Take control of your video calls: Using OBS & BlackHole to stream mixed media on Zoom & Teams.

Do you wish you could incorporate videos, music, views from multiple cameras in your video calls & webinars? I take a look at how Mac users can blend multiple media sources, sound and video, and send them out through Zoom, Teams, Webex and similar apps.
We look at OBS, virtual cameras, BlackHole, and Multi-output virtual devices.

[@indianajb1953]

An excellent and thorough explanation for setting up OBS with Blackhole to stream apps. The diagrams really helped to visualize the chain.

[@jasonfelice9573]

Finally someone drew a picture that explains it so simply. thankyou. People don't realize that it just makes the explanation so much easier to understand.

[@tea42]

This is one of the best tuts of OBS ever seen. You should do more OBS tuts that would be awesome.

[@MrPuneetpruthi]

You explained it flawlessly sir, like a professor.

[@dennisanthonyy]

Best explanation I'd found so far. Really great job on explaining how things work using the diagram shown. My setup is working fine now. Thank you sir 😆

[@IInSerHolistico]

It's very well explained!! I love it!! Thank you so much for a brilliant explanation!!

[@osythgonsalves2147]

Extremely well done. Agree with Graham Cross below. The best OBS/Zoom/Blackhole presentation I have seen.

[@ProfHarada]

Thank you for sharing the video on OBS and BlackHole. I spent many hours searching for the answer. Your explanation was clear and easy to understand. Your chart was especially helpful.

[@tombotzero6253]

Great video. Starting a new IT/AV job at a university soon and this technique will be a handy tool.

[@roach_iam]

This video is AMAZING! I was doing a similar setup and I was sad that I wasn't able to hear what I was outputting. The Multi-output device part saved the day. Thank you!

[@analux7970]

I keep hearing echo of my own voice, do you?

[@roach_iam]

@@analux7970 never experience that

[@ghostfrom1950]

This is quite possbily the most nicely paced and thorough walk through I have seen for this on YT thus far!! Could you give configuration advice on setting this up but so that I am not monitoring my mic signal through OBS or whatever, yet it can still route to Zoom? PC audio is fine for monitoring (since I'll like not try to speak over it when playing) but hearing myself talk LIVE is quite distracting (without a separate monitor mix for myself), yet still crucial to have microphone signal to feed into Zoom.

[@grahamcross9629]

Really great video and indeed eloquently and gently explained. I was literally making the same sketch and trying to get the settings right when I found the video so thanks !. As a further note when I did this using Blackhole 16c I got unpleasant reverb or maybe echo in the audio. I had also installed the VB cable equivalent and when I connected that in the same way there was no such distortion.

[@CTL_28]

Thank you so much!! I've been looking for a solution to this problem and your video was easy to follow and it worked!

[@richardwalker_]

Hugely informative and very clear; thank you... I have been looking for the solution you have described! The helpful diagram was a bonus.

[@sirqueira]

Thanks for the video. Save me.

[@mahimeditation]

Amazing, thank you so much!

[@Akoroush]

EXCELLENT video, thank you very much.

[@defenddemocracyinbrazilcom5560]

Really useful! thank you

[@wolandmargarita]

Very helpful. Thank you.

[@danagoldstein7648]

Thank you for this helpful video.

[@keithmclean3151]

Amazing! I have spent hours trying to figure out OBS audio workflow (logic). I have found the OBS approach to sound quite none standard (and I work in sound!) The penny dropped when you mentioned virtual camera audio is only possible in the monitoring selection. So you effectively have to split the monitoring o/p to monitor and transmit. You are probably aware that there is now an audio monitor plugin for OBS. It appears when a filter is appointed to any clip or audio source. It's effectively an audio distribution amplifier (DA). Brilliant presentation :-)

[@quentinsf]

Thanks Keith - glad you like it! Yes, I need to look at the monitor plugin!

[@Andys23782]

Superb, thank you.

[@elvinthomasgeorge2909]

Explained very well

[@KazakovNikola]

Thx, very clearly.

[@thomasbultmann6326]

Hello Quentin, thanks a lot for this fantastic video! Watching your video it was for me the first time I really understood how OBS, ZOOM and Blackhole work together. So hopefully I installed the 2 channel version of Blackhole and created several scenes in OBS with microphone, media sources, VLC sources and URL's, every scene just containing two audio sources. But when I connected my OBS profile to ZOOM - it doesn't work properly. Sometimes the microphone didn't work, and the sound quality of all sources in ZOOM was bad. After installing the Audio Monitor plugin (if you do this, don't forget to set the Audio Monitor filter to "Blackhole" for every audio source) and found the reason for the bad functioning of the 2 channel BH version: OBS creates a lot of channels when installing microphones, media, VLC, URL sources. Although I used only 2 audio sources in every scene, the others seem to work somehow in the background, causing a lot of trouble. After deinstalling the 2 channel version, installing the 16 channel version and correcting all the OBS and MIDI settings now OBS, ZOOM and BH work together properly.

[@quentinsf]

Hi Thomas - many thanks for this! I have occasionally had background sources playing when I didn't expect them, so perhaps this was the reason!

[@analux7970]

Excellent video, but I keep hearing my own voice through my headset, I follow all the steps, not sure what can I do?

