Hi everyone! My name is Figing,
and this is the next episode of Stream School.
Today we'll talk about sound.
Sound is the second most important stream component,
the viewers notice it right after the picture.
The recipe for ideal audio simply doesn't exist.
There are no buttons like "Be cool", "Be good", or "Be awesome".
However, there are some things
that will help you get the best audio from what you have.
What do you need to do to have good sound?
There are four important components:
the first is a voice, the second is a microphone, the third is a room,
and the fourth is software and hardware used to process the sound.
Let's talk about each of them.
Voice. What is a voice?
A voice is what we all have and what we should learn to use properly,
speak in a level voice at the same volume,
and we need to fill the information we want to convey with sense somehow.
We need to try to avoid filler words,
for example, "like", "you know", and so on.
How can you achieve that?
Only with experience, through training and self-improvement.
You might want to attend speaking courses or singing lessons,
or maybe you'll just try speaking to someone often and with confidence—
at least to your cat.
Working on the voice box is very similar to working out in a gym.
You’re exercising muscles as well, while also using the correct breathing,
correct posture, articulation, gesticulation, and so on.
You need to train to keep yourself in good shape and develop.
As there's no "make good sound" button,
there's also no universal recipe to keep your voice box in good shape.
The thing you can do is try,
watch video guides—there are plenty of them on the Internet—
don’t hesitate to take speaking lessons if you need them.
Train, practice, speak.
Try to speak publicly at work as much as you can,
do presentations, tell stories, and so on.
Well, we’ve talked briefly about the voice, now let's talk about microphones.
There are plenty of mics on the market today:
from cheap Chinese ones to famous brands that can cost a lot of money.
So, what's important for us?
First of all, an expensive mic doesn't mean a good mic.
Secondly, when we record a voice, it’ll be enough to have a microphone
that works with the frequencies that our vocal apparatus produces.
For starters, you can use the microphone of a good headset.
In this case, I'd recommend using USB headsets with an embedded audio card,
because its audio-to-digital converter
is already tuned to work with this specific microphone.
In general, any other good mic you plug into your audio card using a thin jack
won't necessarily sound very good with this audio card.
Simply because they are not set to work specifically with each other.
Now there are a lot of USB mics on the market,
and they’re the best choice for a streamer or podcaster,
or for anyone who reads anything into a microphone.
Why? Again, their audio-to-digital converters are already adjusted
to work specifically with their microphone caps.
They have no problems with connecting
to any software or hardware you want to use to process sound.
It's very important to place the microphone correctly.
It's best to put it as close as possible to the source of the useful signal,
that means your mouth.
Not everyone likes it.
Some people prefer to keep the mic out of the shot.
Others don't bother with it at all, but some people
don't like when something is looming in front of their face.
But still, try to keep your mic as close as possible
to the source of the useful signal,
because all excessive sounds that you will definitely have in your room
will be heard much less.
It's preferable to put the mic on a microphone pantograph,
here, for example, this device we have in our studio,
and hang it on a special mount. Why do you need it?
This helps minimize all mechanical sounds
that are transmitted right through the mic stand to the mic’s diaphragm.
There can be vibrations from your PC,
sounds from your keyboard or a mug that you put on the table,
so, basically anything.
You can order this device without spending too much,
especially from China, it will cost you about 16 to 25 dollars.
It's very important to keep an eye on your mic signal.
It’s important that it stays somewhere between minus 5 to minus 10 Decibels,
so between the yellow and red zone,
but it never goes up to 0, the far right value.
If it does, there will be an unpleasant crackling or hissing,
usually called sound clipping or overload.
The next component is crucial, but it's the hardest one to set up correctly.
It's the room. You probably won't be able to prepare your room as required.
Why? Because you probably don't have a room
you can re-equip for audio recording.
It will probably be just a room in your apartment.
So what can you do in this case?
Well, hang carpets on the wall to dampen surrounding sounds,
keep your microphone closer to suppress all unwanted noises
with the power of your voice.
You will probably need to close windows and doors,
don't let your neighbors or family intervene during the live streams,
and you should also always monitor what you do and how you do it.
Listen to your recordings once again,
do a sound check before the start of the broadcast
to see if there are any excessive sounds,
like a car rumbling in the street or a pan sizzling too loud in the kitchen.
You can try to compensate for these negative effects
by changing the position of the microphone and setting up the volume.
The fourth and final thing
that can drastically change the audio quality of your stream,
the quality of your voice, is software or hardware processing.
There's a lot of options here.
You can spend tons of money and buy a lot of different hardware,
it won't guarantee that you'll achieve what you want;
or you can try to deal with software.
Today, the computing power of PCs is so high that you don't need
special hardware designed to perform specific operations anymore.
Everything can be emulated in high quality software.
For program sound processing, you'll need any sequencer—
basically, a program for editing or recording audio,—
and a number of plugins specifically for sound processing.
From the existing plugins,
I consider the following to be the most important ones: the first is gate—
it cuts off all signals that are higher or lower than a particular level.
Why do you need it? For example, to muffle the sounds of keyboard presses.
You're hitting the buttons, something is happening on your screen,
and you're not saying anything at the moment.
Since the sound of button pressing is much lower than your voice,
in an ideal world, this shouldn't be heard, a program can cut it off.
The second most important component in the list of effects
is a noise suppressor.
This thing cuts off unwanted noise and hum.
It will be hard to tune if you have a noisy mic.
If you have a good mic and your mouth is close to the microphone,
you can just use a simple noise suppression algorithm or gate
and it’ll be enough to cut off everything you don't need.
The third important element is a compressor.
This is something that makes your voice a bit richer, smoother, firmer,
and more consistent and stable regarding the volume.
There are a lot of ways to tune it,
and I'll share one of them in the text description as a comment on this video.
All sound sources we broadcast should blend seamlessly.
Think about what sound is more important on your stream:
game sounds, music, or your voice. It will likely be your voice.
If there's no voice, then it's the music or game sounds.
So, try to make the most important source of audio information
a bit louder than everything else.
Set the secondary sources a bit lower at the same volume.
If you look at OBS, the level of the main signal should always be
between the red and yellow zone, not reaching the far right value.
The secondary signal source should be in a green zone,
sometimes going to the yellow one.
Before you start your broadcast, you should always do a soundcheck.
Check all volume levels, make a short recording that you can listen to
and see what source sounds louder than others.
You should especially do this if you work with a co-caster or your friends,
who you also want to be heard on your stream.
You need to record all voices one by one and together
to listen to and understand who sounds louder, and who is lower,
and try to level the volume in the program you talk in,
be it TeamSpeak or Discord.
As I've already said, we could talk about sound settings for hours and hours.
There are a lot of techniques and methods and solutions,
but there's no one way to do it quickly and easily.
In the text accompanying this video, I described one of the ways to set up
relatively good sound for your voice on stream.
If you have any questions, want to ask about something specific,
or just talk about it, please PM me, and I'll be happy to chat.
That's all for now. I'm Figing, and this was Stream School. See you!