OBS Studio & Stream Setup

Sync your live streaming visuals to your audio feed. Learn how to route your OBS Studio audio mix directly into Echolume on macOS and capture the resulting rendering output.

Requirements

Step-by-step setup guide

Why use BlackHole? macOS does not natively support system output audio capture. BlackHole creates a virtual bridge that routes audio between applications with zero latency.

1. Set up audio monitoring in OBS

  1. Open OBS Studio and navigate to Settings → Audio.
  2. Under the Advanced section, find the Monitoring Device dropdown.
  3. Select BlackHole 2ch as the monitoring device and click Apply.

2. Enable monitoring on your target audio tracks

  1. In the OBS main interface, right-click anywhere in the Audio Mixer card.
  2. Select Advanced Audio Properties.
  3. Locate the audio sources you want to drive the visuals (e.g., microphone feed, desktop music, game capture).
  4. Change their Audio Monitoring state from *Monitor Off* to Monitor and Output.

This setting instructs OBS to broadcast the audio to your stream output *and* replicate it to BlackHole so Echolume can capture it.

3. Select BlackHole inside Echolume

  1. Launch Echolume.
  2. In the Audio input settings, select BlackHole 2ch from the dropdown menu.
  3. Play audio in OBS and check that Echolume's visual level meter registers signals.
  4. Adjust presets or abstraction parameters, and click Ready.

Capturing Echolume inside OBS

Once Echolume is rendering visuals, you need to import its screen output back into OBS to show it on stream:

Method A: Window Capture (Single display setups)

Use this method if you are running Echolume in a standard desktop window.

  1. In OBS, click the + icon in the Sources dock and select Window Capture.
  2. Name the source (e.g., "Echolume Visualizer").
  3. In the properties, select [echolume] Echolume from the Window dropdown.
  4. Press OK. Crop or adjust the size to overlay your screen layout.

Method B: Display Capture (External monitor or projector sets)

Highly recommended for VJ performance and high-performance streams.

  1. Connect an external display to your Mac.
  2. In Echolume's Setup panel, select the external display from the Output Display list.
  3. Click Ready to project Echolume fullscreen onto the external monitor.
  4. In OBS, add a Display Capture source, and select the external monitor as the target.

Frequently Asked Questions

I can't hear stream audio in my headphones anymore
Because OBS is routing monitoring audio to BlackHole, your headphones are bypassed. To hear the stream output, open Audio MIDI Setup on macOS, click the + button in the bottom left, and create a Multi-Output Device. Check both your headphones (or audio interface) and BlackHole 2ch. Then, in OBS Settings → Audio, select this Multi-Output Device as your Monitoring Device.
Is there a delay between stream audio and Echolume visuals?
No. Virtual loopback drivers like BlackHole run inside the macOS kernel and have zero latency. If you notice a delay, it is likely GPU throttling. Close unused background software to free up rendering cycles.
My viewer commands are not affecting the visuals
To enable viewer interaction, make sure you configure your channel username under the Twitch chat tab in Setup and toggle the connection to active. Refer to the Twitch integration guide.