. So we got a Solo USB connection

[00:54] plugged straight into my Windows PC. The

[00:57] problem with these is that they are

[01:00] still running uh older software uh

[01:03] compared to the new Universal Audio

[01:05] stuff. So the new Apollo X's

[01:09] um and some of the bigger rack mounted

[01:11] Apollos are using console 2. Um so if

[01:16] you're using this one or any of the ones

[01:19] I think aren't X um you're still using

[01:22] console one software. Um, why that's

[01:26] important, if you're using console 2,

[01:29] there's a loop back feature, so you can

[01:31] do the DAW straight to OBS. Um, a little

[01:35] easier if you have UAD console 2. Um,

[01:39] but for the rest of us who've got older

[01:42] stuff um, and are stuck on console one,

[01:45] we kind of have to get creative about

[01:47] how we're routing that DAW audio. So,

[01:51] I'm going to pull up my console here

[01:53] real quick. Okay. So, I've got my

[01:56] console here, my UAD console. And if I

[02:00] go to about console, it'll tell you the

[02:03] version. So, like I was saying, we are

[02:05] on version one still. So, there's no

[02:07] loop back feature. So, in a nutshell, I

[02:11] can kind of go over what we're going to

[02:12] do. We're going to send our DAW audio to

[02:16] our virtual channel right here. Um, so

[02:20] depending on which Apollo you have, you

[02:22] could have multiple virtual channels.

[02:23] So, the one I have, the smallest one, it

[02:26] only has uh two virtual channels. Um,

[02:30] and they were split mono, so you might

[02:32] need to uh click link or unlink. So,

[02:35] there you go. They're mono again. You

[02:37] click link to make them linked. Um, and

[02:39] basically, we're going to route our DAW

[02:43] audio to this virtual channel using um

[02:49] kind of the hardware outputs on the uh

[02:51] Apollo. And we'll kind of go over that

[02:53] in a sec. So if we But that's in a

[02:56] nutshell what we're trying to do. So if

[02:58] we open up Ableton, let me work on

[03:01] opening that up real quick. Okay. So I

[03:04] have Ableton loaded up here. I'm just

[03:07] going to try to uh

[03:11] throw in maybe Oliver Tools um

[03:16] loop or something. Yeah. Okay. Here's a

[03:18] drum loop. I'll just do like a kick and

[03:21] snare

[03:22] drum loop

[03:25] loop this. So, if I play this

[03:34] um you guys can't hear anything because

[03:35] it's not routed through uh Streamlabs.

[03:38] So, that's kind of what we're trying to

[03:40] figure out here. So, if we go to

[03:43] console, you know what? I'm just going

[03:44] to keep this drum loop looping. Okay,

[03:46] I'm going to go back to console. Right?

[03:48] Nothing's popping up on here. Okay.

[03:54] So, how do you get this audio to the

[03:57] virtual channels? So, if you go to it's

[04:00] going to be options.

[04:02] All right. I'm going pull up the

[04:03] settings tab. You can see that we're

[04:04] synced up to our universal audio

[04:06] interface. Uh we're going to go to

[04:09] output config.

[04:12] So what's happening here is normally

[04:17] you're sending your main signal out

[04:20] through outputs one and two right here.

[04:22] Those are your main outputs on the

[04:23] Apollo.

[04:25] If you send them out to three and four,

[04:28] that will actually send them to the

[04:31] virtual channels. And it it may depend

[04:33] on uh depending on which uh Apollo you

[04:35] have, but you can kind of just uh test

[04:37] the different outputs. So, I'm going to

[04:39] say yes. So, we're sending everything

[04:42] out through three and four. So, you can

[04:44] see here, I'm going to set this to main

[04:48] through three and four. So, when I play

[04:50] this now, I still hear it coming out of

[04:52] my speakers, but I also see it here

[04:56] visually on um on the DAW audio thing

[05:00] here. And you guys are already hearing

[05:01] it because I've I've already got it

[05:03] routed correctly, but um so that's kind

[05:06] of what we wanted. Um, this virtual

[05:10] channel also feeds the monitor. So, if

[05:13] you didn't want it to do that, you could

[05:15] mute there. Um, you can see like I have

[05:18] my mic muted right now just so I don't

[05:20] like hear it coming out of the speakers

[05:22] as I'm recording it. Um, so yeah, so

[05:25] that's the first step is you want to

[05:27] figure out how uh what output aligns

[05:30] with the virtual channel. Um, so since

[05:32] we figured out that it's three and four

[05:35] for my situation,

[05:37] the next thing we want to do is get that

[05:40] working in Streamlabs.

