Splitting Twitch Audio via OBS Without a Mixer (Updated)

Revised version for clarity and accuracy

I’ve had a few people ask about splitting audio: how to do it, why you’d want to, and which way is best. This guide covers splitting audio inside OBS when you don’t have a hardware mixer, using OBS’s per-application audio capture. If you use a GoXLR or another mixer, see my other post, Splitting Audio with a GoXLR or Other Mixer (Updated).

Screenshots are from OBS Studio on Windows. Menus may look slightly different in your version.

In short:

• Want music out of your Twitch VODs? Do Part 1 (Steps 1–4).
• Want separate audio tracks for editing videos later? Do Part 1, then Part 2 (Steps 5–7).

Why split audio?

• Keep music out of your VODs. You can play music live without it ending up in the recording Twitch saves.
• Remove or lower alerts in videos you edit later, like YouTube uploads.
• Balance your voice against game audio, Discord and music when editing, so you’re always clearly heard.

One thing to keep in mind: splitting audio keeps music out of the VOD, but it doesn’t change what plays live. Any music you play on stream still has to follow Twitch’s music guidelines.

Before you start

• Back up your OBS settings. Use Profile → Export and Scene Collection → Export so you can roll back if something goes wrong. You’re following these steps at your own risk, and I can’t promise they’ll work perfectly with every setup.
• You can’t split audio from old VODs. Twitch saves your stream with a single mixed audio track, so downloading a VOD won’t give you anything you can separate later. This only works for streams going forward.

How OBS audio tracks work

OBS has six audio tracks. Each audio source (your mic, game, Discord, music and so on) can be sent to any combination of them. You then choose which track goes live, which goes to the Twitch VOD, and which ones get saved in your recordings. This is the layout I use:

Track	Used for	What goes on it
1	Live stream	Everything
2	Twitch VOD	Everything except music
3	Recording: main audio	Your must-haves, usually mic and game
4–6	Recording: extras	Your choice, e.g. alerts, Discord or music on their own tracks

Part 1: Keep music out of your Twitch VODs

Step 1: Turn on the Twitch VOD track

1. Open Settings → Output.
2. Set Output Mode to Advanced.
3. On the Streaming tab, set Audio Track to 1. This is what your viewers hear live.
4. Check Twitch VOD Track and select 2. This is what Twitch saves in your VOD.
5. Click OK.

The Twitch VOD Track option only appears when your stream service is set to Twitch.

Step 2: Add your game audio

If you play and stream on the same PC, Game Capture is the best source for your game. Add one and check Capture Audio (BETA). That gives you the game’s audio as its own source, separate from everything else on your PC.

The default mode is Capture any fullscreen application. You can also capture a specific window or whatever window is in the foreground. Some games work better with one mode than another, so experiment. If you use a capture card or a two-PC setup, use that source instead.

Step 3: Add Discord, music and alerts as their own sources

Discord: In Sources, click + and choose Application Audio Capture (BETA). Name it something obvious like Discord. Pick the Discord window, then set Window Match Priority to Match title, otherwise find window of same executable. That way it keeps capturing when you switch channels and the window title changes.

Music: Do the same for your music app and name the source Music. Spotify, Amazon Music, Pandora, whatever you use. Use the same match priority, because many music apps change their window title with every song. A desktop app works better than a browser tab, since capturing the browser picks up audio from every tab you have open.

Alerts: Add your StreamElements (or other) alert browser sources and any bots that play sounds. In each browser source, check Control audio via OBS so it shows up in the Audio Mixer and can be assigned to tracks.

Application Audio Capture is Windows-only.

Step 4: Take music off the VOD track

1. Open Advanced Audio Properties, either from the gear icon in the Audio Mixer or from Edit → Advanced Audio Properties.
2. Uncheck Active Sources Only in the bottom left. Otherwise you’ll only see sources in the scene you’re on, and your music source might not be listed.
3. Find your Music source and uncheck Track 2. Leave Track 1 checked.

That’s it for Part 1. Your music still plays on the live stream through Track 1, but Twitch stores Track 2 in your VOD, and Track 2 has no music.

Part 2: Separate tracks for editing

If you want more than music-free VODs, for example to edit streams into YouTube videos, you need to record locally with OBS while you stream. Twitch only keeps one track, so the separate tracks have to come from your own recording.

Check your drive space first. Recordings get big. File size depends mostly on your recording bitrate. My last 22-minute recording was just over 1 GB, which works out to about 3 GB per hour, and higher-quality settings can use several times that. If you plan to record several streams and edit them together, make sure you have plenty of room.

Step 5: Assign your sources to Tracks 3–6

1. Back in Advanced Audio Properties, uncheck everything in Tracks 3, 4, 5 and 6 so they start empty. Leave Tracks 1 and 2 as you set them in Part 1.
2. On Track 3, check the sources you’d always want in a video. For gaming, that’s usually your mic and game audio. For Just Chatting, make sure your mic is there.
3. Use Tracks 4–6 for anything you want to control separately while editing. For example, put all your alerts on one track so you can keep them in some spots, cut them in others, or turn them down if they’re louder than your voice.

Step 6: Turn on all six tracks for recording

This step is easy to miss. Without it, your recording only has Track 1 and all your splitting is lost.

1. Open Settings → Output and go to the Recording tab.
2. Check Audio Track 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6.
3. Set Recording Format to MKV. MKV keeps all the audio tracks, and if OBS or your PC crashes mid-stream you keep everything recorded up to that point.

If your editor needs MP4, use File → Remux Recordings in OBS to convert the MKV afterward. It’s quick and doesn’t lose quality.

Step 7: Edit with separate tracks

Now when you stream and record at the same time, you get a video file with six audio tracks. Open it in your editor (I use DaVinci Resolve) and you’ll see each track separately.

Tracks 1 and 2 are your live and VOD mixes, so you can usually mute or delete them right away. That leaves Tracks 3–6, which you can adjust, cut or delete however suits the video.

Wrapping up

This is the setup I use. There are other ways to do it, including newer AI-based editing tools that can separate audio after the fact, but this one is free and reliable. Other streaming software probably works in a similar way, but I’ve only used OBS, so I can’t say for sure. I hope this helps!

This post updated with AI and reviewed by the author