OBS cheatsheetEdit

Created , updated

Just making some notes for this stuff because I find it tremendously fiddly and sensitive.

Topics covered:

  • Bluetooth.
  • USB.
  • OBS: OBS itself (screencasting software).
  • Audacious: For playing background music.
  • screenkey: For showing keypresses.
  • irssi: For showing Twitch chat.
  • VLC: For checking recordings.

Overview:

  1. Make sure passphrase is already in ssh-agent, to avoid having to type passphrase on stream: ssh-add.
  2. Bump font size in kitty (Control-Shift-+ x 5).
  3. Ensure Bluetooth is running and headphones are connected.
  4. Ensure virtual sink is running. (This is now happening automatically.)
  5. Open Audacious, pavucontrol, and OBS (last).
  6. If webcam isn’t working (sigh), unplug it and replug it; you may have to remove and re-add the video source in OBS. And if you lose the keyboard and have to disconnect it, it may come back without Colemak, so be ready to run arst/asdf to put it back.

Bluetooth

$ systemctl start bluetooth # if `systemctl status bluetooth` not already "active (running)"
$ bluetoothctl
[bluetooth]# power on
[bluetooth]# connect 14:3F:A6:2C:8E:98
[bluetooth]# quit
  • If sound quality is ever bad and Audacious shows the headset as being stuck on a low-quality codec (like SBC instead of AAC), you may need to systemctl restart bluetooth and/or turn the headphones on and off.
  • If no sound at all is coming out of the headset despite everything else seeming to be correct, try switching codecs away from AAC and back.
  • For more Bluetooth troubleshooting hints, see Arch Linux cheatsheet.

USB

If the keyboard spontaneously disconnects after telling OBS to use the webcam as a source, you’re probably out of luck. I haven’t found a solution for this yet. Unplugging the keyboard and plugging it in again doesn’t work; toggling the USB hub back and forth does bring the keyboard back, but causes OBS to drop the webcam.

OBS

Audio Mixer

  • Audacious
    • Filters:
      • Duckety "Ducking" McDuckface
        • Ratio: 12.00:1
        • Threshold: -35.00 dB (the correct value is very sensitive to the noise level in the environment: the louder I am, the closer I can get to zero; as I and the environment get quieter, I have to drop further into negative territory).
        • Attack: 6 ms
        • Release: 1000 ms
        • Output Gain: 0.00 dB
        • Sidechain/Ducking source: Mic/Aux
  • Mic/Aux
    • Filters:
      • Limiter
        • Threshold: -9.00 dB
        • Release: 60 ms
  • Advanced Audio Properties
    • Audacious:
      • Volume: -15.0 dB
      • Audio Monitoring: Monitor and Output
    • Mic/Aux:
      • Volume: 0.0 dB
      • Audio Monitoring: Monitor Off (I used to monitor this, but the lag messes with your brain)

Scenes

  • "Paused"
    • Sources:
      • Audacious
      • Text
      • Image
  • "Casting"
    • Sources:
      • Audacious
      • Video Capture Device (V4L2)
      • Screen Capture
        • Screen DisplayPort-1 (3840x2160 @ 0,0)
        • Capture Cursor

Note: can use the same "Audacious" source in both scenes using "Copy" and "Paste (reference)"

Settings

General

  • Output:
    • Automatically record when streaming.
    • Keep recording when stream stops.

Stream

  • Service: Twitch
  • Server: Auto (Recommended)
  • Stream Key: $TEH_SECRET_KEY
  • Maximum Video Bitrate: 6000 kbps
  • Maximum Audio Bitrate: 320 kbps

Output

  • Output Mode: Simple
    • Streaming
      • Video Bitrate: 6000 Kbps
      • Encoder: Software (x264)
      • Audio Bitrate: 160
    • Recording
      • Recording Quality: Same as stream
      • Recording Format: mkv
  • Output Mode: Advanced
    • Streaming
      • Rate Control: CBR
      • Bitrate: 6000 Kbps
      • CPU Usage Preset (higher = less CPU): medium

Audio

  • General
    • Sample Rate: 48 kHz
    • Channels: Stereo
  • Global Audio Devices
    • Mic/Auxiliary Audio: Blue Microphones Analog Stereo
  • Advanced:
    • Monitoring Device: Monitor of WH-1000XM4

One thing to note: I was getting low latency monitoring with this set-up, but as soon as I recorded a test video, latency spiked and didn’t go down again until I changed the monitoring device setting to something else and then back again.

