Hi, we are trying to get our audio levels balanced properly and seeing a discrepancy between both metering levels and LUFS-I when comparing what is shown in FMOD Studio while connected to the running game and what is shown in OBS metering and subsequent LUFS analysis.
In one instance, LUFS-I was about 3 units louder in the captured audio vs FMOD Studio.
In this screenshot you can see how metering in FMOD Studio is around -30 dB, while metering in OBS is around -18 dB. I’ve checked all of my system settings and cannot find anything that would be boosting the signal. My teammate is seeing similar results on his machine.
What might be the cause of this?
This is with Unreal 5.6 and FMOD 2.03.13 running a Steam Windows build.
Hi!
It’s difficult to know what exactly is the cause of the discrepancy, but it’s likely that the OBS’ metering isn’t using the same scale or measurement. OBS’ metering is slightly different from Studio’s. While Studio has peak as the horizontal line above the filled in RMS bar, OBS has 3 elements: the horizontal line is the maximum level reached, the filled in bar is the peak, and the black line on the filled-in bar is the RMS measurement. From what I can see in your screenshot, Studio’s metering looks about in line with OBS, though I can’t account for 5.1 being summed to Stereo, or for LUFS measurements since there isn’t one for OBS in the picture.
You can see more on OBS’ audio metering here: Audio Mixer Technical Details | OBS
Otherwise, there’s a few other things that could be contributing:
- Studio is metering in 5.1, while OBS appears to be metering in Stereo. You may get more a accurate comparison if you change Studio’s format before the loudness meter
- If the FMOD system’s output level is too loud and FMOD_INIT_CLIP_OUTPUT isn’t enabled, the output signal will be attenuated (unlikely to be the issue, based on your picture)
- There may be some attenutation coming from the OS’ audio driver that isn’t being accounted for
