My name is EposVox and today I’ll be discussing the “Live Commentary” and multi-track
recording capabilities of Elgato Game Capture HD software.
I will have other tutorials on Elgato’s capture cards and a plethora of other technology
topics on my channel, so be sure to subscribe if you find this video helpful, and check
the YouTube card above or description below for a playlist with my other Elgato Gaming-related
videos.
Per overwhelming popular request, Elgato incorporated the ability to record live commentary voice
over alongside your gameplay from within their software.
This also led to a plethora of new streaming features that I’ve covered in previous videos.
This is great for doing live gaming sessions, tutorials, and live streams - or just “vlogs”
in a gaming format.
It’s also incredibly easy to set up.
To set up Live Commentary, simply navigate to the “Live Commentary” section below
“Game Audio.”
Here you have a few important options to consider.
First, next to the microphone symbol, choose your microphone input.
If you plugged in a wired analog headset via 3.5 millimeter connection (the connector is
sometimes pink), then your mic might show up as “Microphone - Realtek High Definition
Audio” or something like that.
Otherwise for USB mics and interfaces, it should show up by name.
If all else fails, open up Windows Recording Devices and see which one lights up when you
talk, haha.
Select the appropriate mic.
I’d do some test talking here to make sure your microphone isn’t peaking too far into
the red.
Before it shows up however, you need to jump to the bottom of the software and click the
big blue microphone circle for “Commentary” down by the recording controls.
This activates your microphone and your volume meter under “Live Commentary” should start
lighting up.
If not, check your mic selection and settings.
Next, adjust the volume dial to your liking.
At your loudest point (think smacking your lips or shouting at a jump scare) the meter
should go into the orange and low red.
Do some shouting to test.
Next is a very important decision.
Consider your goals for recording or streaming.
If you plan to edit everything in a separate video editor such as Vegas Pro or Premiere
Pro and can managed multiple audio tracks, then you don’t need to do anything.
However, if you’re live streaming, or hoping to just record, edit in the Game Capture HD
software, and upload straight to a site like YouTube, then you may want to check the “Automatically
Reduce Game Sound” check box.
Otherwise, your game sound could overpower your voice commentary and no one will hear
you!
Either way, do some testing before committing to long recording sessions.
You’ll save yourself a lot of headaches with a couple test recordings.
Alternatively you can do some test recordings and lower your game audio’s volume levels
so that it’s constant but your voice is still audible.
Either way, you’ll want to do some testing and set this up well in advance before you
do an important recording or stream.
Clicking the speaker icon will loop your voice back to you so you can hear yourself, if your
setup doesn’t already do that for you.
The gear icon here gives you some more advanced control over the automatic reduction and attenuation
to your mic, and allows you to make it mono - which is important with higher-end audio
hardware.
That’s all you need for a basic Live Commentary recording.
Make sure the blue “Commentary” circle is lit up and hit Record!
However, exporting your videos is a little more complicated.
Going back to the goal of recording I mentioned before, you need to decide if you want your
live commentary exported WITH your game audio (if you balanced the volume levels already)
or exported to a separate audio file for you to balance in your video editor.
To access the multi-track export options, click the gear icon in the top-right-hand
corner of the Game Capture HD software and click the “Sharing” tab.
At the bottom, you have two main sets of checkboxes.
One set for mixing tracks to the final game video file, or exporting things to separate
files.
In this video, we’re only looking at the “Live Commentary audio” checkbox.
For a breakdown of the full options, check out my tutorial on the “Stream Command”
functionality via the YouTube Card icon above or the video description below.
Here, you can choose to embed the Live Commentary audio within the main video export, mixing
it with your game sound.
This is fine if you balanced your audio levels already or enabled “Automatically reduce
game sound.”
If you want this, check the box next to “Live Commentary audio” below the “Mix the following
tracks to exports” heading.
Otherwise, you’ll wanna export your Live Commentary audio to a separate audio file
to bring into your video editor.
To do this, check the box below the “Export to separate files” header.
Now, whenever you go to the “Edit” tab and export your video by clicking the “File
(MP4)” option in the “Share” section, you’ll either be given the game video and
audio mixed with your live commentary in a single MP4 file, or the game video and audio
in the MP4 file and a separate M4A file with your live commentary.
If you ever need to export just one aspect of a recording, select your video under “Videos,”
let it load, right-click the video timeline and you can choose to “Save Game Audio Only”
or “Save Live Commentary Only” and so on.
This is useful if you screw something up in editing, or your first time exporting didn’t
work for some reason.
Lastly, you just need to import the files into your video editor and edit!
In programs like Premiere and Vegas, it’s easy to just pull your game footage onto the
timeline, then drop the audio file for the live commentary onto a secondary audio track.
Then use the volume level controls to adjust the volume of each so it sounds good and you’re
good to go!
If you’re using an interface or mic that only sends sound over the left or right channel,
leaving the other empty and providing a one-sided audio stream, you’ll wanna separate those
tracks into mono files.
Unfortunately, Audacity cannot open the M4A files provided by Elgato default, though Adobe
Audition will.
To open the files in Audacity, you need to install the FFMPEG plugin, which is free and
easy to install.
Both of these tools will split the file easily.
Once you’ve installed the plugin, drag the file into Audacity, click the drop-down arrow
next to the file name and click “Split Stereo to Mono” then delete the empty track and
re-export your audio as a .WAV file and import it into your video editor, in place of the
original file.
In Adobe Audition, simply right-click the audio file or waveform and click “Extract
channels to mono files” and save the appropriate mono file.
I hope this video has been helpful for you.
If it has, Falcon PAWNCH that Like button, get subscribed for more awesome tech videos,
and check out the description below.
There, I have a link to the playlist with all of my Elgato Gaming tutorials and reviews.
Check them out!
:) I also have product links to each Elgato card, if you’re looking to buy.
Thanks for watching and I’ll see you in the next one.