Go to USB Interface?

[unph4zed]

Hi all,

 

I'm a bit of an audio newbie so excuse my ignorance. I stream gameplay/music online via TwitchTV. My issue is that I game on one PC and stream from another via DVI capture card. Currently the audio is sent from the DAC in my gaming PC (Asus Xonar Essence STX) to a Mackie 802-VLZ3 mixer (combines with xlr mic/music from streaming pc), and the final mix is sent off to the streaming PC input (Asus Xonar Essence STX as well). The music is sent from my streaming PC to the mixer so I can hear it in my headphones. All of this is done with 1/4 unbalanced TRS input/outputs. The quality of the audio on the stream is leaving something to be desired and I think it's because of all the conversions going on.

 

Would I be better off with something like a Tascam US-144MKII or M-Audio M-Track Plus USB interface? Looking at the specs I should be able to combine the XLR mic with S/PDIF output from my gaming PC. Then just use the headphone jack on the interface and send it to my O2 amp/headphones for me to hear.

 

Would the interface work better than my current analog solution?

[iago]

Would the interface work better than my current analog solution?

 

Not necessarily. Actually, I do not fully grasp the layout of your setup and especially the source of the audio streams you are mixing and listening to. The streaming PC is used as a source for one audio stream as well as endpoint for the final mix?

 

You should definitely conduct an experiment before investing in new hardware. The Asus Xonar STX has a headphone connection, which you can connect your headphones to directly. Listen to both twitch.tv on one PC and the original, unmixed audio on the other PC through this setup. If you now are satisfied with the result, change your routing, and only if that fails, your mixing equipment.

 

You should be able to monitor the mix before it is sent to the streamer. Is this signal OK? Instead of routing the stream back to the mixer, connect your headphones directly to the Asus Xonar and monitor the stream from here. Any improvement? If the resulting mix directly on the mixer sounds correct, maybe there is some mix-up in the audio input settings or the bit rate conversion (I presume you stream compressed audio) is not configured in the best possibly way.

[unph4zed]

I have tried to monitor the sound along the way but don't have the most keen ear. Where I can tell the difference is in the recorded videos. My audio just seems to sound a bit muddy compared to people with single PC setups where it is just captured and compressed. The compression bitrate I use is the highest quality available through xsplit (192kbps).

 

The Xonar Essence STX in the streaming PC does indeed send audio (music) to the mixer through line out and receives the final mix through line in. I'll try to narrow it down a bit. I'm assuming sending things like dolby digital live or software enhanced audio to the mixer is a bad practice?

[Panelhead]

I have tried to monitor the sound along the way but don't have the most keen ear. Where I can tell the difference is in the recorded videos. My audio just seems to sound a bit muddy compared to people with single PC setups where it is just captured and compressed. The compression bitrate I use is the highest quality available through xsplit (192kbps).

The Xonar Essence STX in the streaming PC does indeed send audio (music) to the mixer through line out and receives the final mix through line in. I'll try to narrow it down a bit. I'm assuming sending things like dolby digital live or software enhanced audio to the mixer is a bad practice?

 

 

This is a very convoluted process. Using a dac direct to your source should provide much better sonics. If not possible, try to minimize the bit rate compression.

[iago]

My audio just seems to sound a bit muddy compared to people with single PC setups where it is just captured and compressed. The compression bitrate I use is the highest quality available through xsplit (192kbps).

 

That makes it more complicated. XSplit seems to capture the default playback device and also uses the Windows Audio Mixer. Using software volume control can degrade your signal. Try to keep the volume at 100% and adjust volume through your mixer.

 

I'm assuming sending things like dolby digital live or software enhanced audio to the mixer is a bad practice?

 

If the source is dolby digital, you cannot influence it. This has to be handled by your sound card, the mixer receives the decoded analogue signal. Dolby uses compression, so adding it later will degrade your signal. Processing by software can do the same, if not done carefully. Try to avoid it when possible.

[unph4zed]

If I wanted to get surround sound from my gaming PC would I be able to do it with something like the M-Audio M-Track Plus? It has spdif in/out and supports AC3/DTS pass-through. I have never used a USB interface but I'm assuming I could just choose that as the default recording device (on the streaming pc) and XSplit would then be recording from the M-Track.

 

What I'm wondering is if there would be any kind of delay in the playback from the streaming pc? By that I mean if I was gaming/playing music on the gaming PC and listening to everything on the streaming PC would there be noticeable latency?

 

The layout would look like this..

Gaming PC S/PDIF Out ----> USB M-Audio M-Track Plus ----> Streaming PC ----> Asus Xonar Essence ----> Headphones