Streaming on a Mac usually means several apps making sound at once: the game, Discord or another voice chat, a browser tab running alert sounds, maybe music. Audio routing is just deciding which of those goes where, so you hear the mix you need while your stream captures the mix your viewers need. Most of that is a physical-output problem, and it is a narrower one than it sounds.
This is the broad version of that problem: your own monitoring setup, and keeping alerts audible. If you landed here wanting to split game and Discord audio into separate tracks inside OBS itself, that is a different job called virtual routing, and we cover it in detail in our OBS audio routing guide. This post stays on the physical-device side of the setup.
What a typical Mac streaming audio setup involves
Strip it back and most streaming rigs are running the same handful of audio sources: the game itself, a voice chat app for talking to friends or your community, a browser tab or dedicated app for donation and follower alerts, and often background music. Every one of those is a separate app producing separate sound, and by default macOS sends all of them to whatever your current output device happens to be.
That works fine until you are actually on stream. Sending everything to one set of speakers means your microphone can pick up your own game audio back off the room, alerts fight with whatever you are already listening to, and there is no way to hear yourself differently from what viewers hear. Splitting these apps across two or more output devices, rather than one, is what fixes all three at once.
Monitoring your own mix without feedback going to viewers
The core problem is hearing yourself clearly while streaming without that sound leaking back into your microphone or your capture. If your game and voice chat play through desk speakers, your mic hears them too, and depending on your setup that can mean an echo, a faint double of your friend's voice, or straight feedback. Headphones solve this because the sound stays at your ears instead of filling the room.
The routing part is simply sending the right apps to headphones and leaving everything else where it is. In Chorus, that means opening Per-App Audio, picking your game and your voice chat app, and assigning both to your headphones. Nothing else needs to move. Your stream capture, whatever OBS or Streamlabs is set to record, keeps working exactly as it already does, because none of this touches how audio gets into your streaming software, only where you personally hear it.
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Download for MacKeeping alert sounds audible over game audio
The other common complaint is missing a donation or follower alert because a firefight or a loud scene buried it. Alerts usually come from a browser source or a small alert app, and if it shares an output with your game, it is competing for the same volume space as whatever is loudest at that moment. Turning the alert app up does not fix this cleanly, because it turns up for viewers too if that same output is what gets captured.
Routing the alert app to a separate device, a small desk speaker, or a second pair of headphones, gives it its own space instead of a shared one. You hear it distinctly because nothing else is playing on that device, and your main mix stays untouched. This is the same per-app routing as the monitoring setup above, just aimed at a different app.
Where this stops, and where OBS-side routing picks up
None of the above changes what OBS or Streamlabs actually records. Routing an app to your headphones only changes what you hear, not what gets captured, because Chorus works on physical output devices and has no connection to your streaming software. If what you actually want is separate tracks inside OBS, one for game audio and one for voice chat so you can mix or mute each after the fact, that is virtual audio routing: sending an app's sound into another piece of software as an input, using a driver such as BlackHole or Loopback, or OBS's own Application Audio Capture on macOS Sonoma and later.
That is a different mechanism from anything covered here, and we did not want to thin it out into a paragraph and call it covered. Our OBS audio routing guide goes into it properly: what virtual routing actually does, why Chorus does not attempt it, and which tools are built for that specific job.
Setting up a streaming monitoring setup in Chorus
- Open Chorus and go to Per-App Audio.
- Find your game and your voice chat app, or add them if they are not listed yet.
- Assign both to your monitoring headphones.
- Find your alert app or browser source and assign it to a separate device, such as a desk speaker.
- Leave everything else on your Mac's normal default output.
Each app keeps going to its own device from then on, so the setup does not need redoing before every stream. If you also want a hardware toggle for your headphones and speakers, Chorus's Groups and keyboard shortcuts can flip between output devices without opening the app at all.
For the technical detail on how the driver works, see BlackHole's own GitHub repository.
Frequently asked questions
What does audio routing mean for a Mac streaming setup?
It means deciding which app's sound goes to which output device. A typical setup sends your own monitoring mix, game and voice chat, to headphones, keeps alert sounds on a separate speaker, and leaves whatever OBS captures as its own question entirely. Chorus handles the first two by routing individual apps to physical output devices.
How do I hear my own stream mix without it going out to viewers?
Route your game and voice chat audio to a pair of headphones instead of your speakers, so you can hear yourself clearly without a speaker feeding that same sound back into your microphone. In Chorus, assign each app to your headphones under Per-App Audio and everything else keeps using your normal output.
How do I keep alert sounds from getting buried under game audio?
Send your alert app or browser source to a different output than your game and voice chat, so a donation or follower sound has its own device instead of competing with everything else at the same volume. A small desk speaker or a second pair of headphones both work.
Does Chorus split app audio into separate OBS tracks?
No. That is virtual audio routing, sending one app's sound into OBS as an input, which needs a virtual driver such as BlackHole or Loopback. Chorus routes audio to physical output devices like speakers and headphones, not into other software. See our OBS audio routing guide for the virtual-routing side of a Mac streaming setup.
Do I need Chorus and a virtual audio driver together?
Many streamers end up using both, because they solve different halves of the same setup. A virtual driver gets separate apps onto separate OBS tracks. Chorus manages what you personally hear on your own devices while you stream. Neither one replaces the other.
