Are radio and podcast hosts wondering how to get their signature sound? While some of it comes from their good hardware, a lot of it comes on post-processing, which improves after audio recording (or sometimes even when it’s live) so that it gets better. You can use the same technique to make your microphone sound better.
The two apps we use for our audio post-processing are Adobe Audition and Audacity. Audition is an excellent tool with a clean interface. Audacity is free, but it has no features and is a bit difficult to use, but either is enough for our use.
Buy a Standalone Microphone
Post-processing can help your microphone sound better, yet you need a good starting point as a decent mic. The main concern here is noise. Audio post-processing apps like Audacity are great for EQing your voice and commercializing flat audio sounds, but you can't get much better out of it. Built-in microphones are usually small and make a lot of noise in the case of your device. Larger, standalone mics are generally much less noisy.
A great microphone can easily cost hundreds of dollars, but without you being an audio professional you will get less profit on audio quality, as something like the TONOR BM-700 for just $ 30 will sound incredible compared to your laptop or phone's built mic.
Noise Reduction
Most microphones, even the high-end ones, aren't completely quiet, and getting rid of annoying background hiss is the first step to cleaning up your audio.
The spectral frequency display in auditions is useful for visualization. It shows the noise level at each frequency from time to time. Before the noise subsides, you can see at the end of the audio here (when I wasn't talking) there's still a lot of data. When viewed closely, these lines of sound spread throughout the audio.
After the noise is reduced, there is still noise, but much less of it.
Because it lowers the frequency, it distorts the audio a bit, because there's a less noisy microphone in use. After all, you can do a lot of this without feeling like you're talking through a tin can.
You can reduce noise in many different ways, but the best one is used as a noise print to selectively cut out the noise and is useful for all kinds of noise. There are many other effects like hiss remover, which you can use to mitigate different frequencies and reduce adaptive noise, which does not require noise print.
In an audition, you have to capture the noise print first before you can use the noise reduction. Select Audio and select Effects> Noise Reduction> Capture Noise Print.
Next, under the same menu, select "Noise Reduction (process)". This will open a dialog where you can configure the reduction settings.
Default settings are usually good, but you can adjust the noise levels if you want. Displays how much noise it is taking on each frequency. You can preview the sound with the "Play" button in the left corner before you apply your changes. You can select "Output Noise Only" to preview all noise removal. While doing this, try to keep the main recording out of the noise to minimize distortion
In Audacity just select Effects> Noise Reduction. From here you can set noise profile and some other settings.
The Audacity is not fully featured but will get the job done.
You can use an online mic test tool that allows you to check if your microphone has low noise. It also provides solutions to fix your mic issues on many applications. It is a free and safe, no installation is required and it works on all devices.
Equalization
Equalizing or EQing is adjusting the volume of the different pitch in audio. For example, you can turn the bass up or cut it out entirely. Yet in practice, the art of EQ is very subtle and revolves around minor tweaks to make the audio sound better. If you're going for a deep radio voice, you might think you should just crank up the bass, but in fact, this will make your voice sound boomy and won’t produce the effect you want.
The "Vocal Enhancer" preset in the audition is probably the best. This preset removes extremely low bass and increases the frequency at which the vocals exist. You can open up this window under Filters and EQ> Parametric Equalizer. As the noise is reduced, you need to select a portion of the audio on EQ and you can preview your changes with the "Play" button.
You can also do EQ in Audacity under Effects> Equations.
Compression and Normalization
One of the problems you may have with your mic is how loud it is the closer you are to it. You can do something like the image shown above, with parts of the audio very quiet and parts very loud in a clip you’d like to be uniform.
Compression resolves this problem. This type of compression is Normally different from traditional digital compression, which is used to reduce file size. Audio compression attempts to make the clip more uniform in volume. The same voiceover is from above, but the compressor is applied:
Note that this increases the volume of background noise in the pauses and quieter parts.
Most of the songs on the radio are known as "Loudness War". Have a look at this waveform of radio editing of Metallica song versus downloadable version:
Radio editing has been compressed and made 100% normal, while the downloadable version has dipped in volume level. Yet this is an extreme example and you can practically never compile your audio. Sometimes this extra information is helpful for "loudness", such as for music, but for things like voiceover, you think it should be uniform.
Normalization is similar to compression and usually, you run to the last stage. It takes your entire clip and makes the loudest part 100% volume. So the compression makes the volume uniform in the clip and the normalization becomes uniform between the clips. When used together, your audio will be better.
Doing it Live
Both Audition and Audacity work on pre-recorded audio, so they are not very useful for live streaming. To get output in a type like OBS, you need to route the audio to your computer.
For this, we will use VB cable via VB-Audio, a completely free program. The VB cable creates a "virtual output" that you can choose as your speakers. It sends your system audio to other virtual inputs that you can set as your microphone in any application. When using virtual output you will not hear the good output.
The Multitrack section has a monitor feature under audition, which you can use to apply some effects in realtime and then output to your headphones to monitor it. Usually, it lets you hear your microphone when you record. However, if you select Virtual Cable Input as the output device, VAC will go to the microphone input that can capture in OBS. There's a cool solution, but the only way is to run the audition effect to your audio.
You can not use every feature, like noise-print-based noise reduction and other things that need prerecorded audio, but many features will still work. Keep in mind that doing this with a lot of effects is CPU-intensive and could affect the performance of your system while running.
If you don’t have an audition or you don’t need a whole suite, you can also do some basic EQing and mastering in Voicemeter bananas, also made via VB-Audio. Bananas are a pro version of the regular VoiceMeeter, but they are both free.
Banana packs a fully parametric equalizer that you can use to adjust your microphone's sound in real-time.
There are some other great features like a noise gate and some basic sound suppression. And of course, you can mix multiple inputs and outputs before sending them to OBS.
Final Words
In this article, we share some effective methods and products that will help improve the sound of your computer's microphone.
You can't use every feature like sound-print-based noise reduction and other things that require pre-recorded audio, but many features will still work. Keep in mind that doing so with a lot of impacts is CPU-centric and can affect your system's performance while running.
Try to be in a quiet and absorptive environment to avoid background noise and echo reflections. Lots of great songs have been recorded under the sheets or in a closet, which works great!
Use headphones to avoid the sound from the computer speakers accidentally be recorded, causing nasty feedback noise.
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