The general concept is very straightforward: your EVO interface’s Audio Loop-back facility internally routes the main outputs and/or a stereo pair of ‘virtual’ outputs back to the inputs. This enables the audio signal coming out of your Mac, PC, iPhone or iPad as a whole, or individual applications running on it, to be recorded – in parallel with the EVO’s microphone and instrument inputs – onto its own track in any recording application capable of accepting multiple inputs, where it can be subsequently edited and processed.

 

There are numerous scenarios in which Audio Loop-back is useful, such as recording interviews over Zoom or Skype for videos and podcasts (the interviewer on one track, the interviewee on another), and recording voiceovers for tutorials or other screen capture-based videos. Here, we’ll show how to use it for broadcasting and – primarily – recording a game stream for Twitch, YouTube or Facebook Live. To be clear, we’re only going to discuss the Audio Loop-back side of the equation, not the specifics of whatever streaming/recording application you might be using (OBS Studio, Gamecaster, etc), with which we’re assuming you’re already up and running.

 

 

How can Audio Loop-back improve your game streaming?

 

For the live stream itself, your mic input and game audio will likely be automatically summed to a single stereo channel within your streaming application, so there’s no real advantage to be had by routing them to separate channels using Audio Loop-back. You just need to set the input level on your mic (manually or using your EVO interface’s Smart Gain function) so that your voice can be clearly heard over the game audio. In the unlikely case that your application doesn’t cater to two simultaneous audio inputs, however, Audio Loop-back can be deployed to merge your microphone input and game audio into a single stereo signal.

 

More importantly, Audio Loop-back really comes into its own if you’re also recording your stream for upload to YouTube or any other video delivery service later, when the ability to tweak the two soundtracks (game and voice) independently becomes very valuable indeed. Perhaps the voice track could be improved with EQ, compression, de-essing, special effects, etc; or maybe you talked over a passage of game audio that you later decide would be better fully heard – with an isolated voice track, you can move the offending clip out of the way on the timeline, or delete it entirely. Indeed, with the game audio on its own track, there’d be nothing stopping you recording the whole voiceover again if you wanted to!

 

 

How to set up Audio Loop-back for game streaming and recording

 

Routing signals into the Audio Loop-back channel is done in the EVO Loop-back Mixer application. To open it, click the EVO icon in the macOS menu bar or Windows System Tray, and select ‘Show Loop-back Mixer’. In the Mixer, raising the level faders for the Mic inputs, the Main Output and the Loop-back input specifies the amount by which each one is fed to the Loop-back audio bus. The Main Output is the channel on which all the sounds being made within your computer are presented, while the Loop-back input is a virtual port that you can select as the output of any specific application, or – crucially, since very few games will actually let you do that – your entire system.

 

You can just use the Main Outputs as your Loop-back source, but if you do, you’ll need to disable monitoring in your recording software or mute its output while recording, otherwise that monitored output will, of course, also appear at the Main Outputs, causing a feedback loop. This is easily worked around using your EVO interface’s Monitor Mix knob, but nonetheless, it’s better to completely separate the game audio from the microphone input using the Loop-back input option. Here’s how it’s done…

 

 

First, set your default system output to ‘Loop-back 1/2’ in the Windows Control Panel or macOS’ System Preferences, and raise the Loop-back 1/2 fader in the EVO Loop-back Mixer to route the system audio to the Loop-back bus. Alongside your game audio, the output of your streaming software might also default to the system audio setting; but while most games don’t let you specify an audio output, your streaming application certainly will, so set it to ‘Main Output’ in the audio preferences if it isn’t already and you’re good to go. Your game now outputs to ‘Loop-back 1/2’, while your streaming application (and microphone) output to ‘Main Output’.

 

Whichever setup you go for, you’ll be able to record your game and mic signals to their own tracks by setting the input of one track to ‘Loop-back 1/2’ and the other to whichever ‘Mic/Line/Instrument’ input your microphone is plugged into. Be aware that you might also have to set your streaming application up to record to multiple tracks. In OBS, for example, this means activating the required audio tracks in the Output > Advanced > Recording preferences panel, and assigning each input to one or more tracks in the Advanced Audio Properties.

 

And finally, if, as touched on earlier, your streaming platform of choice can only receive a single input, raise both the Mic and Loop-back 1/2 faders to mix them together as a combined signal on the Loop-back bus, which can then be recorded as usual.