As a sound engineer that's always having to explain to people how compression works. This is a fantastic video. Good job of illustrating the process, Harris.
I studied audio briefly as part of technical theatre (though I was more of a lighting guy) and this video explained more in five minutes than my tutors ever managed.
I like this a lot man. Straight to the point, and gives the philosophy of the why, followed by the how. Hope to see more of this style for other elements of streaming / content creation!
Good explanation for newbies. I will say that ideally you want to have the makeup gain about the same volume as when you have the compressor off and on. Or the average amount of gain reduction. Also if you have too much gain reduction you may hear the compressor kick in and turn off. This often happens at 10db or more depending on the compressor and how you speak, so you may want to adjust stuff to taste if it just doesn’t sound great. If you yell a lot on stream you may also want to have a higher ratio. 6:1 is what i often do for more dynamic performances sometimes even 10:1, but 4:1 is a great start if you are consistent and mostly talking. And if all of this is too complicated, I’ve found having people get an LA2A clone plugin is easy as it is a compressor with two knobs: input and gain reduction. Universal audio makes one but there are others out there. They are pretty cheap too (and sometimes on sale for free). I’ve seen them often for like $30 or less.
Honestly, really love this. Doing a voice over channel, learning this was (and is) difficult for me. You really made it make a little more sense. Thanks!!
OMG! Thank you so much! I've been trying to figure out how to set up the elgato compressor for sometime now as my audio keep going up and down and had these weird popping sounds when I talked. I knew it was the compressor, but couldn't figure out what I was doing wrong until I found this video.
Love you too broski 😎 honestly short RUclips tutorials that are actually to the point or making a comeback! I find myself following and subbing to people who don't beat around the bush just for RUclips's algorithm. Good stuff as always. I wonder if you can show us how to use sound suppression to get rid of PC fan noises and keyboard noises without having to rely on RNN noise or other AI sound suppression? Because I notice that whenever I get excited the AI doesn't allow my squeals through and cuts off the excitement in a inorganic way and it sounds weird.
I use a much more aggressive ratio for my streams, largely because I like to go from practically whispering to screaming at the top of my lungs, and there's just a lot of extra compression needed to balance that out nicely for a listener.
Little tip that wasn't mentioned in the video: If your compressor doesn't have automatic make-up gain, only bring in the amount of dB's that you lost, don't use the make-up gain as a volume knob.
Before this tutorial I would be blindly adjusting settings until it sounds good. Lol. I actually thought ratio was the boost. Thanks for setting me straight. What’s a good signal chain? Should preamp be included? When does EQ come in?
I know you don’t generally do no name audio stuff but you showed an Amazon screenshot of a budget dynamic mic other reviewers have said was really good but I’ve been watching you since 2017-2018(twitch days) and trust your judgement. I cant say the same about others. The mic is the Fifine Am8. Is there any way you could check it out? It’s a usb dynamic. If it’s decent, that could help a lot of streamers starting out since it’s so cheap.
What about the Limiter? Cant think of compression without it. Sometimes the loud parts are way louder, so that the compression "can't reach" it. The Limiter will add a loudness ceiling. Everything above it will be lowered to it.
would love i video with the complete audio setup in the wavelink xlr with the elgato plugins! elgato EQ, this compressor, then noise gates and de esser! and in which order we should have these effects... and maybe 3 eq setups presets for different voices? deeper voice, higher and girl voice for example
Treshold of pain , is actually the first pro gamer that made a living by playing games professionnally. he was playing quake and unreal in the 90's and in 95 won is first tournament! dennis Fong was also the player that popularized WASD key for control . Plus RIOT made tresh in is honor !
Simple! ...but... What about all the other fun compression/expansion effects? How about some upward compression on the game to help boost footsteps? Or downward expansion as a noise gate?
This definitely helped me understand what a compressor does a bit more clearly. I'm curious though, how would you set your theshold/attack/make-up gain when you don't have an active monitor showing you your db levels in real time? I have a Go XLR Mini, and my setup is -20db threshold, 4:1 ratio, 8db make-up, but my only point of reference has been trial and error.
Love the concept ! The only thing I'd appreciate even more would be how to do things without expensive gear. For example how do I also do this on OBS because I don't have the wave microphone and use an audio interface with a (xlr) condenser mic. So I can't go on elgato's software and change stuff like that. I can understand the principles but audio work is so difficult. I use davinci for videos and obs for recording and after trying to learn this stuff for years I still have no clue what I'm doing and I always find my audio sounds less than ideal.
