What other videos would you like to see from a professional audio engineer?

0:55 Introduction to Ryan 2:44 Room Echo 4:30 Audio Clipping (Too Loud) 5:37 Compression | Ratio | Makeup/Output Gain | Attack/Release 8:00 EQ / Equalization Settings - 8:26 Too Dull? - 9:10 Too thin? - 9:26 Muddy? - 10:02 Too much Boom? 10:54 Mic Placement - 13:30 Orientation

As a professional sound engineer myself there are couple of things I would like to add: 1. Dont follow the crowd and get an SM7B, especially if you are not experienced and dont know how to use it correctly. 2. When finding a mic, find one that matches your voice, every mic has its own EQ, and some mics will make your voice sound clearer and/or warmer depending on the tone you are looking for. 3. Dont buy stupidly expensive mics... Unless your a professional engineer... then go ahead, you can never have too many mics. 4. Polar pattens are important, especially with condensor mics with switchable modes, cardioid is always your best bet when its just you, because it will reject everything behind it, (doesnt mean whatever is behind it can be loud), If you have something noisey diagonally from you and you are using a dynamic mic, super/hyper cardioid is an option, it rejects everything at around 120 degrees. 5. Shockmounts; if you have a condensor mic, a shockmount will reduce any noise from your desk traveling up the desk mic arm, as they can be very sensitive. 6. When going with a professional mic like the SM58 or SM7B, dont just get the cheapest XLR cable, your signal will be noisey, and will be prone to any electrical interference. Neutrik is the professional worlds go to connector manufacturer and pre-made cable using these connectors are the best choice for a worry free time. 7. Also while on the topic of XLR cables, avoid XLR to Jack cables, and get XLR to XLR cables as shielding will the best on them. 8. Make sure you use Mic level in when using a mic and NOT Line level in, they are used for two different things. I hope this helps as well. Happy Content Creating!

To all those asking about EQ: The one Harris was using was built-in software for the GoXLR. OBS does not have native EQ built in. You CAN add EQ, via a VST plugin, and some are free. I use Marvel EQ, and it's simple and works great. Adding full EQ control to my condenser mic helped a lot.

"Try to go in between your nose and your chin. AKA your mouth." Audio engineering and anatomy in one vid. Solid. 🤣

Starting with an Office reference. I approve.

"Where should you put your mic?" "In front of your face." Ah, yes. The high-quality advice we all come here to listen to.

"So if I have my mic upside down does it sound like I'm in Australia?" Laughed so hard at that

Fellow audio engineer here, I would say that the attack and release settings are very important when streaming/recording. I don't use the built-in OBS or GoXlr settings but here is the general rule of thumb; For speech (non-radio) have a somewhat fast attack around 1-3 ms and a somewhat slow release, maybe 50 and above depending on the type of compressor you're using. IF you want that radio pumping effect (which I wouldn't recommend for streaming, it gets very annoying very fast) The have a fast attack and a fast release.

Identity theft is not a joke Ryan ! Millions of family suffer every year ! - Harris Kurt Heller 2020

For those who want to know attack and release is very important in compression In short: Attack: How quickly it will take down the gain (How much fast the compression will react) Release: Is how much time it will hold the compression on your audio If you want we can talk and I can explain more about it, or just search on youtube and google about this

Genuine Australian here, can confirm we flip our mics upside down so our voice comes out the right side up. *nods*

"If my mic is upside down does it make my voice upside down" 🤣🤣🤣

I really appreciate Harris because he, as someone who has first hand experience, is giving all of his viewers tips and guidance to help them grow and improve too. Hats off man!

but wait... What if the audio mistake is just my voice?

"Know how many people I see speak into to the top of their Blue Yeti?" Bruh, you spying on me?

Moving blankets do wonders for sound absorption. I have a walk-in closet with the walls covered in moving blankets, and nice looking tapestries draped over them for aesthetics. Works pretty well as a makeshift studio!

