Category: Tool

Sound

You may need to set up some sort of virtual audio driver to route audio from your browser windows and any other apps (e.g. if applying effects via a DAW) into OBS – when I was on a Mac, I used SoundFlower and had a Multi-Output Device set up so I could both hear the audio and route it into OBS. To set up a Multi-Output Device on Mac, see this document: https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/audio-midi-setup/ams7c093f372/mac

Windows doesn’t seem to need anything additional to receive computer sound

Cropping & resizing

• Crop a window by holding Alt and dragging the bounding box (be sure the bounding box isn’t set in the Transform dialogue)
• Resize a window by just dragging its corners
• You can capture the same window multiple times and apply different crops and resizes each time to, for example, separate out users in a single videoconference.
• Note that once a window is cropped in OBS, if you move it from its original position on your screen, the crop in OBS may no longer reflect the section you want to see.
• If you’re wanting to capture a browser window without the chrome (all the tabs and address bar, etc), you can hide this in Google Chrome with F11 (or if your computer is paranoid about its F-keys like mine is, Fn-F11). This could be especially useful if using OBS to stream from Google Meet as you can make the browser take up the whole screen so you don’t need to crop out the chrome.

Google Meet → OBS

Cropping can be useful for making adjustments to Google Meet windows where participants can’t be hidden – crop to just the presentation area.

Test your cropping carefully – when Google Meet is muted, it has a tendency to pop up a message asking if you’re trying to say something – this message intrudes into the frame area and cannot be disabled.

Zoom → OBS

Use Computer Audio

Share Computer Sound for presentation mode

On the Host’s computer (the person collating material in OBS), you’ll need to take the Zoom window off full screen or (in our experience – let me know if yours differs) OBS won’t be able to show it in the dropdown to be selected

Using multiple videoconference instances

For Zoom, you cannot log into multiple meetings simultaneously from a free or pro account – multiple simultaneous Zoom meetings require Business, Enterprise or Education account. Obviously this can be solved with upgrading account type – hopefully only 1 person (the one using OBS) would need this, but the need for it is probably limited to where multiple performers need to share their screens simultaneously *with audio*. OBS can offer ways around this, though, allowing ‘daisy-chaining’ of videoconference instances without needing to pay for upgrades.

We have not tested Google Meet in such a configuration since they’ve implemented computer audio, but we have combined presenting with computer audio from Zoom with multiple instances of presenting via mic in Google Meet, as in the example.

Example

Alexander Schubert’s Browsing, Idling, Investigating, Dreaming (Bastard Assignments Lockdown Jams, 2020):

This piece is performed live using 1 Zoom meeting (browser-based Spotify), 2 Google Meet meetings (Google StreetView is silent, the computer voice uses the system mic – voice suffers a bit less badly through the mic than music or other sounds because the tool prioritises voices) and 1 local browser window (field recordings), aggregated in OBS and the OBS output then pushed out to the other three performers via an additional Google Meet meeting. Due to feedback problems, however, the field recordings are not heard by the other performers (although I’m sure there’ll be a way I can rectify this). Additionally, everyone joined the Zoom meeting as this was the easiest way to communicate without interfering with the other setups. The setup diagram is as follows:

See the live-recorded video:

Dealing with feedback problems

First check everybody’s mics are muted everywhere (or everywhere but 1 source)

Go into Settings > Audio in OBS and check the Monitoring section. You should be monitoring only something that doesn’t have an audible output otherwise, while system audio may need to go to a multi-output device (speakers and Soundflower)

Check your sound sources and outputs at the system level, in OBS AND where another tool has separate settings, e.g. Zoom lets you specify different outputs within the tool and doesn’t necessarily change them when your system settings change.