OBS should have filters built in; right-click your microphone in the sources list, select filters, hit the + icon at the bottom-left and select Compressor. It might need a little more tweaking because you need to set the values manually, but you are setting the same ratio, threshold and gain values. Edit: and if you have those values from somewhere else (Audacity, for example) then you can often just use the same ones. Make a note of them though, so you can re-use those values elsewhere if needed.
I have like zero clue about audio stuff but have an shure sm7b + goxlr and I feel like I'm overwhelmed with all the possible things I can change so small tutorials like these would certainly help. I have a question tho, was thinking about getting rid of the goxlr for something else eversince they stopped supporting it but I don't know any good alternatives that give the same input/output support and functionality but less complexity. All I technically need is audio from my wireless headset for the pc + potentially console line-in/out and being able to split audio sources. I feel like all this functionality would be inside a stream deck + their xlr thing, or is there anything major I'd be missing?
They never stopped supporting it, but they did get a new team (that already released drivers for win11 support). Thanks to all the clickbaits tho, now we are stuck with people still thinking that is the case. EVEN if it was true, why would you get rid of it, if it works fine? Especially considering the fact that there are no 1:1 alternatives. Doesn’t make any sense.
Question with the reallygoodmousepads. My hands definitely get sweaty while I game. I love the “Ghost” mouse pad, but I am worried that it will start to get stained or yellow.
Please do one on noise gates in different background audio conditions. Active background(recording in a living room with TV going), non foam treated room(echoes) and so on
can you do a tutorial with doing this on a rode caster/duo its interface doesnt give any numerical value to your gain level when setting the compressor
Hey theres a new mic that just released that i think you should check out. Its called the lewitt ray mic and I think with steelseries sonar ai noise cancelling and eqs i think this would possibly be a great combo in my opinion but i would like to hear your thoughts on it. The lewitt ray with a wave xlr and steel series sonar
I haven’t even watched this but thanks! I’ve been trying to get this down and I’ve been having trouble! Could you do an EQ one for tips since there’s not really one that works for everyone from what it seems.
I know this may be off topic but I’m getting echo in OBS recording and general talking, ambient noises with dual pc setup. I may have played around with advanced options in OBS am I better off deleting it and starting fresh?
Yeah, I'm not sure how I messed up my effects chain (Elgato noise removal -> Elgato EQ -> Elgato compressor) but the Elgato compressor makes it sound like I am in a small box. Even swapping EQ and compression around is not enough to fix it. Looks like I might need to move the EQ to the end of the chain and then tweak it to reduce some of the unwanted frequencies.
And yes, I have both a fair amount of acoustic foam and my mic (a Wave:3) about 3 inches from my mouth; somehow the compressor is killing the effects of both foam and proximity.
Has anything changed with your camera or editing? I noticed on recent videos the focus is off where everything looks slightly blurry like a low f stop blur and there are some over saturated/blown out areas. In the beginning of this you can tell everything is slightly blurry and the color/lighting can be seen on your face. Before this it was the "This All-in-One Streaming Device is Almost PERFECT" Where the color was off and half the shots of the device are constant focus hunting or just out of focus.
Love that!! Now I just need to find a decent audio interface for MacOS that allows me to do such things. I also miss not be able to have a GATE setup. :-(
Ratio is basically how much compression is being used, the higher the number is more compression. For voice most people use 4:1 but I've used 3:1 or even 2:1 for a gentle compression, depends on the sound you are looking for
Honestly the "general" filters for audio as videos would be perfect. I get so confused with the and even moreso when trying to copy the settings from obs over to wave link (this is the main reason I am not using wave link)
but what if you have to have your pc setup where your dad watches tv, and they have the tv volume at max dad-volume (please understand what i mean for this). is that able to be compressed so that only your voice can be heard and not the voices on the tv? or is this something completely different?
No. Games are already mixed to sound good as is. Compressing them will only mess with the dynamics. Sometimes it will actually make the loud parts sound quieter than the quiet parts.
@@Senpai so should I add any filter to game audio? It is recommended to have your game audio lower than your mic right? Usually sound like gun shots makes my game audio peak louder than my voice.
Thoughts on 5 minute tutorials? I think I want to do more. Also, you check out the mousepads yet???
Definetly picking up the Neptune mousepad! At this point it’s a required purchase as a moist esports designer
Can you do one on elgato EQ as well
Wellll... looks like I'll have to watch this later...
That was way better than the dozens of half-hour tutorials that I still don't understand.
MOAR
prolly the best visualization I've seen for how compression actually works. nice job.
Agreed. Gonna double check my compression settings when I get home
as a music producer who uses compression all the time, you actually made things just that little more clearer for me, thanks
As a sound engineer that's always having to explain to people how compression works. This is a fantastic video. Good job of illustrating the process, Harris.
