In a recent OBS Studio update, they’ve enabled the ability to use a kind of plugin called
VST.
These allow you to apply real time processing to your audio - usually your microphone - to
make it sound better or add cool effects.
OBS had some built-in audio filters already, but VST compatibility opens the door for a
huge variety of tools.
Let’s take a look.
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I’m EposVox, here to make tech easier and more fun, and welcome back to my OBS Studio
tutorial course.
I have many, many more videos on the software in the playlist linked in the description.
Check that before asking questions, and check the introduction video to learn how this course
works, if you get confused.
To add a VST plugin effect to your microphone, assuming you already have your stream set
up as per the rest of the videos in this course, click the gear next to your “Mic/Aux”
entry in the audio mixer and click “Filters”.
Then click the plus in the bottom left corner and choose “VST 2.x Plug-in.”
Give it a name based on what effect you’re using and hit okay.
Then choose your VST Plug-in from the drop-down menu.
Well hold-up.
A name?
What plugin am I using?
This may sound pretty confusing, and if you haven’t installed any plugins yourself,
that drop-down list is probably empty.
So let me back up.
OBS doesn’t actually give you any VST plugins to work with.
These are third-party plugins developed by other individuals or companies.
There’s a huge market of both free and paid VST plugins to do anything from adding a nice
compressor to your vocals, remove background noise, add some clean gain, or add crazy echoes
or synthesizer sounds.
Now a lot of the VST plugins people recommend, such as Izotope are actually paid plugins.
I will have links to them in the video description, but they’re not something I can set up right
now.
Instead, let’s take a look at a great free set - Reaper’s ReaPlugs.
The actual Reaper Suite itself costs money, but the VST Plugins appear to be downloadable
for free from their site.
Download the installer and run it.
Agree to their EULA, choose which plugins you want - all are selected by default and
gives you the most flexibility, and tell it to install.
Now it’s time to actually add a VST filter to your mic.
Close the installer and close and relaunch OBS Studio if you had it open during the installation.
Now find the audio source you wish to modify in your audio mixer.
This would typically be your microphone source.
Click the gear icon and click “Filters.”
Click the Plus and add a “VST 2.x Plug-in” filter.
In the drop-down menu, choose your desired effect.
On the Reaper website is a tour of what each one is.
Some are self-explanatory.
“ReaComp” is a compressor, “ReaEQ” is an equalizer, “ReaDelay” adds a delay,
“ReaGate” adds a noise gate.
“ReaFir” is a dynamics processor - applies multiple effects at once.
“ReaXComp” is a multi-band compressor.
The others should be ignored for the most part, unless you really know what you’re
doing.
So typically with audio processing, you want to set up a specific chain - EQ, then Compressor,
then Noise Gate.
Or sometimes the Noise Gate first.
That is, if you want to make your microphone sound better.
An equalizer can change the tone of your voice, adding a little warmth, low end, or smoothing
the high end.
A compressor can make your voice sound a little more punchy and keeps you from peaking or
clipping too much when you get too loud.
If you do a lot of reaction stuff involving loud shouting or screaming… you better have
a compressor.
Noise Gate filters out background noise.
With the ReaPlugs, you only add one at a time, so keep clicking the Plus sign to add enough
to complete your chain.
You can disable individual effects without losing your settings by clicking the eye next
to the filter name to disable it.
Just make sure you name them properly so you know which is which.
You can right click it and hit “Rename” to give it a better name than “VST Plug-in.”
To customize what your plug-ins do, you click the “Open Plug-in Interface.”
What this looks like will very much depend on which set of VST plugins you’re using
and which specific one you’ve applied.
You have sliders and adjustment options for the various aspects of each effect.
These are similar to other audio processing software or hardware.
If you’re unfamiliar, do some research - that’s a lot more than I can cover here.
Here’s a sample microphone clip with a VST chain applied so you can see how improvements
can be made, along with the settings used.
Show this
There’s a wide breadth of possibility of what can be
done with VST plugins.
They can be pretty fun!
Got any other cool, free VST Plug-Ins?
Share in the comments below!
I hope this episode of my OBS Studio tutorial course has been helpful for you.
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Until next time, I’m EposVox, Happy Streaming!
Thanks for watching this episode of my OBS Studio tutorial course.
More videos like this and a full master class are linked in the playlist in the video description.
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