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Suffer From Audio Sync Issues in Obs? Here’s How to Fix ‘Em!

One of the most common issues that streamers will run into is that their audio would, over time, get out of sync with the rest of the stream. For example, your microphone audio might match up with your lips at first, but there is a noticeable offset from the video an hour into a stream. Luckily, these audio sync issues in OBS are usually caused by a sample rate mismatch.

Your first thought might be to adjust the audio sync in the advanced audio properties, but that isn’t really what you need to do, nor should you do. That option manages the latency added from capture cards to keep your webcam, microphone, and capture source in sync, so you don’t react before the screen shows what actually happened to cause that reaction.

Instead, you’ll want to direct your attention to the sample rate in OBS Studio and take note of that number.

Fixing Audio Sync Issues in OBS for Windows 10 1903+


The trick to solving this problem is to ensure that every single sound device on your system is set to 48 kHz, or 44.1 kHz, which are the two sample rates that OBS Studio supports.

  1. Click on settings in OBS Studio

    This may work for forks of OBS Studio as well, such as Streamlabs OBS and OBS live. I have not tested them myself yet, though, so I cannot offer any guarantees.

    Select Settings in OBS Studio

  2. Click on Audio to bring up the Audio Settings window

    You first need to access audio settings to figure out what sample rate you’ll need to adjust your sources to match.

    Select audio in the settings window

  3. Observe your selected sample rate

    You may have to adjust this value to 44.1 kHz if you have an ancient audio device attached. Otherwise, it is safe to leave at 48 kHz. Ignore my channels. Yours should be set to Stereo unless you have OBS ASIO and know what you are doing.

    Sample Rate should be 48 KHz if possible

  4. Open up your Sound Settings window in Windows 10

    The easiest way for you is to type in “sound settings” in the search bar within the taskbar. Unfortunately, you cannot navigate directly to where we need to go anymore.

    Windows 10 sound settings in search bar

  5. Select Sound Control Panel

    This next step will allow you to access the good ol’ Sound properties window that isn’t fully implemented into windows 10 1903+ just yet.

    Sound Control panel access from the Sound settings window in Windows 10

  6. Select Properties

    Fixing audio sync issues in OBS using the good ol' playback/recording window from older versions of Windows

    If you have played with sound settings in the past, this window may look familiar. Microsoft is phasing this window out of existence in favor of their new unified settings window, which you were just in. However, the setting we need to change is currently only accessible from the old interface.

  7. Select the “Advanced” tab and ensure all devices are set to the same sample rate that you set in Step 3

    The “Bit” depth does not matter very much to sync your audio. Just select the highest variant of Hz that matches your OBS sample rate setting.

    Select Advanced Tab, and swap sample Rate to match OBS's settings

  8. Repeat Steps 6 & 7 for every single audio device you have in your list.

    It may be tempting to set your setting to something higher than 48 kHz, but you will desync if you do.


Don’t see 48Khz on a device? Switch All of them to 44.1!

Sometimes, you may encounter an older device that does not support 48 kHz. You will need to set every single device and OBS’s sample rate to 44.1 kHz in this situation.

This will ensure backward compatibility with the older device, which should support 44.1 at the very least. The difference between 44.1 and 48 isn’t that different; you’ll only lose a tiny bit of audio detail, really.

Setting the sample rate in other Operating systems

If you know how to get to the sound properties of your devices on your OS, this process is more or less the exact same. The goal is to match the sample rates so that everything will remain in sync for the entire duration of your live stream or recording.

Older versions of Windows

Older versions of windows may skip Steps 4 and 5, and right-click on the speaker icon located on the right side of their taskbar, and select “Sound,” or “Properties,” or “Playback options.” I forget exactly what it says, it’s been a hot minute since using a Windows version with this shortcut, but you’ll find it easily enough. From there, the process is the exact same.

How to set the sample rate on Macs

If you’re using a mac, you can change the sample rate by following this guide. I cannot confirm if this works, though, as I do not have access to a mac to test this myself. You may need to do some additional research on this subject.

Sample rate settings in Linux

This is a complicated subject, as there are so many separate distros for Linux available. I did manage to find an article to help you along the way with this, though; let me know if this works for you!

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