Regardless of if your creating videos for YouTube, streaming on Twitch or just chatting on Discord your here because you have noticed the quality of your microphone is less than superb. While there is nothing better than an expensive audio setup, the reality is that not all of us have the money to build a recording studio. Don't worry, there is a relatively simple solution that can make a your microphone sound 10x better.
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In this post I'll walk you through how you can improve the quality of your microphone drastically and you don't need to be an audio engineer to do so. Before we get started there are a few free programs that you will need to install in order to follow along. They are:
VoiceMeeter Banana
ASIO44ALL
Reaper ReaPlugs VST FX Suite
MiniHost Modular - Windows / Mac
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If you aren't much on reading and would rather follow a video tutorial on how to set all of this up then you can watch my video on how this all works below.
If your still here I'm assuming that you are more inclined to read how you fix your audio so I'll jump right into it.
First things first make sure that you have VoiceMeeter Banana, Minihost, ASIO4ALL and Reaper ReaPlugs VST FX Suite installed on your computer. In most cases you will want the x64 version of these programs installed.
'This app has been blocked for your protection'
If you hit this pesky little error while installing Minihost then check out this video on how to fix it here.
Default Audio Devices
The first thing we want to do after installing VoiceMeeter Banana is to set the default devices in Windows correctly.
1. Right click the speaker icon in the lower right corner of your Taskbar and click on Sounds
2. Under the Recording tab find the device labeled VoiceMeeter Output and right click it and then click Set as Default Device
3. Under the Playback tab find the device labeled VoiceMeeter Input right click it and then click Set as Default Device
Now that that is out of the way we are ready to move onto setting up VoiceMeeter Banana so we can start cleaning up your microphone audio.
VoiceMeeter Banana
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VoiceMeeter Banana is a digital mixer much like a physical mixer but it in this case it allows us to route audio into Minihost prior to sending the audio anywhere else on your system. In order to begin filtering all of the noise out of our system we need to get VoiceMeeter setup. Dont worry though this only takes a couple minutes.
1. In the most left column labeled Hardware Input 1 you should click the dropdown and select your microphone. This lets VoiceMeeter know you want to route audio coming in from your mic to the VoiceMeeter application.
2. Now we need to setup the output devices where VoiceMeeter Banana will send audio to. The output would be devices such as your headset, headphones or speakers.
In the upper right area of VoiceMeeter you will see three boxes labeled A1, A2 & A3. Click A1 and select the headphones/headset or speakers you want to hear your audio through.
3. Now you can check that everything is wired up correctly by making sure you can hear yourself when you talk. This is of course just a temporary toggle we can turn on and off. Make sure you can hear yourself by clicking the A1 indicator in the Hardware Input 1 column in VoiceMeeter. When you talk you should be able to hear yourself. When your done testing you can turn A1 off.
If you haven't figured it out yet the A1 through A3 buttons that you can toggle in the Hardware Input 1 section determine if that audio input devices audio is being sent to an output device designated in the Hardware Out section.
4. Now ensure that the B1 selector on the in the Hardware Input 1 column is on. This will route your microphones audio to the default source we set earlier (VoiceMeeter Output in the Windows Sound panel). Turning on B1 allows Windows and any applications you run on Windows to take advantage of the audio cleanup changes we are about to make.
5. Last thing that needs to happen is we need to enable the Patch Insert for our microphone. This will allow us to cleanup our microphone audio before it makes it into VoiceMeeter and before it is passed along to any programs you use.
To enable the Patch Insert click on Menu in the upper right hand corner and click System Settings / Options...
While in the System Settings / Options menu you will see Patch Insert at the bottom. To enable Patch Insert for our microphone which is Hardware Input 1 we need to toggle on in1 Left and in1 Right. Your setup should now look like the image below.
At this point you can close the System Settings / Options menu by clicking the X in the upper right corner. We are ready to move on to setting up Minihost and ultimately making your microphone sound 10x better without spending a dime.
Minihost
Open up Minihost Modular be sure to open the version that matches the Reaper ReaPlugs VST FX Suite that you installed which is the x64 or x32 bit version of the program. When Minihost is open the screen may have a box with an OK button if so click the OK and then your screen should look as follows:
First thing we need to do is make sure that Reaper ReaPlugs VST FX Suite is recognized within Minihost Modular. We can do this by clicking File > Preferences.
Then navigate to the Plugins tab.
On the Plugins tab click on Scan & Verify. Minihost will begin to scan your computer for the Reaper ReaPlugs VST FX Suite plugins we installed earlier.
When it is complete you should see results similar to the image below.
Next we need to move to the Audio/MIDI page so we can tell Minihost what to use to get the signal from our microphone.
On the Audio/MIDI page set the following:
- Audio device type - ASIO
- device - Voicemeeter Virtual ASIO
- sample rate - 44100 Hz or 48000 Hz depending on what is shown in the upper right hand corner of Voicemeeter Banana on the right side of the Hardware Out section label
The other settings can be left alone. If you click the Test button you should now hear a tone play in your speakers/headphones.
If you heard the tone you can now safely close the Preferences window by clicking the X in the upper right corner.
Back on the Minihost modular main screen we need to add Reafir Standalone which is the VST that will remove the background noise for us. Right click anywhere in the black part of the application and hover over Add Plugin and then click reafir_standalone.
Next thing you need to do is drag the reafir_standalone window out of the way (you can keep it open) and connect the yellow lines to the reafir_standalone box like you see in the image below. To connect the points click on the edge of the yellow object on the far left and drag to the reafir_standalone box and then do the same thing from the reafir_standalone box to the right yellow object.
In the reair_standalone window that you moved out of the way change the mode to Subtract.
Make sure that you have the noise to a minimum around you and when you are ready to remove the background noise from your mic check the 'Automatically build noise profile (enable during noise)' box. Let this run for about 15-30 seconds and then uncheck the box. At this point you now have a subtraction profile built that should be able to remove the majority of your background noise.
DO NOT SPEAK INTO THE MIC DURING THIS. If you do speak into the mic then the subtraction will end up removing your voice in the end.
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To very that you have removed the background noise head back over to VoiceMeeter Banana and under Hardware Input 1 turn on the A1 toggle. Talk into your mic and hear the results, it should sound a good deal better.
As a final note if you are getting a playback loop disable the B1 toggle under the Voicemeeter VAIO section of VoiceMeeter.
That's all there is to it! Now you should have audio that has the background noise removed and you are well on your way to creating higher quality content!
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