Stream OBS audio to AzuraCast over Icecast

Why people end up here

Most AzuraCast users send audio with butt, Mixxx, or a virtual audio cable into a separate streamer app. That works, but it splits the production setup across multiple tools and hides the radio audio from OBS's mixer. If you already use OBS to route mics, music, and call-in audio for a video stream, you do not want a second app reading from a virtual cable just to push audio to AzuraCast.

The cleaner path is to give OBS its own Icecast source output. Radio Streamer adds a dock to OBS Studio that pushes a single OBS audio track to any Icecast 2.x server, AzuraCast included, independently of the main video stream or recording. This guide walks through the AzuraCast setup end to end.

What you need

• An AzuraCast station with a configured mount point. Self-hosted or managed both work.
• A streamer/DJ account, or the station source password.
• OBS Studio 31.x on macOS Apple Silicon.
• The Radio Streamer plugin installed in OBS. The install steps are short.
• Network reachability from your Mac to the AzuraCast host on the source port (8000 by default).

Step 1: Get your AzuraCast streaming credentials

AzuraCast offers two ways to authenticate a live source. Pick the one that matches your operation.

Option A: Streamer/DJ account (per-user)

Use this when multiple people broadcast in shifts and you want AzuraCast to log who was live.

1. Sign in to AzuraCast.
2. Open the station, then Profile > Streamers / DJs.
3. Add a streamer or open an existing one. Note the username and password.
4. The mount path for streamers is usually the station's primary mount, for example /radio.mp3.

Option B: Station source mount (single-source rig)

Use this when only one OBS rig will ever push audio to the station.

1. In the station settings, open Mount Points.
2. Pick the mount you want to broadcast to.
3. The username is typically source. The password is the source password configured on the station.

Step 2: Build the Icecast source URL

The shape of the URL is the same in both options:

icecast://username:password@host:port/mountpoint

Concrete example for a self-hosted AzuraCast on a domain, broadcasting to the default MP3 mount:

icecast://source:hunter2@radio.example.com:8000/radio.mp3

If you have a streamer account named night_shift with password b@dpass!, URL-encode the special characters. @ becomes %40, ! becomes %21:

icecast://night_shift:b%40dpass%21@radio.example.com:8000/radio.mp3

The host can be an IP address or a DNS hostname. If you are using a hostname, make sure the A or AAAA record points at the AzuraCast host before testing.

Step 3: Configure Radio Streamer in OBS

1. Open OBS Studio.
2. Open Docks > Radio Streamer. Enable the dock if it is hidden.
3. Paste the Icecast URL from step 2 into the URL field.
4. Pick a codec that matches the mount extension. .mp3 uses MP3, .aac uses AAC, .ogg or .opus uses Opus. Mismatched codec and mount returns a 4xx error from Icecast.
5. Pick a bitrate. 128 kbps is fine for talk; 192 kbps is a sensible default for music.
6. Pick the OBS audio track that carries your radio mix. Track 2 is the conventional choice: route the radio-relevant sources to it via Advanced Audio Properties, leaving Track 1 for the main video stream.
7. Enable Reconnect so the plugin recovers from transient network drops automatically.

Step 4: Click Start and verify

Press Start in the Radio Streamer dock. The status line shifts from idle to connected, with bytes-sent ticking up.

Now switch to AzuraCast:

• The station dashboard should show a live source on the mount.
• The "Now Playing" section will indicate the live DJ if you used a streamer account.
• Open the public player or hit the mount URL directly (for example https://radio.example.com/radio.mp3) to confirm audio.

If audio shows up in AzuraCast but not in the player, the issue is downstream of the source connection. Check the AzuraCast station configuration for transcoding or relay settings.

Common gotchas

Connection refused or timeout

The AzuraCast source port (8000 by default) is not reachable from your Mac. Common causes: cloud security group blocking 8000, AzuraCast running on a non-default port, reverse proxy that does not forward the source port, or the host using HTTPS-only with no plain Icecast listener.

401 Unauthorized

Wrong credentials, or special characters in the password are not URL-encoded. Test the same credentials with butt or ezstream first to confirm AzuraCast accepts them. Then move back to Radio Streamer.

No audio reaches AzuraCast even though the source connects

The OBS audio track you selected has nothing routed to it. Open Audio Mixer in OBS, click the gear icon, choose Advanced Audio Properties, and confirm at least one source has the chosen track checked.

Stream cuts out periodically

Enable Reconnect if you have not. If drops are frequent rather than rare, lower the bitrate to give the upstream more headroom, and check packet loss between the OBS host and the AzuraCast host.

Why this beats virtual cables and standalone source apps

The two common alternatives:

• Virtual audio cable plus butt. Works, but adds a separate app, a dependency on a kernel-level audio driver, and a routing path that is invisible to OBS. Also adds 5 to 20 ms of latency depending on driver.
• Hijacking OBS's FFmpeg recording output. Possible, but uses the main recording pipeline; you cannot record video locally and stream radio at the same time.

Radio Streamer keeps everything inside OBS. The audio source is a regular OBS audio track. The output is independent of the main encoder. You can record video locally, stream to Twitch, and broadcast to AzuraCast in parallel without any of them stepping on each other.

Wrap up

The whole setup, once your AzuraCast station has a mount and credentials, takes about ten minutes the first time and roughly thirty seconds every time after.

If something in this guide is wrong, outdated, or could be clearer, open an issue on the GitHub repository. Notes from real AzuraCast users sharpen guides like this faster than anything else.