[05:43] Okay, so let's go over the problem we're

[05:46] trying to solve here. Um, our end goal

[05:49] is to get our DAW into Streamlabs OBS.

[05:53] So here's my Streamlabs OBS. Um, you can

[05:57] see I only have two things right now. I

[05:58] have my desktop audio and I have my

[06:01] microphone. So, what we normally do in

[06:04] this instance, if we go to source,

[06:07] we can go to audio input capture. This

[06:09] is how we normally add audio inputs. Um,

[06:13] just kind of ignore everything I've got

[06:15] there. We're going to click on add a new

[06:17] source. And I'm just going to I'm just

[06:19] going to leave it. We can call this

[06:22] Ableton output. Okay.

[06:26] Now, here we are on our Ableton output

[06:30] um audio source. And if you look at our

[06:32] device,

[06:34] we don't have an output straight from

[06:37] Ableton, right? Like that's not a real

[06:39] option. It's not optimized to do that.

[06:42] Um and so what we need to do is we need

[06:45] to route that DAW audio through voice

[06:49] meter cuz voice meter uh is something we

[06:51] can access in OBS. So, that's kind of

[06:53] like the whole goal of of what we're

[06:55] trying to do. So, here it is. VB Audio

[06:58] Voice Meter. Um, it's completely free.

[07:02] So, you can get Banana for free.

[07:07] And then potato. I have potato. These

[07:10] are like the weirdest names. It's just

[07:11] like more complicated, honestly. I think

[07:13] banana is like totally fine. And so,

[07:16] let's open this up and I'll kind of show

[07:19] you what the next steps are here. Let us

[07:22] look at voice meter real quick. Um, I

[07:25] know this is pretty intimidating the

[07:27] first time you look at it. Um, banana is

[07:30] a little simpler, but it's uh kind of

[07:32] the same concepts here. So, we'll just

[07:35] start here.

[07:38] Pretty much this whole section, these

[07:40] are hardware inputs. Um, so the things I

[07:44] have connected right now are my

[07:47] universal audio inputs, like all the

[07:50] channels that the Universal Audio has

[07:52] access to and uh my capture card here.

[07:55] Um, if I look at other input devices,

[07:58] um, I could also add kind of like my

[08:01] webcam uh, also has a microphone, so I

[08:04] could add that. So, these are things

[08:05] that are like physically plugged into

[08:07] your computer um that you can access

[08:10] over here. This is kind of a

[08:14] a pretty confusing section. These are

[08:16] virtual channels. These are channels

[08:19] that Streamlabs OBS can directly access.

[08:23] Um and other apps can directly access

[08:25] them too. So, it's really good for um

[08:28] routing signals through to other apps.

[08:31] There is also

[08:34] kind of a mixer section over here on the

[08:36] right. You can see that again these are

[08:39] our five hardware channels that we

[08:42] talked about. These are our three

[08:43] virtual channels.

[08:46] So when you're setting this up for the

[08:47] first time with your universal audio

[08:51] interface, what you're going to want to

[08:52] do is you're going to want to click this

[08:54] A1. This is your main out.

[08:58] Um, and you want to click ASIO and

[09:02] whichever universal audio um, interface

[09:05] applies to you. So for me, that's the

[09:07] USB right here. Right. So I can click

[09:08] that. The next thing you're going to

[09:10] want to do, you're going to want to

[09:12] assign the ASIO inputs over here. Um,

[09:17] I'll link a video below that uh talks

[09:21] about how to do that really well. But

[09:24] if you go to

[09:27] if you go to your system settings here,

[09:34] basically you can patch in

[09:37] which ASIO

[09:39] um inputs you want where um into your

[09:42] five hardware channels. Um,

[09:45] so my interface only has six channels

[09:50] total. Um, because it's like the

[09:52] smallest universal audio one, but I just

[09:54] have it like the hardware channel one is

[09:57] one and two, then three and four, and

[09:59] 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.