If you use OBS Studio or some other app to record your gameplay while also chatting on Discord, you may have discovered that you can’t exactly separate the Discord audio from your gameplay audio. That’s because, by default, they’re all using the same channel. The only way to fix this is by using a third-party app that can separate those audio sources from each other. I did a tutorial last year where we used VB-Audio VoiceMeeter Banana for that. If you’re using a SteelSeries headset, there’s an even simpler solution using the SteelSeries GG software and Sonar.

First up, you’ll need to set up your SteelSeries GG software with Sonar. If you go to settings in the SteelSeries GG app, head to the General section and there you’ll see a toggle to Activate or Deactivate Sonar application.

Once you enable that, you’ll see the Sonar section on the left pane that you can now click on. From here, you’ll see a Mixar tab with the Game, Chat, and Microphone settings you’ll have to mess with. For the Game and Chat playback selection, just choose the headset that you’re currently using. For Microphone, also choose your headset or whatever microphone you’re using. That’s pretty much all you have to play with on the SteelSeries GG app.

Now head on over to Discord. Under the “User Settings”, go to the section marked “Voice & Video”. Input settings should be “SteelSeries Sonar – Microphone”. The output setting would be “SteelSeries Sonar – Chat”.

Now comes OBS Studio which will require some bit of work. Go to the Scene you’re using and under the Source box, create a new source called “Discord”. Here, you want to set the Device up as “SteelSeries Sonar – Chat (SteelSeries Sonar Virtual Audio Device)”. You’ll now see it in the Audio Mixer box. You shouldn’t need to mess with the “Mic/AUX” one, but just in case, make sure it’s pointed to “Default” or “SteelSeries Sonar – Microphone”. Lastly, set your Desktop Audio device to be “Default”.

Lastly, you’ll want to set your desktop audio in the taskbar to be “SteelSeries Sonar – Gaming (SteelSeries Sonar Virtual Audio Device)” if it isn’t already.

And that’s pretty much it. Basically when you’re ready to record, just head to OBS Studio and you can just mute or lower the volume in the Discord source and/or Mic source. That leaves the game audio on and won’t mess with that while you’re free to enable or disable Discord audio from your recording, but you’ll still be able to hear your party in your headphones.

That’s my new setup since SteelSeries Sonar is out of Beta now and I’m using their new SteelSeries Arctis Nova Pro Wireless. This streamlines my setup now where I no longer need to open a separate app for this to work.