I studied audio briefly as part of technical theatre (though I was more of a lighting guy) and this video explained more in five minutes than my tutors ever managed.
He should do this for eq, noise gates, etc.
I agree
I agree. This helped me have a better understanding of this feature.
Oh my god please do this. I'm never happy with how my voice sounds.
finally. the audio engineer that i subbed for is back
If Harris did these types of videos for the other filters id be a very happy man 😄
I really like the format of short tutorial, to the point very clear and helpfull, looking forward to more like this!
I like this a lot man. Straight to the point, and gives the philosophy of the why, followed by the how. Hope to see more of this style for other elements of streaming / content creation!
Thanks for this Harris, would love more videos on audio by you. Especially with the context of streaming and video recording.
Simple, yet effective. Love it!
Good explanation for newbies.
I will say that ideally you want to have the makeup gain about the same volume as when you have the compressor off and on. Or the average amount of gain reduction. Also if you have too much gain reduction you may hear the compressor kick in and turn off. This often happens at 10db or more depending on the compressor and how you speak, so you may want to adjust stuff to taste if it just doesn’t sound great. If you yell a lot on stream you may also want to have a higher ratio. 6:1 is what i often do for more dynamic performances sometimes even 10:1, but 4:1 is a great start if you are consistent and mostly talking. And if all of this is too complicated, I’ve found having people get an LA2A clone plugin is easy as it is a compressor with two knobs: input and gain reduction. Universal audio makes one but there are others out there. They are pretty cheap too (and sometimes on sale for free). I’ve seen them often for like $30 or less.
Well done this is hands down the best explanation of compression I've come across so thanks
Honestly, really love this. Doing a voice over channel, learning this was (and is) difficult for me. You really made it make a little more sense. Thanks!!
OMG! Thank you so much! I've been trying to figure out how to set up the elgato compressor for sometime now as my audio keep going up and down and had these weird popping sounds when I talked. I knew it was the compressor, but couldn't figure out what I was doing wrong until I found this video.
Now do it for OBS. 😮
Thanks for this, literally had no idea what the Ratio on the Compressor meant! This cleaned up my audio immediately!
Loving my new mouse pad 💜 and thanks for the compression tips. Made me rethink my audio FX pipeline and it sounds better because of it 👏
hello, if i use compressor, should i turn off clipguard?
Probably the best explanation I've ever seen of this for people like me who don't know what they're doing or how any of this works.
Thank you so much for this!
Wait… when did Elgato add their own compressor? Guess I’ve been living under a rock.
Yes I would love to know more about this. I thought with Elgato you had to crap around with janky freeware VST plugins.
I bought the Ghost Cartographer already! It’s so clean!
I'm an audio engineer and I still learned something. Love Harris's teaching method
i like turtles
Engagement king 👑
Heroes in a half-shell... (turtle power!)
Awesome tutorial! And your really good mousepads are definitely worth looking at! 👍🏼
PLEASE do more of these.
Great content and timely. You're definitely a creator to look up to. Thanks, man!
What about compression in video games ?
Love you too broski 😎 honestly short RUclips tutorials that are actually to the point or making a comeback! I find myself following and subbing to people who don't beat around the bush just for RUclips's algorithm. Good stuff as always. I wonder if you can show us how to use sound suppression to get rid of PC fan noises and keyboard noises without having to rely on RNN noise or other AI sound suppression? Because I notice that whenever I get excited the AI doesn't allow my squeals through and cuts off the excitement in a inorganic way and it sounds weird.
MORE OF THIS PLEASE RHANKS
lovely guide! thanks :) more sound setup guides would be nice
Hey dude, just wanted to say it was awesome meeting you at NAB. Thanks for all the goodness you’ve shared throughout the years!
I use a much more aggressive ratio for my streams, largely because I like to go from practically whispering to screaming at the top of my lungs, and there's just a lot of extra compression needed to balance that out nicely for a listener.
Thank you for making this knowledge more digestible. ❤
Great, easy and usefull tips! Are these setting working for the new Elgato Neo Microphone?
Thank you for explaining the settings! Really helped out. 💙
Little tip that wasn't mentioned in the video: If your compressor doesn't have automatic make-up gain, only bring in the amount of dB's that you lost, don't use the make-up gain as a volume knob.
Fantastic explanation, you decide to do more would like to know a bit more about the ratio Settings on a compressor. Thanks
Through this, it also brings the voice forward. More presence.
Before this tutorial I would be blindly adjusting settings until it sounds good. Lol. I actually thought ratio was the boost. Thanks for setting me straight.
