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Does it have a freaking equalizer yet? Seriously. I don't want to research plugins or pay for one of the most fundamental signal processing blocks.

naikrovek 4y ago
> Does it have a freaking equalizer yet? > Seriously. I don't want to research plugins or pay for one of the most fundamental signal processing blocks. It’s amazing how often I see this “I am owed feature X” attitude… and I don’t get it. If it isn’t useful for you, then just don’t comment. OBS is a VST plugin host, so there are probably a million equalizers, but you seriously don’t want to research plugins.
- phkahler 4y ago
  >> It’s amazing how often I see this “I am owed feature X” attitude… and I don’t get it. I'm not being an entitled user here. OBS has several audio blocks including noise gate and some others that I used when I casually tried it out. Those were necessary to get my crappy microphone to sounds OK. I was baffled by the lack of an EQ and it turns out the project actively does not want one. My impression is that if someone submitted a pull request with that functionality they would reject it. Perhaps I'm wrong, but if I'm right that's (IMHO) really absurd. BTW if I am wrong and they would accept it let me know, I might just take a stab at implementation.
- yellowapple 4y ago
  OBS is a VST plugin host I had no idea. The idea of something other than a DAW being a VST host seems bonkers to me, yet in the case of OBS makes perfect sense.
  - eropple 4y ago
    The catch here is that OBS doesn't support a way to bus together multiple audio sources and apply plugins to their downmix, which limits the effectiveness of being a VST plugin host. When I use OBS I find myself having to route audio (both analog and digital sources) over a virtual audio cable to another application if I want to apply nontrivial effects chains (and eating the resultant latency/fighting with audio-video sync). It's doable, but it can be intimidating if you don't know exactly what you're looking at.
    - jsmith45 4y ago
      > The catch here is that OBS doesn't support a way to bus together multiple audio sources and apply plugins to their downmix, which limits the effectiveness of being a VST plugin host. I'd not be shocked if a large part of this is UI/UX considerations. It's not like it is technically especially challenging to hand off a mixed audio stream to the VST plugin, rather than juts a source. But creating a UX that enables such things without being too confusing is not exactly trivial. It is complicated enough that the OBS mixers is creating up to 6 output tracks. For twitch streamers, tracks 1 and 6 are typically full mixes, while 2-4 are often partially mixed tracks for local recording, to enable post processing (level adjustment, noise cleanup, etc) in the YouTube video creation workflow. Enabling support for effects on one of the output tracks is probably feasible, but more likely you would be interested in applying affects to an intermediate mix, which can be used as one of the inputs for the final mixes. And that starts to get hairy to create a good UI for, unless you just go for mimicking how a mixing console handles it. But many mixing consoles don't have the most new-user friendly user experiences. And all of this comes on top of UI development work often just being a pain.
      - eropple 4y ago
        Absolutely, and all true. And the target OBS market doesn't necessarily need it. Just something to keep in mind if you're trying to get ambitious.
colechristensen 4y ago
VST plugins are a really standard way of doing things, I'm not all that surprised that OBS doesn't want to reimplement something which is done much better many times over.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
dls2016 4y ago
Reaper provides a stand-alone bundle of plugins they distribute with their DAW. https://www.reaper.fm/reaplugs/ https://www.reaper.fm/reaplugs/
minimaxir 4y ago
So there's recently been a fun development in this area. Other comments mention VSTs; they work, but are typically Windows only and I suspect more on HN use macOS. Elgato Wave microphones (https://www.elgato.com/en/wave-1 https://www.elgato.com/en/wave-1 , $100/$150), which are good quality for the price, allow access to the Wave Link software which can be used to mix audio before piping it into OBS. A recent update allows users on macOS to use the native Audio Units (including equalizers/gates), and offers an audio stream that's just the added effects for easy use in other apps. https://help.elgato.com/hc/en-us/articles/4416040077069-Wave-Link-How-to-Set-Up-Audio-Effect-in-Wave-Link- https://help.elgato.com/hc/en-us/articles/4416040077069-Wave... Alternatively, you can get Loopback for $100 (https://rogueamoeba.com/loopback/ https://rogueamoeba.com/loopback/) for mixing or Soundsource for $40 (https://rogueamoeba.com/soundsource/ https://rogueamoeba.com/soundsource/) for AUs both of which I believe is what is what Wave Link uses regardless, so might as well get a good microphone out of it if you do not have one already.
- peapicker 4y ago
  Most pro level (ie not free) plugins are available as VST on mac as well. I mix/produce music for myself and others and was delighted I could host my Fabfilter Pro C2 compressor and Pro Q3 eq I already use via OBS.

