Noise Gates vs RTX Voice et al

[MouthBoy]

So, I have been using RTX Voice for a while now since it was recommended to me by a friend and on the whole it has been really good, however the bugs that can happen can really ruin my videos when recording.

The two main ones are that it can and does introduce a crackle and static noise and I believe this is down to the buffer size it uses. You can adjust the buffer but it never really goes away, although it is intermittent. The other issue is that sometimes it just stops and my mic records nothing at all until I stop and restart RTX Voice.

Tonight I have turned off RTX Voice and am now using the noise gate on OBS set to its defaults which seems to be ok. To test this I turned my PC fans up the full and it did not pick the PC up which is great. I know it will not filter out other noises above this gate but as I mostly record at night with a quite house, apart from rain on my windows, this is not an issue.

My question though is what everyone else does to stop background or constant noises when they record and/or stream?

(Sorry if this is the wrong section btw, I do not believe there is a Content Creator/Streamers sub section anywhere).

 

[MouthBoy]

I'm no expert and not enough details about your setup and what you are doing but if you want to avoid noise, hum, etc. then you need an external capture device + ground loop isolator really - most PCs and laptops are far too noisy environments electrically + loads of DC issues. To reduce pickup of other noises you either need a decent quality lapel or boom mic, etc. and know what you are doing - nothing worse on voice comms than someone with a lapel mic, etc. that is clueless hah - if you want to get fancy there are devices where you can use multiple microphones to cancel background noise though results vary.

Having a mic mixer (phantom power nice to have for wider compatibility) with a decent set of controls is useful for fine tuning as well. Some recording devices in their properties in the advance sound control panel have things like DC offset cancellation, etc. you can play with as well.

I am using a blue yeti into OBS or audacity, whichever is applicable for the recording.

Since posting I have setup a noise gate with a noise suppressor and it's working well. No more pc noise, however there is a slight distorted sound to my voice that maybe only I will notice as unless you talk to me in person you would not know.

I would love to have an external setup away from the pc but this is just not viable right now considering I am only just starting out.

Edit: to expand I am using a blue yeti on a boom and shock mount with a pop filter. The mic is usb and recording levels are bouncing around the green/yellow for normal talking.

 

[MouthBoy]

Having the Yeti with its own USB interface will have a lot of the advantages of not having the sound hardware close to the laptop/PC electronics itself - which is one of the main reasons I mentioned an external setup - integrated sound and/or add-in soundcards tend to have poor mic performance due to the amount of noise around them combined with amplifying the mic signal.

A USB ground loop eliminator might help - but a lot of them are snake oil - I built my own which does work but your results will vary depending on what the source of noise, etc. is.

When the mic is in front of me it is about 6-8 inches from my mouth, and about...2ft-ish from my PC. Must be honest my last recording worked out the best and sounded, to me at least, the most professional recording I have done. I think I just need to tweak it some more.

I have gone back to RTX Voice for the time being too as I now understand that if I up the CPU priority it works far better and honestly nothing I have tried since has come close. I think the best situation would be to have my PC so far away that it just cannot be heard, and then have a properly (and correctly - no snake oil) setup environment to work in.