What’s a good signal chain? Should preamp be included? When does EQ come in?
I know you don’t generally do no name audio stuff but you showed an Amazon screenshot of a budget dynamic mic other reviewers have said was really good but I’ve been watching you since 2017-2018(twitch days) and trust your judgement. I cant say the same about others.
The mic is the Fifine Am8.
Is there any way you could check it out? It’s a usb dynamic. If it’s decent, that could help a lot of streamers starting out since it’s so cheap.
What about the Limiter? Cant think of compression without it. Sometimes the loud parts are way louder, so that the compression "can't reach" it. The Limiter will add a loudness ceiling. Everything above it will be lowered to it.
Thank you!! Would this change if your voice pitch is quite a bit higher (i.e. a female?)?
Straight and to the point simple as that (using those 5 minutes you saved to write this comment for engagement)
would love i video with the complete audio setup in the wavelink xlr with the elgato plugins! elgato EQ, this compressor, then noise gates and de esser! and in which order we should have these effects... and maybe 3 eq setups presets for different voices? deeper voice, higher and girl voice for example
Treshold of pain , is actually the first pro gamer that made a living by playing games professionnally.
he was playing quake and unreal in the 90's and in 95 won is first tournament!
dennis Fong was also the player that popularized WASD key for control .
Plus RIOT made tresh in is honor !
Simple! ...but... What about all the other fun compression/expansion effects? How about some upward compression on the game to help boost footsteps? Or downward expansion as a noise gate?
love the short tutorials! thank you!
My mic sounds better now, thank you 💖💖💖
Wanted to learn how compressors work so I built my own LA-2A replica from scratch. ADHD baby! :D
This is helpful :) I need something like this for background noise removal 😅
This definitely helped me understand what a compressor does a bit more clearly. I'm curious though, how would you set your theshold/attack/make-up gain when you don't have an active monitor showing you your db levels in real time? I have a Go XLR Mini, and my setup is -20db threshold, 4:1 ratio, 8db make-up, but my only point of reference has been trial and error.
Love the concept ! The only thing I'd appreciate even more would be how to do things without expensive gear. For example how do I also do this on OBS because I don't have the wave microphone and use an audio interface with a (xlr) condenser mic. So I can't go on elgato's software and change stuff like that. I can understand the principles but audio work is so difficult. I use davinci for videos and obs for recording and after trying to learn this stuff for years I still have no clue what I'm doing and I always find my audio sounds less than ideal.
OBS should have filters built in; right-click your microphone in the sources list, select filters, hit the + icon at the bottom-left and select Compressor. It might need a little more tweaking because you need to set the values manually, but you are setting the same ratio, threshold and gain values.
Edit: and if you have those values from somewhere else (Audacity, for example) then you can often just use the same ones. Make a note of them though, so you can re-use those values elsewhere if needed.
Thank you Harris-sama.
Maybe a tutorial on your audio post for these videos?
I have like zero clue about audio stuff but have an shure sm7b + goxlr and I feel like I'm overwhelmed with all the possible things I can change so small tutorials like these would certainly help.
I have a question tho, was thinking about getting rid of the goxlr for something else eversince they stopped supporting it but I don't know any good alternatives that give the same input/output support and functionality but less complexity. All I technically need is audio from my wireless headset for the pc + potentially console line-in/out and being able to split audio sources.
I feel like all this functionality would be inside a stream deck + their xlr thing, or is there anything major I'd be missing?
They never stopped supporting it, but they did get a new team (that already released drivers for win11 support). Thanks to all the clickbaits tho, now we are stuck with people still thinking that is the case. EVEN if it was true, why would you get rid of it, if it works fine? Especially considering the fact that there are no 1:1 alternatives. Doesn’t make any sense.
What about the attack and release settings? What should they be set to?
I think I need a physical compressor of some sort. Unsure where to look though.
that was really well explained and very useful. Thank you
i would love videos like this for the rode procaster duo
Saving this for later! TYSM!
Question with the reallygoodmousepads. My hands definitely get sweaty while I game. I love the “Ghost” mouse pad, but I am worried that it will start to get stained or yellow.
Please do one on noise gates in different background audio conditions. Active background(recording in a living room with TV going), non foam treated room(echoes) and so on
Many metal bands already with the name Threshold of Pain :)
can you do a tutorial with doing this on a rode caster/duo its interface doesnt give any numerical value to your gain level when setting the compressor
“Question one of two” … “Question two of three” 🤯 Great vid! Off to set up my compressor.
