Live Stream Your DAW Audio (PC)

Why Route Your DAW Audio Into OBS

If you livestream from a PC, there is a good chance you are relying on whatever audio processing your interface or microphone software gives you by default. That usually means no reverb, no delay, no compression, and no EQ on your voice, and if you bring in a multi track mix for a collaboration or a performance, you are stuck trying to balance everything on the fly with no mixing tools at all.

The fix is to route your audio through your DAW first. Once your microphone or your tracks are passing through Logic Pro, Ableton Live, or whatever DAW you use, you have access to every plugin already sitting in your session. You can add reverb and delay to warm up your voice, use compression to keep your levels consistent, and apply EQ to shape your tone, all before that audio ever reaches OBS. You can also bring multiple musicians or multiple microphones into the same session and mix them properly instead of trying to balance raw, unprocessed inputs inside OBS itself.

On a PC, the easiest free way to make this connection is a plugin called ReStream, made by Reaper. It is part of a free plugin bundle called ReaPlugs, and it lets you send audio out of your DAW and receive it inside OBS with virtually no extra hardware or routing software required.

Downloading and Installing ReStream

Start by downloading the ReaPlugs bundle from Reaper's website. During installation, you will see a list of all the plugins included in the bundle. If you only want ReStream, you can uncheck everything else and install just that one plugin, which keeps things simple if you do not need the rest of the ReaPlugs collection.

Once installed, ReStream will show up in your DAW's plugin list like any other third party plugin, ready to load onto a track.

Setting Up ReStream In Your DAW

This tutorial demonstrates the setup in Ableton Live, but the same steps apply in Logic Pro or any DAW that supports third party plugins. Load the ReStream standalone plugin onto your master bus, since that is where all of your tracks and your microphone will ultimately end up.

Placement matters here. Make sure ReStream is the very last plugin in your master bus chain, loaded after your limiter. That way, the audio OBS receives has already passed through every bit of processing on your master bus, including your final loudness control, instead of catching the signal before it has been fully polished.

Inside the plugin, you will see an identifier field. You can leave this at its default setting, but if you do change it, make a note of what you changed it to, because you will need to match it exactly on the OBS side later. Below that, you will find a toggle for Receive or Send. Since you are sending audio out of your DAW, switch this to Send. Then, from the dropdown list, select Local Broadcast, since you are sending the audio locally within your own computer rather than over a network.

At this point, play some audio through your DAW and confirm you can see signal passing through the ReStream plugin. If you see movement on the meter, your DAW side is set up correctly and you are ready to move over to OBS.

Setting Up OBS To Receive The Audio

In OBS, go to your Sources panel and click the plus button to add a new source. Select Audio Input Capture, and rename it something that makes sense, such as DAW, so you can easily identify it later.

Under the Device dropdown, you want to select an input that is not already being used by anything else in your session. If you have a spare input on your audio interface, select that one and you can skip ahead to the next section, since an unused input needs no further workaround.

The Workaround For When You Have No Spare Inputs

Many home studio setups do not have an extra, unused input sitting around. If your vocal microphone, for example, is already running through input 3 or 4, you can still make this work by effectively creating a silent, clean channel out of an input that is technically in use.

Select that already-in-use input anyway, then right click on your new DAW source and choose Filters. Click the plus button to add a filter and select Gain. Bring that gain fader all the way down. You will likely still see a small amount of signal getting through, so add a second Gain filter the same way and bring that one down as well. Stacking two Gain filters, both pulled fully down, is enough to fully silence whatever was originally coming through that input, giving you a clean, dead channel to work with instead of actual microphone signal.

With that channel now silent, click the plus button one more time and add a VST 2.x Plugin filter. Rename it ReStream so you can keep track of what it is, and under the plugin selection, choose the same ReStream standalone plugin you loaded in your DAW.

Connecting The Two Sides

Open the plugin interface inside OBS and check the identifier field. This needs to match exactly what you left it as on the DAW side, whether that is the default setting or a custom name you chose. Then set this instance to Receive, since OBS is now on the receiving end of the audio your DAW is sending.

Go back to your DAW and press play. If everything is set up correctly, you should start seeing audio levels moving on your DAW source inside OBS, confirming that the two plugins are successfully talking to each other across your computer.

Testing The Connection

Before you go live, run a full test. Play music or speak into your microphone with your DAW running, and watch both the ReStream plugin in your DAW and the DAW audio source in OBS. You should see consistent, matching movement on both sides. If you do not see any signal on the OBS end, double check that your identifier fields match exactly on both plugins, and confirm that the DAW side is set to Send while the OBS side is set to Receive.

Why This Setup Is Worth The Few Minutes It Takes

Once this routing is in place, you are no longer limited to raw, unprocessed audio for your livestreams. Every plugin already living in your DAW, from EQ and compression to reverb and delay, becomes available for your stream without buying any additional hardware or software. If you regularly bring in other musicians, multiple microphones, or backing tracks for live performances, this setup also gives you a real mixing environment to balance everything properly before it reaches your audience, instead of fighting with OBS's limited built in audio tools.

It takes a few minutes to set up the first time, but once ReStream is loaded on your master bus and your OBS filters are configured, you can reuse this same session setup for every future stream.

If you enjoyed the music in this video make sure to check out the great Jimmy Baldwin.