Harris: "..Ryan is a professional audio engineer. We actually went to school together studying sound recording technology.. I dropped out, he finished.." And now Ryan works for me lol 😆 Entrepreneurship is awesome 👊🏼😁

Awesome, really really brilliant video. we need more of this. I had the general idea but seeing the figures, and the settings, now helps me to understand more for playing around. cheers guys.

No joke, I've been needing the advice in the video pretty recently! Thanks for this and welcome aboard officially Ryan!

instructions unclear, my toilet is clogged and i became australian.

This channel really needs a million subs, this is the most information I’ve learned around any form of content creation

This is massive, after over 430 videos I've never really loved my audio. I didn't even know some of those settings were in OBS! Excited to try them out for my next stream 🙌🏻

This video was exactly what I needed I've been trying to improve my audio for a while now and yall answered so many questions i had. Thank you both!!!!

cannot thank you two enough for bringing this topic up! having a pleasing voice in our quarantined digital world is more important than some may realize :/

For anyone wondering, attack and release settings just tell the filter how long to fade in and out of different volume levels.

I'm starting to get ready to stream and your videos have been extremely helpful! Thanks for providing useful and informational content!! Appreciate you.

i love this! the vibes were immaculate and the info was super helpful as well

You two have really great chemistry, it's obvious that you've been friends for so long. Looking forward to seeing you guys make more videos together!

Lmao that made me crack up when he said he worked as an audio engineer in an actual studio for 8 years but didn't know what attack/release was.

Thank you! I highly appreciate any royalty music and ones with no literal strings attached! I definitely subbed and will watch more of your content! Good luck to the inevitable 1 million subs! :)

This video along with your previous audio video has fixed my issues! Funny enough, I was just following along with some of the settings shown as a starting point and it just happened to be the fix. Thanks again!!

I had no clue the intro wasn't harris because I'm blind

Alpha, thanks for bringing on Ryan to share his wisdom. I know you have tons of experience yourself, so bringing on another expert is something not everyone would be humble enough to do. Yall did great, thanks!!

Damn you two gel so well together, please please please do more videos like this

Super helpful video! Thanks guys, would love more like this!

The intro. Perfection 🔥

the mic upside down bit was golden. a suggestion: when you talk about some of this stuff, video examples (like the eq) and graphics would help beginners (more than hands). btw, love the new guy. he knows his stuff and knows how to explain it keeping it simple.

Super helpful advice guys. Taking notes with my son as we are just starting and learning the ropes. Awesome content!

This was both informative and funny. You guys had me cracking up throughout the video. Great job.

3:46 Me : *Needs sound proofing* My sister's stuff toys : *Don't you dare*

I studied 2 out of 3 years in an audio engineering degree. Jumped ship because there's no stable career in it and of course I'm in giant university debt. However, there's good advice in this vid. Streamers and video content creators need to get audio right. No video or stream makes me bail faster than one with bad audio. That's not from a purist perspective but a basic viewer. Understand what compression values mean, if needed. But more commonly, at least establish basic levels. Sound is more important than everything else in *visual* media. If the audio doesn't result in viewers noticing any problem with it, it's been done right. It's the most thankless task in even a *professional* media context but it matters the most because it will absolutely kill any ongoing interest in that media source if it's done badly. You don't need god-tier microphones or sound-dampening foam plastering every wall, just moderately-capable equipment and a bit of know-how to dial it in. That knowledge is easily available online. Happy streaming!

I really enjoyed this and learnt loads, Ive streamed like twice and just having fun with it at the moment, but thanks for all the helpful videos man

Great video! I was hoping to learn a bit about the "whys" of how some things work and I you guys delivered! I was so happy to see you teaching mic placement. As someone who has worked in sound as a production assistant, karaoke DJ and promoting and running sound for concerts, this has always been the biggest pain in the ass. Teaching "professionals" about mic control is something no one should have to do, but here we are. Haha Just a couple notes. I use a noise gate on Voice Meeter Banana to combat background noise. I keep that set at 2.0 and something has to be REALLY loud to pick up unless it's directly in front of my mic. Attack and release are typically fine at default. What they do is, they're like "deadzones" on a controller. The "attack" is the point where the filter kicks in and "release" is when it deactivates. Also dropped Ryan a follow!