naikrovek 4y ago

> Does it have a freaking equalizer yet? > Seriously. I don't want to research plugins or pay for one of the most fundamental signal processing blocks. It’s amazing how often I see this “I am owed feature X” attitude… and I don’t get it. If it isn’t useful for you, then just don’t comment. OBS is a VST plugin host, so there are probably a million equalizers, but you seriously don’t want to research plugins.

phkahler 4y ago
>> It’s amazing how often I see this “I am owed feature X” attitude… and I don’t get it. I'm not being an entitled user here. OBS has several audio blocks including noise gate and some others that I used when I casually tried it out. Those were necessary to get my crappy microphone to sounds OK. I was baffled by the lack of an EQ and it turns out the project actively does not want one. My impression is that if someone submitted a pull request with that functionality they would reject it. Perhaps I'm wrong, but if I'm right that's (IMHO) really absurd. BTW if I am wrong and they would accept it let me know, I might just take a stab at implementation.
yellowapple 4y ago
OBS is a VST plugin host I had no idea. The idea of something other than a DAW being a VST host seems bonkers to me, yet in the case of OBS makes perfect sense.
- eropple 4y ago
  The catch here is that OBS doesn't support a way to bus together multiple audio sources and apply plugins to their downmix, which limits the effectiveness of being a VST plugin host. When I use OBS I find myself having to route audio (both analog and digital sources) over a virtual audio cable to another application if I want to apply nontrivial effects chains (and eating the resultant latency/fighting with audio-video sync). It's doable, but it can be intimidating if you don't know exactly what you're looking at.
  - jsmith45 4y ago
    > The catch here is that OBS doesn't support a way to bus together multiple audio sources and apply plugins to their downmix, which limits the effectiveness of being a VST plugin host. I'd not be shocked if a large part of this is UI/UX considerations. It's not like it is technically especially challenging to hand off a mixed audio stream to the VST plugin, rather than juts a source. But creating a UX that enables such things without being too confusing is not exactly trivial. It is complicated enough that the OBS mixers is creating up to 6 output tracks. For twitch streamers, tracks 1 and 6 are typically full mixes, while 2-4 are often partially mixed tracks for local recording, to enable post processing (level adjustment, noise cleanup, etc) in the YouTube video creation workflow. Enabling support for effects on one of the output tracks is probably feasible, but more likely you would be interested in applying affects to an intermediate mix, which can be used as one of the inputs for the final mixes. And that starts to get hairy to create a good UI for, unless you just go for mimicking how a mixing console handles it. But many mixing consoles don't have the most new-user friendly user experiences. And all of this comes on top of UI development work often just being a pain.
    - eropple 4y ago
      Absolutely, and all true. And the target OBS market doesn't necessarily need it. Just something to keep in mind if you're trying to get ambitious.

colechristensen 4y ago

VST plugins are a really standard way of doing things, I'm not all that surprised that OBS doesn't want to reimplement something which is done much better many times over.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

dls2016 4y ago

Reaper provides a stand-alone bundle of plugins they distribute with their DAW. https://www.reaper.fm/reaplugs/ https://www.reaper.fm/reaplugs/

minimaxir 4y ago

So there's recently been a fun development in this area. Other comments mention VSTs; they work, but are typically Windows only and I suspect more on HN use macOS. Elgato Wave microphones (https://www.elgato.com/en/wave-1 https://www.elgato.com/en/wave-1 , $100/$150), which are good quality for the price, allow access to the Wave Link software which can be used to mix audio before piping it into OBS. A recent update allows users on macOS to use the native Audio Units (including equalizers/gates), and offers an audio stream that's just the added effects for easy use in other apps. https://help.elgato.com/hc/en-us/articles/4416040077069-Wave-Link-How-to-Set-Up-Audio-Effect-in-Wave-Link- https://help.elgato.com/hc/en-us/articles/4416040077069-Wave... Alternatively, you can get Loopback for $100 (https://rogueamoeba.com/loopback/ https://rogueamoeba.com/loopback/) for mixing or Soundsource for $40 (https://rogueamoeba.com/soundsource/ https://rogueamoeba.com/soundsource/) for AUs both of which I believe is what is what Wave Link uses regardless, so might as well get a good microphone out of it if you do not have one already.

peapicker 4y ago
Most pro level (ie not free) plugins are available as VST on mac as well. I mix/produce music for myself and others and was delighted I could host my Fabfilter Pro C2 compressor and Pro Q3 eq I already use via OBS.