Video

  • Base (Canvas) Resolution: 3840x2160
  • Output (Scaled) Resolution: 1920x1080
  • Downscale Filter: Bilinear (Fastest, but blurry if scaling)
  • Common FPS Values: 30

Hotkeys

  • Casting
    • Switch to scene: Control + Print
  • Paused
    • Switch to scene: Control + Pause
  • Mic/Aux
    • Mute: Control + Pause
    • Unmute: Control + Print

Audacious

  • Output
    • Audio Settings…
      • Audio
        • Output Settings
          • Output plugin: PulseAudio Output

pavucontrol

Check if the virtual sink is operating (although as of 1c77db558aa9a817b5 it should persist across reboots):

pactl list | grep sink_name=Music

If not, create it:

pactl load-module module-null-sink sink_name=Music
  • Playback
    • System sounds: 100%
    • Audacious: 100% - Music Audio/Sink sink (ie. the virtual sink)
    • OBS-Monitor: Mic/Aux on, 100% - WH-1000XM4; actually, this should be off otherwise the lag scrambles your brain.
    • OBS-Monitor: Audacious on, 100% - WH-1000XM4; if everything is working, you will hear the ducking of the music when you talk, even though you don’t hear your own voice.
  • Recording
    • OBS: Mic/Aux 100% from: Blue Microphones Analog Stereo
    • OBS: Audacious 100% from: Monitor of Music Audio/Sink sink
  • Output Devices
    • Everything 100%
  • Input Devices
    • Everything 100%
  • Configuration
    • Everything default; eg.
      • WH-1000XM4
        • High Fidelity Playback (A2DP Sink, codec AAC)
      • Blue Microphones
        • Profile: Analog Stereo Duplex

Note the extreme sketchiness of the "Unknown input" above, but it seems to be the only way to get all of this stuff plus the monitoring working acceptably. ("Acceptably" is a relative term; the longer my recordings go, the higher the latency of the monitoring seems to creep.)

screenkey

Starting

  1. Hit Command/Super+Space to bring up dmenu launcher.
  2. Type screenkey and hit enter.

Configuring

Config file lives at ~/.config/screenkey.json (current main contents, 2022-02-21 snapshot). Can get to preferences GUi from system tray icon, or by running screenkey --show-settings.

Manipulating i3-gaps to fit screenkey

Given the screenkey.json I currently have committed to my dot-files, I need to use an outer bottom gap of 70 to stop screenkey from overlapping with my terminal (and other) windows.

This does this trick:

i3-msg gaps bottom all set 70

As a convenience, I made a gaps function (source) that I can use to toggle this; example usage:

gaps on
gaps off
gaps 100

How to turn off/on screenkey before/after entering passwords or other sensitive info

Hold Command/Super to reveal i3 task bar, then right-click screenkey icon in system tray and toggle the "Show keys" option.

Troubleshooting

I install screenkey by default, but it has on occasion stopped working for me with:

ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'dbus'

Uninstalling and reinstalling did not fix it:

yay -R screenkey
yay -S screenkey

But this did:

pip install dbus-python

irssi

After initial set-up (see notes in Arch Linux cheatsheet), basic usage:

  1. Run irssi in a tmux pane; this can be in the background if you want — new messages will cause tmux to show the pane as having received activity, and if they don’t, you can try this[1]:
    • /set beep_when_window_active ON
    • /set beep_msg_level PUBLIC
  2. /connect Twitch.
  3. /join #greghurrell.
  4. When you’re done, /quit or /exit.

VLC

You can set VLC audio output to go straight to the headphones (in pavucontrol) so that you can review recordings with all of the above set-up still in place.

  1. In theory I only have to do this once because after doing it I ran /save, but, you never know. ↩︎