See also:

• Multiple stages

General features

• Access from https://meet.google.com/
• Free to use with no duration limitations on free accounts
• Recording only available for paid accounts – consider using in combination with OBS if recording is needed
• Users can log in to a single meeting multiple times from the same account; and can log in to multiple meetings from the same account on the same computer too
• There is a checkbox to ‘share original sound’ when sharing a Chrome tab; otherwise sound from presentations is transmitted via computer speakers into the microphone (that is, the sound is rubbish, but this can lead to some interested effects with dropouts)
• Your own image does not appear in the grid in grid view by default (plugins may make this work though)
• You can mute other players as host by clicking on the mute icon on their image. It is pretty quick in its response, making it useable in a performance context.

Grid view

This is a fairly recent addition (during the pandemic) and the grid view does not show the current speaker in the grid. There is an older Grid view plugin which we haven’t tested yet but which apparently has a setting to allow the current user to appear in the grid. It also permits the hiding of participants without video, which is not an available option in Meet otherwise.

Recording

No longer available for free accounts but still available for Business accounts and above

Our experience recording in Google Meet is that it will only record in current-speaker mode, so shows one performer at a time, flipping between performers according to whoever it feels is ‘speaking’ right now (see Interrupted monophony (one voice, interrupted)). This can be awkward if performers are working with purely visual material.
To record on grid view you can use Quicktime screen record or OBS browser/window capture as an alternative, and then edit together with the Meet single person view afterwards as needed.

Presenting with Audio/Computer Sound

Since late April 2020, Google say they have introduced limited audio-presenting capabilities to Meet through the “Share Chrome tab” option and there is a checkbox to do this. This seems OK, however we have not tested it in a performance context, so if you have, please let us know! See this support doc for info on the implementation.

Breakout Rooms

• A few useful features such as randomly assigning players to rooms.
• Could be useful for ordering windows potentially, but needs some testing.
• Breakout rooms seem to require a paid account to be able to set up.

See also:

• Control position of performer windows
• Interrupted monophony (one voice, interrupted)

General features

• Download Zoom from http://zoom.us/
• Free to sign up – 40min limit on videoconferences for groups created by free account holders but free account holders can attend meetings of any duration organised by Pro account holders. Zoom says that one-to-one meetings are unlimited in time for free account holders, but it seems (as of Feb 2021) that this might not be reliable – I have been kicked out of a free 2-person call after 1 hour, so test before you rely on this. Can use the same URL to log back into the call after being kicked out though.
• Recording enabled for all account types, but need to be a meeting owner to start recording. If on a paid account, multiple people can be given recording privileges and may record simultaneously, allowing – for example – for one person to record in grid mode and one to record in active speaker mode, which could then be intercut in a documentation video.
• Possibility of sharing ‘original sound’ – Google ‘set up Zoom for music’ for info on this
• Grid layout includes your own image in the grid
• Waiting room to control order of performers entering the videoconference (controlled by meeting owner)
• Presenter mode (may need permission from meeting owner), allowing for direct sharing of computer sound
• Recording (all account types)
• Livestreaming direct from Zoom (paid versions only). Note that Zoom places a watermark over direct feeds, which can be visually intrusive. There does not seem to be a way to turn this watermark off; however, if you stream through OBS instead of direct from Zoom, this can be bypassed
• Can log in multiple times to a single videoconference, but cannot log into multiple videoconference instances from one account, or launch multiple instances of the Zoom app to enable different logins

Computer sound

‘Computer sound’ is the sounds your computer is playing, shared directly to the videoconference – that is, it doesn’t go out through the computer speakers and then in through the mic, but direct from whatever you’re playing back (video with sound, original audio playing in Quicktime, etc.) straight out to the meeting. This – understandably – gives a much better quality sound. Computer sound is available as a ‘presentation’ feature and can be switched on either in combination with presenting your screen, or as an audio-only presentation.

However, because it’s a feature of presentation mode, this (probably – untested) means that only one person can take advantage of it at a time, so if you’re, say, controlling Logic with an external keyboard, you probably can’t do a duet with someone else doing the same thing using this feature. However, this can be useful when working with sound that can come from a single performer – either live-performed or pre-recorded – in combination with visual material, and possibly microphone work, by other performers.

See also:

• Control position of performer windows
• Interrupted monophony (one voice, interrupted)