SOLUTION to crackling audio when Streaming (Zoom, OBS, etc.) on Windows 11

[asterion]

I have seen a lot of posts on Reddit, Youtube, and here of people complaining that UAD Interfaces crackles, rattles or distorts when having a meeting trough Zoom or recording/streaming on OBS. There are famous solutions like the ASIO Link Pro and Voicemeeter Banana ones. I dislike them because I found an easier one, and I hope they're as useful to you as it was to me.

1. Download OBS-Asio from Github: This allows direct selection of interface routes to OBS, bypassing the WDM driver that causes crackling.
   • Example: In OBS, create two sources. Name one "VO" (MIC/LINE/HI-Z channel) and the other "DAW" (Virtual 1/2).
2. Download VBCable Driver: Developed by the same creator of Voicemeeter Banana, this creates a Virtual Audio Monitor. It enables routing of OBS audio to Zoom and potentially other meeting programs like Teams.
3. Enable UAD Rec for Audio Processing: If you want to process your audio, make sure to enable UAD Rec. This ensures all your Inserts are printed to OBS and consequently to Zoom.

I personally feel that this method is much more straightforward than routing through unsupported or complex apps. With just OBS, or OBS+Zoom, you're all set. I hope you find this as helpful as I did.

It's frustrating that community members are finding solutions, but not a multi-million company that holds the reputation of being the front-end of Audio technology. Universal Audio has great products, and recently has made great offers with their native plugins discounts. This surely has made their Windows user base to increase exponencially. They need to care about us as much as they do to MacOS users.

LINKS:
Credits to Ronnie Santmyer, Andersama and pvkiet, as well as Jamie Gallagher.
- OBS-Asio Tutorial:

- OBS-Asio installer: (https://github.com/Andersama/obs-asio/releases/tag/v3.2.0
- VBAudio Tutoria:

- VBAudio installer: https://vb-audio.com/Cable/

 

[mattleaf]

My dude, thank you for this man.

I have a UAD Arrow that was giving issues to no end with OBS on my mic channel. I reduced everything in OBS to just the one audio channel to trouble shoot and still I got crackles and pops.

This solved it man, I had to login to say thanks!

big ups

 

[PartTimeGeek]

I have seen a lot of posts on Reddit, Youtube, and here of people complaining that UAD Interfaces crackles, rattles or distorts when having a meeting trough Zoom or recording/streaming on OBS. There are famous solutions like the ASIO Link Pro and Voicemeeter Banana ones. I dislike them because I found an easier one, and I hope they're as useful to you as it was to me.

Hi!

Checked out the videos, this is great stuff.

However, I am curious, if I have no intention of using OBS at all, and just want to route the output of my Apollo monitor out into Zoom without crackling, do I need to have both of these components?

I have not taken a full dive into the rabbit hole of configuring ASIO Link Pro yet for this purpose, which is really ONLY to be able to use Zoom with my producer when I am doing vocal collab ideas and want to show him what I am working on and ask for advice on direction, or even what processing settings to print to "tape" on my vocal on the way into Reaper etc..

I don't need to stream with OBS, just want to use Console and route out to Zoom.

The upside of ASIO Link Pro seemed to be that I don't need two pieces of audio routing software handing off to one another just to be able to send the monitor output of console through to apps that use standard Windows Audio as their inputs and outputs.

Thanks for the post, I will be trying this out if I have no luck with actually fully understanding exactly how to configure ASIO Link Pro so that Windows audio for usual stuff like watching YouTube or any apps with audio output can be easily sent out the Apollo or my PC's line out, or headphone outs etc still works relatively normally, and I can also now route ASIO sources directly into Zoom or Facebook Messenger Calls or Skype or what have you.

What would be REALLY great would be for UA to pull their finger out and actually fix the WDM drivers. There HAS to be a way to fix it.

 

[asterion]

Hi!

Checked out the videos, this is great stuff.

However, I am curious, if I have no intention of using OBS at all, and just want to route the output of my Apollo monitor out into Zoom without crackling, do I need to have both of these components?

I have not taken a full dive into the rabbit hole of configuring ASIO Link Pro yet for this purpose, which is really ONLY to be able to use Zoom with my producer when I am doing vocal collab ideas and want to show him what I am working on and ask for advice on direction, or even what processing settings to print to "tape" on my vocal on the way into Reaper etc..

I don't need to stream with OBS, just want to use Console and route out to Zoom.

The upside of ASIO Link Pro seemed to be that I don't need two pieces of audio routing software handing off to one another just to be able to send the monitor output of console through to apps that use standard Windows Audio as their inputs and outputs.

Thanks for the post, I will be trying this out if I have no luck with actually fully understanding exactly how to configure ASIO Link Pro so that Windows audio for usual stuff like watching YouTube or any apps with audio output can be easily sent out the Apollo or my PC's line out, or headphone outs etc still works relatively normally, and I can also now route ASIO sources directly into Zoom or Facebook Messenger Calls or Skype or what have you.

What would be REALLY great would be for UA to pull their finger out and actually fix the WDM drivers. There HAS to be a way to fix it.

I don't longer use a windows machine other for streaming samples to a mac, buuut if I remember correctly, I needed OBS to be just opened, otherwise the ASIO extension won't work! You don't have to stream or record, just open the app.

 

[Eric L]

More to the point and easier to understand video regarding OBS audio fix

 

[c3r1c]

Instead of VB-Cable (either in a single app scenario, or in combo with OBS) I would use VB-Audio's Matrix Coconut software. It replaces ASIO Link Pro completely (as well as VB-Cable and VB-Cable+OBS), has some additional features as well, a better/cleaner interface and some guides from the devs on how to use it.

 

[Eric L]

Instead of VB-Cable (either in a single app scenario, or in combo with OBS) I would use VB-Audio's Matrix Coconut software. It replaces ASIO Link Pro completely (as well as VB-Cable and VB-Cable+OBS), has some additional features as well, a better/cleaner interface and some guides from the devs on how to use it.

I am using VB-Cable, I just didn't do that in this video. It is still annoying that anyone has to work around the incompatibility issues. Do you have the same name as me? 3r1c looks like Eric lingo

 

[Eric L]

Instead of VB-Cable (either in a single app scenario, or in combo with OBS) I would use VB-Audio's Matrix Coconut software. It replaces ASIO Link Pro completely (as well as VB-Cable and VB-Cable+OBS), has some additional features as well, a better/cleaner interface and some guides from the devs on how to use it.

Ooooh Nice that's some sweet re routing software

 

[Eric L]

OBS Asio with VB cable fix to all programs. VB-Cable is easy to use, some of the others have some fancy routing.