While it’s simple enough to close any windows or web browser tabs so you don’t show the public internet your bank account details, sound is trickier, since you are often broadcasting in-game music or a playlist.
One of the most common culprits is Discord notifications, which are often missed when you’re preparing to go live, but which will chirp away for all your viewers to hear. Let’s look at how to mute Discord to avoid this situation.
How to Mute Discord on OBS
There are a few simple ways to mute Discord audio on your stream. The first is to specifically mute notification sounds you don’t want to hear while streaming.
We’ll go over each of these methods so you can find the solution that works best for you.
Method 1: Closing Discord Entirely
The quickest way to mute Discord is also the simplest: close discord entirely.
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Step 1
Look for the Discord icon in the Windows tray.
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Step 2
Right-click on the Discord icon.
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Step 3
Go to Quit Discord.
There are a lot of valid reasons to keep your Discord running, however. Actually, it’s more recommended to leave Discord on instead of completely exiting the app.
Maybe you want live viewers to send you direct messages in certain circumstances. Maybe you’re running a community game and want people to join a Discord channel to play along. Whatever the reason, there are more elegant ways to mute Discord on your stream.
Method 2: Muting Notifications
If you simply want to mute Discord notification sounds in OBS, you can do the following:
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Step 1
Open up Discord if you haven’t already.
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Step 2
In the bottom-left corner, look for your avatar and click the Settings cogwheel to the right of your name.
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Step 3
In the left sidebar, click Notifications.
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Step 4
Scroll down to Sounds and individually uncheck each sound you would like to mute. For example, I just mute Message notifications unilaterally, since they’re by far the most common sound played, and I didn’t want sound notifications on Discord to play even when I wasn’t streaming. To mute Discord only while you’re streaming, you’ll want to use Streamer Mode.
Discord also now lets its users mute all notification sounds in one go. This is a very convenient feature, so you will just have to toggle off one option and all types of notification sounds will be disabled until you turn them on again.
On the same Notifications tab in the Discord user settings, find “Sounds”. Then, toggle on “Disable All Notification Sounds.”
Enabling this will switch off all the notification sounds coming from Discord.
However, not all the annoying sounds that come from Discord are caused by notifications going off. Sometimes, voices can be heard on your stream by accident, especially if you’re playing with your team and you’re communicating with each other on Discord.
To resolve that, try any of the following fixes below.
Method 3: Using Streamer Mode
Streamer Mode is a great tool for when you want to disable a number of Discord features when you’re live but otherwise use the application as you normally would.
By default, Streamer Mode is enabled every time you open OBS Studio while Discord is running. You will usually see this banner every time you run OBS Studio and Discord at the same time:
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Step 1
Open up Discord if you haven’t already.
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Step 2
In the bottom-left corner, look for your avatar and click the Settings cogwheel to the right of your name.
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Step 3
In the left sidebar, click Streamer Mode.
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Step 4
Under the Options section, check any feature you want to apply when you enter Streamer Mode. If you want sounds disabled entirely, make sure the checkmark appears to the right of Disable Sounds.
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Step 5
When you’re ready to go live, be sure to check the Enable Streamer Mode item at the top of the Streamer Mode settings page.
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Step 6
Because you’re using OBS, you can also have Streamer Mode turned on or off automatically when the OBS application is running.
Method 4: Through The OBS Studio Audio Mixer
Another way to mute Discord is through the OBS Audio mixer. This method only takes two simple steps:
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Step 1
In OBS, check the “Audio Mixer” panel for the Discord output.
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Step 2
Once you find it, drag the slider all the way to the left to mute all Discord audio from playing on your OBS. This should allow you to continue to hear your friends without them being broadcasted to your viewers.
Method 5: Adding a Virtual Audio Device
Most of the time, the methods discussed above work effectively when trying to mute Discord on OBS. However, if your viewers still hear anything coming from the Discord app, there’s another solution you can try: adding a virtual audio device.
Virtual Audio Cables are software people use to transmit audio across hardware and apps. With the use of one, you can sort of isolate the audio coming from Discord into the virtual audio cable. From there, you can easily lower the app’s volume on OBS without it possibly affecting the other sounds.
I’d recommend you try this out before going live. Try to do a test live stream first while using this method to see if it works well for you.
There is much software you can try, but the easiest one to use so far is Voicemeeter and it’s also free. So, here’s how:
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Step 1
Install Voicemeeter if you don’t have this software on your PC yet. For this, we’re going to use Voicemeeter Banana since it has more physical and virtual inputs than the classic version. After installation, you need to reboot your computer first to apply changes.
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Step 2
Launch Voicemeeter.
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Step 3
At the top right side, you can find the A1, A2, and A3. Choose A1, then select the main output device you are using.
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Step 4
As you can see, Voicemeeter created two virtual inputs.
Leave that one for now (we’ll return to that later), and open Windows Control Panel.
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Step 5
Select Hardware and Sound > Manage Audio Devices.
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Step 6
Set “Voicemeeter Input” as the default device.
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Step 1
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Step 7
Go back to Discord. Open User Settings > Voice and Video.
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Step 8
Set “Voicemeeter Aux Input” as your default audio device for Discord. By doing this, you can now mute Discord sounds independently without it affecting the other audio which can be necessary for your stream. To check if this worked, switch to Voicemeeter software again. A1 should be enabled under Voicemeeter AUX. Refer to Step 4 to see where Virtual Inputs are located.
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Step 9
Now, we can add Discord to OBS to mute it. Launch the OBS Studio, and select the Scene you want to apply these changes to.
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Step 10
Create a new source by clicking the plus (+) button in the sources dock. Then, choose Audio Output Capture.
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Step 11
Name it “Discord Audio” for easy referencing later on, then click “OK.”
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Step 12
Select “VoiceMeeter Input Aux” as the device and then click “OK.”
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Step 13
On the OBS Audio Mixer, locate “Discord Audio” and then drag the volume level to zero to mute it.
And that’s how to mute Discord on OBS using the virtual audio device! By now, Discord audio shouldn’t interfere with your stream and your broadcast should be going smoothly.
Reasons to Mute Discord on OBS
In the rush to get everything just right before you click that Go Live button, it’s easy to miss a small detail like your Discord notifications. Even though it’s a subtle sound, it can quickly annoy your viewers.
Before I muted my Discord, I had a couple of viewers report they thought their own Discord notifications were going off while watching my stream! So separate yourself from an amateur and get that Discord muted before you go live.
There are also a number of effective ways to use Discord to your advantage, and it often becomes useful to keep Discord running on your streaming machine in order to interact in specific ways with your audience. It’s important to consider which of the three methods above is right for how you stream.
Conclusion
Discord is a popular application for streamers since so many streamer communities are built around it. If you’re interested in starting your own Discord server, head on over to our guide How to Set Up a Discord Server for Twitch.
Matt
Matt lives south of Boston with his wife, his one-eyed dog, and his clown car full of children. He variety streams as MattyPizzaTable on Twitch, sometimes from the public library, so keep it down, will ya?