[@fantastisch_nieuws]

This video is very explanatory! Perhaps I am missing something but because my mic also goes to obs, it is transferred to the multi output and because of that I hear myself... How did you (or anyone) solve this? Did I miss something?

[@ProfHarada]

Could you show your settings for the below? I would appreciate it. OBS > Setting > Audio Desktop Audio Desktop Audio 2 Mic/Auxiliary Audio Mic/Auxiliary Audio2 Monitoring Device

[@quentinsf]

Hi there - see 16:07. Only the monitoring device really affects this process, though.

[@ProfHarada]

@@quentinsf Thank you for your reply.

[@derekchung7929]

@@quentinsf I did the same setup with Monitoring and Capture. The desktop audio streams clearly on the recipients computer, but the moment I use my mic for a voice over, I can hear an echo on the recipient computer. Wondering what did I do wrong?

[@RezaPratamaR]

Sir thanks for the explanation i have one question how to capture the audio from zoom to obs? because i want to conduct a seminar that involving zoom meeting and youtube live streaming i want to capture the participants from zoom, display it on obs so that people in the room can watch. and also want to stream it online to youtube thanks in advance

[@quentinsf]

I suspect that's possible using another 'virtual cable' as the output device for Zoom and feeding it back to OBS... but.... you'd need to be very careful that none of *that* audio was fed back to Zoom again, or you'd get some nasty feedback or echoes! I expect it can be done, but it's almost certainly easier to use Zoom to record the seminar, if the quality's good enough, and you can stream from Zoom to KZbin (though I think you may need to pay for webinar mode for that). And remember that my video is about sending video TO zoom, not capturing video FROM zoom, which I think could only be done using a screen capture...

[@jtreg]

Excellent, clear and 100% useful, thank you. - Thank goodness no screaming American ("whaaaatsupguys...") 🙄

[@CFMRocks]

Wow super cool video of you out in the ferry ⛴. Ps. Best OBS for Mac instructional video. Thanks

[@rizzo-films]

There are a couple things throwing me off... in your Midi setup you still had BlackHole designated as the input AND the output. So where does your multi-output source come into play if the OS is still directing all audio through BlackHole? When I used these settings I can't hear a thing, yet I can see that OBS and Zoom are receiving the audio. Also, under audio settings in OBS, you had everything under global audio devices disabled. I'm guessing this works for your particular setup but when I leave those disabled, OBS is receiving no input sources except for the video I am trying to stream. I'm using an audio interface to power my mic and send sound to my studio monitors. I suppose that is where my setup differs from yours and where my issue is happening. Thanks!

[@quentinsf]

Hi Anthony - In general, I think, the midi setup is about changing the configuration and characteristics of audio devices rather than assigning them particular inputs or outputs. Blackhole is listed there, and it has input and output sections that you can configure, but it isn't actually set up as an input or output for anything there: that's done in OBS and Zoom: it's set to be the output for OBS and the input for Zoom. Also, I don't use any global devices; I have my microphone set up individually as an audio input in the scenes. Actually, now, I normally create a scene with my basic camera and mic setup, and then include that scene in all my other scenes, Hope that helps a bit.

[@MrGaluzzi]

HI Sir, I watched your hole video, and kind off hoping to see a fix for Teams, as I am using that, as it was described in your YT-title. anyway ,could you help me on that problem I face today with windows and not the mac?

[@quentinsf]

Ah, sorry - I haven’t used Windows in this millennium, so I wouldn’t be much help!

[@tommyscott99]

This is a great tutorial, thank you. I have a frustrating problem though. When I click start virtual camera and I have to put in my password, it doesn't start. I have tried uninstalling and reinstalling obs and restarting my computer. I don't know what else to try!!

[@quentinsf]

That sounds like a question for the 'Mac Support' area of the OBS forum!

[@tommyscott99]

@@quentinsf Thanks Quentin

[@warren19721]

Hey hi I have done every step and the sound seem not to work i have The virtual audio cables i also have a paid copy of loopback but i can not get it working would you be will to help with a video call please Craig

[@quentinsf]

Hi Craig - yes, could do, though it couldn't be for at least a week, I'm afraid. Contact me as @quentinsf if you still have trouble then.

[@warren19721]

@@quentinsf thank you but i need to sort it out for the weekend

[@fsadykov]

Wait where do you record the sessions? I am not able to hear people from zoom in my recordings in OBS studio recordings

[@quentinsf]

What about recording from Zoom?

[@fsadykov]

@@quentinsf I would love to use zoom for recording but the quality for recording its bad

[@quentinsf]

@@fsadykov Yes, understood. OK, well, the layout in the diagram won't allow you to record audio locally this way, because nothing is processing the audio that comes back from Zoom. You probably could set up the audio output from Zoom to point at another instance of Blackhole, or some other virtual audio cable like the one from VB-Audio, and if you were very clever you could pipe that back into OBS and configure it appropriately, but you'd really have to watch out for feedback loops; it would be hard not to create them! I think what I'd try and do would be to send the audio from Zoom off to a separate bit of recording software, like Audacity or Reaper, and it could record it, either along with the audio from OBS, or I would edit the two back together afterwards. I've never actually tried this, though! The best quality, of course, would be if you can get the person at the other end to do their own local recording and then send you the file for editing in afterwards!

[@warren19721]

Hi are you on twitter I would like to ask a question