cohost! - "OBS Audio tips from an audio producer"

Hi, I'm Stryxnine. I'm an esports broadcast producer and audio producer. In this chost I'll be explaining the key ways to immediately improve the audio on your livestreams.

Why should I care?

Glad you asked! The biggest reason is because advertisements are fucking loud. Unfortunately, with advertisers constantly in a loudness war with each other, we have to care about our audio levels so when ads pop up for our viewers they don't scare the everloving piss out of them with the immediate difference in volume. Beyond that, we wanna make sure we can be heard over the game and the music playing in the background.

Ok, so how do I do it?

It's pretty easy, but it's also a bit of a process!

Let's start with the basics: the audio meter.

The audio meter (shown on the image above from OBS) tells us the volume of our source audio. Many people may believe having your audio in the red means you're clipping, but that isn't the case; it just means you're close to clipping. As a result, many streamers put their audio below the yellow line; this isn't good, because that means those pesky Twitch ads are gonna shatter your poor viewers eardrums. At maximum, we want our loudest sounds tickling the red zone. If we fill out the entire red zone, that is when we're clipping.

In the image above, you can see some suggested ranges for different types of audio. If you like to play music in a separate app for your stream like Spotify or iTunes, you want that source to be playing between -35 and -25 decibels. Your Game audio (or desktop audio) should be around -25 to -18 decibels. Finally, your microphone audio (and the audio of VoIP apps like Discord or Teamspeak if you stream with friends) should be occasionally touching but not going too far into the red zone.

Cool! Thanks for the he-

We aren't quite done yet! We have our audio levels set, but we wanna be extra sure we don't clip our audio, and we wanna be sure our viewers can hear us over the game and music whether we're whispering or talking or shouting! With our audio levels set, we're ready to add some audio filters.

First we'll click on the cog wheel under our microphone audio source, then click Filters. This will open our lord and savior, the Filters editor!

This baby is gonna help us make sure we don't clip, but we can also add some other filters that will improve the quality of our audio. The Noise Gate works pretty similarly to Discord's Voice Activity input mode, where the audio of your microphone will be sent to your friends if the volume reaches past a certain level. The only difference here is that we have a lot more control over how the noise gate functions on OBS. To add a noise gate, click the plus button on the bottom left of the window and select the Noise Gate filter. The order of our filters is important. OBS will adjust the audio signal in a path from the filter at the top, to the filter at the bottom. if we put a noise gate at the bottom of the filter chain, it might not work as effectively as it should!

With the noise gate filter added, you will see Close and Open Threshold sliders, as well as text boxes for Attack, Hold and Release times. Move the Filters window so you can see the audio source you're filtering (so in this case, our microphone audio). Talk into the microphone in the same position and at the same volume as you would during the stream, then stop talking. Be sure to take note of the numbers below the audio meter as you do this. Different microphones will have different audio levels, so the numbers in your noise gate might not match mine!

Generally, you will wanna set the open threshold high enough that it won't be accidentally activated, but low enough that you don't have to yell for the audio to start coming through to the stream. For your close threshold, it's pretty safe to set it about three decibels below the open threshold. The attack time is how fast the filter will allow all of the audio from your microphone through, so it's a pretty good idea to keep this setting pretty quick. 5ms is a great all-around setting for the attack time.

The Hold time will determine how long the filter will keep allowing audio through after the close threshold is triggered. We'll want this set fairly high - around 400 to 500ms - to make sure the filter isn't cutting our voice off while we're still talking.

The Release time can be adjusted to taste, but it's a good idea to keep it fairly slow so your microphone audio will gently drop until the noise gate fully closes and it won't cut the tail end of your voice off when you're done talking. A good range is about 450 to 650ms.

This is really complicated!

Yeah, it can be pretty confusing if you're not familiar with any of this! If you ever get confused you can DM me on Discord at HOOTwheelz#0666 and I can help ya figure it out!

Alright, cool! What's next?

Glad you asked. Compressors are kind of a difficult filter to learn how to use, so I'll skip over that for now and move on to the Limiter filter.

This one's pretty simple; all you can adjust are the Threshold and Release. Set your threshold to -5 dB, and your release to 50ms. If any sound goes through your microphone at a volume that exceeds that threshold, the Limiter will act like a wall to keep the audio from clipping. Like I said, pretty simple!

Okay, I'm ready for a compressor!

Fuck. So, a compressor acts kind of like a Limiter, but it has a lot more settings to control.

Like, a lot more. So, let's break it down. Add a compressor filter, then click the Up arrow to put the compressor between the noise gate and the limiter in the filter chain.

The Threshold is the volume where the compressor will start working. Once the threshold is triggered, the volume that goes beyond it will get compressed based on the Ratio slider. Generally, 3:1 to 4.5:1 is a good ratio setting. Attack should be set to 5ms, and release can be set from 50ms to 70ms.

The threshold is gonna be a bit of a pain in the ass to set, though. You wanna set it low enough that it actually compresses your audio signal to keep your loudest on-mic moments from scaring the shit out of your viewers, but not so low that it crushes the shit out of your voice and makes your oscillating fan sound like it's right next to your microphone. Depending on your audio rig, you'll likely have a threshold set between -30 and -22. It's gonna take some trial and error to figure out what works best for your rig, but thankfully you can use OBS's recording function to record a snippet of yourself talking at a whisper, at normal volume, then shouting. Then listen back to the recording and adjust the threshold to taste.

If you think you sound too much like a radio show host, set your threshold higher. If you think the difference in volume between whispering, talking and shouting is a bit too much, lower the threshold.

Finally, adjust your Output Gain slider and watch your audio meter. You'll want to adjust the audio slider until your voice is once again tickling the red zone.

But what does the sidechain do?

Don't worry about it.

Am I done?

Yeah! You've done some pretty basic, but still very important audio production! Congrats!

If you need any help with anything (or if you want me to give you a full audio production overhaul with all the Really Smart Things I Know) hit me up on Discord at HOOTwheelz#0666.

Hope this helps!