LP Audio Advice?

LP General Chat Let's Tech Support
#1

Hey, everyone! I am VERY new here so apologies if I don’t get this right.

So, I recently posted my first LP, despite the fact that the mic audio… has an annoying buzzing to it. No matter how much I adjust the gain on my mic, no matter what settings in OBS I fiddle with, I can never quite get it out. Granted, maybe I didn’t try anything, and that’s why I’m here.

For the record: I use OBS Studio (64-Bit) with Noise Gate and Suppression turned on, a Blue Yeti microphone, and I run it through basic VoiceMeeter, and edit the footage in Vegas Movie Studio 14. I’d LIKE to avoid running my audio through Audacity if I can help it.

Here’s a link to my video so you can hear the problem for yourself (you don’t need to listen long; there’s no opener):

I’ve been able to REDUCE the noise in the second ep – I’d already recorded it when I found the problem, so I have been doing damage control on the audio track, thanking past me for at least having the sense to keep game audio and mic audio on different tracks – but I wind up with unsavory quality and the occasional clipping.

After messing around for a few hours in Audacity and Movie Studio’s audio effects, I have a headache from the buzzing, so I come to you guys for some advice. I don’t know what all I need to provide here, but I’ll at least try to keep this post updated and edited to feature any and all necessary info anyone needs on hardware, software settings, and the like.

Thanks in advance for any and all help. I’ve put off making LPs before due to issues like these, and while my Google-fu is strong, it’s clearly not strong enough. I’m going to try to keep moving forward regardless, now that I’ve at least got two episodes edited and rendered, and, uhhh learn as I go I guess? Better now than later.

#2

I’ve never found a satisfactory solution for eliminating the buzzing from a microphone - in my experience, it tends to come from the port itself rather than the microphone you’re plugging into it. Have you tried a different USB port, if it’s a USB device? Always make sure you’re plugging into a USB port on the computer, not an external hub. I’ve had worse luck in general with audio jacks. The next best thing is to turn off the capture effects so you get the buzzing in the raw audio, talk a bit louder so there’s more signal-to-noise, and use Audacity’s Noise Removal rather than a Noise Gate. It’s much easier to do if the buzzing is untainted by any other post-processing. (Noise Gate gives you extra buzzing while you’re talking compared to the part that’s gated, so the removal won’t be as effective.)

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#3

I’ll give those a shot next go-around. In all my searching, your suggestions are the only ones I HAVEN’T seen so far. A little mad at myself that I didn’t think about point two already, haha.

#4

If you’re recording an LP instead of streaming, it’s generally a good idea to use audacity or other audio software instead of OBS. That way even if you do get an annoying buzzing, you can fix it without needing to touch the game audio. It’s more of a hassle to sync up your LP and your audio, but I’ve found it’s worth it.

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#5

I think I remember reading this somewhere that your mic/usb port will generate feedback while recording, and it only becomes noticeable if your mic’s gain is set too high during recording. Maybe drop the mic gain (in your audio settings) a little bit and see if you hear less of the buzz.

But yeah a noise gate would clear out most of the buzz. (Assuming you recording your commentary separate from the game audio.) I’ve been using this Nyquist plugin for audacity for noise removal, and it’s worked out great for me.

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#6

I reiterate the recommendation for the built-in Noise Removal rather than Noise Gate, if the buzz is noticeable. The difference is that Noise Gate will silence background noises while leaving the high-volume portions alone - I use it to mask breathing noises while I’m not talking, for example. If the buzz persists while you’re talking, it will remain through a Noise Gate because the volume of your speech exceeds the gate. Noise Removal removes the noise from the entire track, with minimal effect on the portions of the sound that don’t match the profile. This will change the sound of your speech, but if the speech is much louder than the buzz, the impact should be minimal. It’s not a bad idea to try both and see whether Noise Removal causes enough distortion to be noticeable - if so, then Noise Gate is the better bet. Like most things in audio work, the only true way to tell is to try it and listen to the result. Keep a backup copy of your raw audio.

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#7

Thanks for all the advice so far! I’m gonna try to stick to recording in Audacity and bearing the brunt of it; until I get a better cable for my mic, I’m not convinced any USB port is gonna cut out the buzz, but I can get generally favorable results through Audacity with Noise Reduction – though the Normalize option brings it right back, which isn’t ideal. But it’s the best result I’ve had so far, in spite of the loss of a little bit of audio quality. I’m gonna try to see what all else I can do before sending things through Audacity in the hopes that SOMETHING will pan out well.

I think, in the interest of time, I’m going to have to just keep messing with settings as I go on a per-episode basis and see what works best.

#8

Well, good news! While I think my problem has more to do with ambient noise than any electrical interference (which I can’t really do much about outside of sound dampening – not feasible at the moment!), Audacity’s noise reduction seems to do enough of the trick. Plus, y’know, mixing my audio well enough that my voice is still clear over the game audio w/o the noise popping in.

In the unlikely event I start being profitable with this, I may start investing in better gear, but for now, this is workable.

#9

I somehow made a new problem appear.

I don’t know how I did it, but VoiceMeeter refuses to show up. I open the program, it shows up in my Task Manager, but for the life of me, I can’t get it to actually be visible.

I’ve tried cascading and stacking my windows via the taskbar, I’ve tried moving it with the arrow keys in case it fell off the desktop space, I’ve tried uninstalling and reinstalling (rebooting between), and.

Nothing.

It seems like I could still have it run and record, but I can’t access it to change settings at all. It’s really infuriating, and I’m hoping beyond hope that someone’s run into this same issue.

#10

I was having a somewhat similar issue with my mic and I found that it was the vibration from one of my old external HDDs. Once I got my mic off my desk the noise greatly reduced. I also second the trying another USB port :smiley:

#11

Hey are you still having this issue? Have you looked at the .ini or config file for Voicemeeter?

#12

Yeah, I ran into that issue once, haha. I have a tiered shelf above my desk so it was a quick fix.

#13

Bizarrely enough, I don’t have the issue anymore, and I couldn’t tell you how or why. I contacted the makers of the program and they couldn’t make heads or tails of it either; they hadn’t seen that particular bug before.

It’s SOMETHING to do with how it docks in Windows 10, but I’m not about to replicate it. For all I know, it may simply have fallen too far below the desktop space instead of actually docking – but that wouldn’t explain why it wouldn’t come back after uninstalling and reinstalling, or switching to VoiceMeeter Banana.

#14

I’ve seen something that sounded similar with a VPN client I used to work with. The .ini file would get it’s x and y coordinates for the program window changed somehow causing the window to spawn way off screen. Uninstalling/reinstalling the program wouldn’t automatically replace the file so the issue would keep happening until we just straight up deleted the file and had the program create a new one.