I studied audio in college, not calculus
He's a guitarist; only drummers get the specialist training in counting to four.
The real question is what software should we use. I know Elgato and Rode have pretty good software but you need one of their mics to use it.
More of these!
*Edit: As in, more quickie tutorials on something complex made simple :D
Hey theres a new mic that just released that i think you should check out. Its called the lewitt ray mic and I think with steelseries sonar ai noise cancelling and eqs i think this would possibly be a great combo in my opinion but i would like to hear your thoughts on it. The lewitt ray with a wave xlr and steel series sonar
Nice lesson! Good to be educated
Now I want peanut butter….and a mousepad
Both? In this economy??
I haven’t even watched this but thanks! I’ve been trying to get this down and I’ve been having trouble! Could you do an EQ one for tips since there’s not really one that works for everyone from what it seems.
Make way more of this stuff. Maybe functions of cameras and webcams
Thank you thank you thank you very much indeed!❤❤❤
I know this may be off topic but I’m getting echo in OBS recording and general talking, ambient noises with dual pc setup. I may have played around with advanced options in OBS am I better off deleting it and starting fresh?
Yeah, I'm not sure how I messed up my effects chain (Elgato noise removal -> Elgato EQ -> Elgato compressor) but the Elgato compressor makes it sound like I am in a small box. Even swapping EQ and compression around is not enough to fix it. Looks like I might need to move the EQ to the end of the chain and then tweak it to reduce some of the unwanted frequencies.
And yes, I have both a fair amount of acoustic foam and my mic (a Wave:3) about 3 inches from my mouth; somehow the compressor is killing the effects of both foam and proximity.
Has anything changed with your camera or editing? I noticed on recent videos the focus is off where everything looks slightly blurry like a low f stop blur and there are some over saturated/blown out areas. In the beginning of this you can tell everything is slightly blurry and the color/lighting can be seen on your face. Before this it was the "This All-in-One Streaming Device is Almost PERFECT" Where the color was off and half the shots of the device are constant focus hunting or just out of focus.
My 35mm lens doesn’t have autofocus and I keep thinking I can focus these myself. I never get it right.
I bought the black mouse pad! I love it brotha! Can you talk about the release on the compressor please and thx!
"I love you" 4:52 😆 well if you mean it harris, my bday is on saturday haha.
When I said I love you I was specifically talking to you
Love that!!
Now I just need to find a decent audio interface for MacOS that allows me to do such things. I also miss not be able to have a GATE setup. :-(
Why do you think Elgato audio equipment is so popular? The Wave Link software is a massive selling point for audio-noobs and lazy sound-technicians...
Helped me out a lot
i already named my band threshold of pain…just looking for all the other members beside myself:/ how dare you blow up my spot!!
Is there a difference between 3:1, 3.5:1, 4:1? I'm seeing all 3 being used for voice.
Ratio is basically how much compression is being used, the higher the number is more compression. For voice most people use 4:1 but I've used 3:1 or even 2:1 for a gentle compression, depends on the sound you are looking for
Can you make another quick tutorial on an exciter?
how did you open the elgato compressor software i downloaded and can't find it anywhere
Honestly the "general" filters for audio as videos would be perfect. I get so confused with the and even moreso when trying to copy the settings from obs over to wave link (this is the main reason I am not using wave link)
fun fact: there actually already is a band called "Treshold of Pain" ;)
PLEASE do something like this for EQ. I have been breaking my head on properly applying EQ to my Wave:3. I'm struggling so much.
Thank you for tutorial!
What microphone are you using in this video spenpai?
but what if you have to have your pc setup where your dad watches tv, and they have the tv volume at max dad-volume (please understand what i mean for this). is that able to be compressed so that only your voice can be heard and not the voices on the tv? or is this something completely different?
Wish this sort of software would come to the GoXLR, Kinda want to move to Elgato for these sweet sweet plugins.
There are comparable plugins (just not quite so simple) in OBS. just right-click the audio device and select filters.
personally, i like very compressed. i like when all the signal is perfect at same level. i have Logitech Blue Yeti.
my man we need more audio tuts........MORRRREEEEEEEEEEEE
Thanks man!
got my new mousepad otw :)
Can we get a new elgato eq tutorial like this one???
I can't believe this video is not less than 5 minutes
Should I use compressor for game audio and at what ratio for OBS?
No. Games are already mixed to sound good as is. Compressing them will only mess with the dynamics. Sometimes it will actually make the loud parts sound quieter than the quiet parts.
@@Senpai so should I add any filter to game audio? It is recommended to have your game audio lower than your mic right? Usually sound like gun shots makes my game audio peak louder than my voice.