Why the commentary sounds doubled or echoed in a recording.

Doubled, echoed, or just repeated?

Three different things get reported as “he echoes”. Only two of them are audio problems, and the recording tells you which one you have before you touch a setting.

So the first test costs nothing: play the recording with the game loud and listen to a sound effect you know is single, a menu click or a gunshot. If that doubles, the path doubles everything and the Broker is just the most noticeable passenger. If only his voice doubles, one of the paths carries only him.

How one voice becomes two

Every audio source in OBS is a tap on something: a playback device (Desktop Audio), a capture device (Mic/Aux) or one application. The Broker speaks through your Windows default output device, so OBS Desktop Audio captures him together with the game. Two taps on the same sound give two copies. A tap whose output is also played back into a device that is tapped gives a loop, and a loop arrives late, which is the echo.

The loop above is the most common echo with the Broker, because the only way to hear his line through OBS is monitoring, and the natural choice of monitoring device is the one you already listen on, which is the one Desktop Audio captures.

The checklist

1. 01Settings → Audio: one desktop device.

   OBS can capture up to two desktop audio devices. If Desktop Audio and Desktop Audio 2 name the same device, everything is captured twice. Set the second one to Disabled unless it captures a different device on purpose.

2. 02Sources list: no second tap on the same device.

   An Audio Output Capture source added to the scene for a device that Desktop Audio already captures globally is a second tap. Remove one of them.

3. 03Per-application sources: disable the global desktop capture.

   If you capture the game as its own application audio source and leave Desktop Audio on, the game is captured twice. OBS’s own Application Audio Capture guide says to set the global Desktop Audio to disabled in Settings → Audio to avoid echo. Remember that the Broker is his own application: capture it too, or he is missing (the missing-voice guide).

4. 04Advanced Audio Properties: Audio Monitoring off, or to a device OBS does not capture.

   The gear in the mixer opens Advanced Audio Properties. For Desktop Audio, set Audio Monitoring to Monitor Off. If you need to hear a source through OBS, set the Monitoring Device in Settings → Audio → Advanced to a device Desktop Audio does not capture.

5. 05Windows: Listen to this device off.

   If you use a microphone, open the Sound control panel, Recording, your microphone’s Properties, the Listen tab, and make sure Listen to this device is unchecked. Details below.

6. 06A microphone near speakers hears him.

   The app has no microphone input, so any microphone in the recording is yours through OBS Mic/Aux, and it hears whatever the speakers play: the game and the Broker, a little later and a little roomier. Headphones end it; a lower speaker level reduces it.

7. 07Nothing else is playing on the desktop.

   A previous recording playing in a player, a browser tab with a video, a voice call on speakers: all of it is desktop audio and all of it is captured. Close them before recording.

8. 08Record a moment and listen with the game muted in the game.

   He should speak once per line. If he still speaks twice, go to if it still doubles.

Monitoring into the captured device

OBS documents the monitor control as playing a source back through the monitoring device configured in Settings, and Desktop Audio as a capture of a playback device. Put those two sentences together with the same device on both ends and you have the loop in the picture: the captured copy is played back into the device being captured, and captured again. The second copy arrives after the trip through OBS, which is why it reads as an echo rather than a thicker voice.

• Monitor Off is the setting for Desktop Audio in almost every scene with the Broker. You already hear him: Windows is playing him to you directly.
• Monitor and Output is for sources you cannot otherwise hear, such as a capture device. If you use it, the Monitoring Device must be one that no Desktop Audio entry captures.
• Monitor Only (mute output) keeps the source out of the file. With the Broker that is the opposite problem: you hear him, the recording does not.

Two sources, one output

A doubled voice with no echo tail and a fixed offset is almost always two taps. OBS gives you three ways to tap the same sound twice without noticing: two global desktop devices pointing at one device, a global Desktop Audio plus an Audio Output Capture source in the scene, and a per-application source plus the global desktop capture. The checklist’s first three steps cover them. The tell-tale is that the game doubles too, unless the extra tap is an application source that carries only the Broker.

One source is enough for him, and so is one tap: Desktop Audio on the device Windows plays him through.

Windows: Listen to this device

Windows can play a recording device back through a playback device. The switch lives in the classic Sound control panel: Recording tab, your microphone, Properties, the Listen tab, the Listen to this device checkbox with a playback device under it. With it on, your microphone is played through the speakers or headset, which makes it desktop audio: OBS captures your voice once from Mic/Aux and once from Desktop Audio, offset by the trip through Windows. If the microphone can also hear the speakers, the Broker joins the loop as a room echo.

Turn it off while recording. It has no effect on the Broker himself, who has no microphone input; it only decides whether your microphone is also part of the desktop sound OBS captures.

What it is never: the Browser source

The overlay shows his avatar and spoken captions on a transparent background and has no audio. Adding the Browser source twice does not double his voice; removing it does not remove his voice; the source’s audio options have nothing to route. The in-app card says it in one line: the overlay has no sound; enable OBS Desktop Audio for the Broker’s Windows output. A doubled voice is always on the sound path, and the sound path never passes through the Browser source.

Two of me on the tape and one of me in the room. Check the wiring before you check the ghost.

If it still doubles

With one desktop device, no extra taps, monitoring off, Listen off and headphones on, a remaining double is outside the paths this page covers: a virtual audio device or mixer application that feeds its own output back, a capture card, or sound coming from a second PC. Those have their own documentation. What is left to check on the Broker’s side is small: confirm it is doubling and not repeating (the table at the top), and if he repeats himself often, that is commentary behaviour worth telling support about with the game and the moment.

The pre-recording check has the one-line version of this page under Commentary.

Limits

• Not every echo has one cause: reverb inside the game’s own audio, a room echo picked up by your microphone and a routing loop can sound alike in a recording. The checklist tells them apart; it does not promise that one switch fixes every case.
• The Broker can repeat a line; that is AI commentary, not an audio problem, and this page says how to tell the difference.
• The app has no microphone input; any microphone in the recording is yours, through OBS.
• Founder Alpha is early-access software; the commentary can be wrong, repeated or badly timed, and it is sold to customers in the United States only.