Mixes — recordable sources for OBS

A mix is a virtual capture source that carries a chosen set of channels. It shows up in OBS, Discord or any recorder as a normal input device you can select by name. Because a mix is a copy of the channels feeding it, muting or fading a mix changes what the recorder hears — not what you hear.

Mixes need the native PipeWire engine. On the pactl fallback the Mixes group is hidden (see the engine row in Settings).

Master Mix vs. your own mixes

• Master Mix always exists, always carries every channel, and cannot be deleted. Its membership is managed for you — add a channel and it joins automatically.

  Upgrading from before mixes existed

  Older versions had a per-channel stream mix switch. If you had turned it off for some channels, that intent is carried over on first start as a mix of its own called Stream Mix, rather than into the Master Mix — the Master carries everything by definition, so putting it there would have been overwritten immediately. Before v1.0.13 that is exactly what happened, and a channel you had deliberately kept out of the recorded stream quietly came back.

• Your own mixes — up to four, added with the + in the Mixes group header. Give it a name (1–24 characters); that name is exactly what recorders display.

"Carry these" vs. "everything except these"

This is the part that makes "everything except music" possible. Open a mix's membership button (it reads 3 channels, all but 1, …) and you get a checkbox per channel plus one switch at the bottom:

Auto-include new channels

• On (the default for a new mix) — Inari stores the channels you unchecked. The mix carries everything else. Uncheck Music and you have an "everything except music" mix. When you add a Podcast channel next month it joins this mix automatically, because it was never on the excluded list.
• Off — Inari stores exactly the channels you checked. The mix carries those and nothing more. A new channel does not join; you have to check it yourself.

Flipping the switch never changes what the mix carries right now — only what happens to channels created later. That is why the auto-include form is the one to use for a stream layout you intend to keep: it stays correct as your channel set grows, while a manually picked set silently goes stale.

Using a mix in OBS

Add the mix as an audio input capture source and pick it by its name — not Desktop Audio, which would grab everything at once and defeat the point. The full walkthrough, including the classic "stream hears everything but the music" setup, is in First steps.

Renaming a mix updates what recorders display; the underlying node name stays stable, so an existing OBS source re-attaches on its own instead of breaking.

Level, mute and monitoring

• Fader (0–150 %) and mute shape what recorders capture. Muting a mix makes the recording silent while your own output is untouched.
• Both are saved with the mix, so they survive restarts and profile switches.
• The headphones button monitors the mix on your default output — the fastest way to confirm a mix really carries what you think before you go live. Monitoring is session-only and is off again after a restart.

Deleting a mix stops any recorder capturing it; channels are unaffected.