I heard "Markiplier" and "sexy" and I'm here to stay....

Take the tip about the mic being upside-down vs side-ways vs regular with a grain of salt. If you have a tube mic (which are typically large-diaphragm condenser microphones), using it upside-down can actually improve the longevity of your mic. Tube mics work by passing their signals through a tube (thus their name) before being outputted, but if using them the regular way has potential to affect the sound of the mic over time through the changing temperature this causes. If you use the tube mic upside-down, the heat does not pass over the diaphragm directly and, thus, won't have this affect. It also helps because it forces you to talk slightly upwards towards the mic and makes your vocals sound more full. While not as drastic, it can also help reduce plosives but not too much.

So much helpful information here! Thank you!

I freaking love this channel. Been using it for at least a couple years. I started in at like 5200 subs. And look at it now! So awesome! Best stream help content around!

The thumbnail: which way to orient your mic Me: Uhhh...... I have a *headset mic*

They haven't even heard of Corpse's voice.

Thank you so much! I used several of your suggestions, and my audio levels are so much better! I was afraid to try a compressor for some reason, and it helps a lot!

This was super helpful in terms of specific example after you talk about a tip, especially the equalizer so that I have an idea of how to play around and find my own setting when I have a point or an idea what to look for

I put curtains in over the blind in my office and the difference in sound quality was mental. The curtains soak up so much echo my streams and recordings sound much better.

This honestly helps a lot... I use condenser mics now and have/still have no idea what settings I should be looking to setup. After watching this, I feel more comfortable with what settings I should consider. Still swapping to Dynamic tho since it's 2 people in the same room and we don't want echo!

Great video! thanks Ryan And Harris for this Gem! i would love to see a video mainly for the blue yeti, im not only saying this cause its a mic i use, but i think this mic is used by majority of the people who are starting out, Thanks Again Take Care!

really appreciate this and I'm glad it doesn't just apply to streaming but to all content creation

Hey what's the software for the Equalizer please ? Thanks 🙂

Thanks a lot for your videos, I've recently started to make videos of my own and before I started, I studied a lot of the topics you adressed, however I'm still working on getting even better audio quality/mixing. Cheers!

Awesome video man! That was fun to watch!

Fantastic idea for a video - well executed. Ryan was amazing!

Me: Works professionally with audio Also me: Holy crap it never occurred to me to EQ my voice...

I need to set my mic just a bit lower than my face, because I seem to have the bad habit of inhaling sharply when I get into gunfights which is quite loud over the mic. I have a usb mic (hyperx quadcast).

Very informative thank you! Also love the content I want to stream and I have had many questions all of which answered by watching your channel thank you!!

hey harris and the alpha gaming team. im a big fan from germany and i just wanted to say THANK you so much for the help and support and the free content you give to us. its amazing and i am so thankful that you are doing this. so again THANK you so much!!

for a second I thought Harris had finally stopped bleaching his hair

2:02 "You know more about audio than I do" "Shure" Was that a reference? XD

The content you bring in....mind blown 🤯 Thanks Harris.

This was a great video! So much good and useful information!

"Knows more about audio", "what does attack and release do on a compressor?" :P :P :P :P

Why does everyone say that we are upside down in Australia lol. Seems like these guys had alot of fun

Outstanding!! Good to see Ryan..

Something I would love to see from Ryan is an overview of popular microphones and about what distance they should be away from the mouth based on the kind of microphone or the hardware inside.

3:20 ok I'll just hang stuffed animals all over my room, thank you!

Info: Attack, Sustain, Release is how long the Compressor and/or Noise Gate acts upon the incoming signal that hits ABOVE your set levels. Hint: These are audio "Enhancement - Control tools. Very small adjustments are needed to use them. But to better understand them, play with the extreams of each setting, one at a time, and listen to what happens to your voice/audio. Then set back to default and make finer adjustments. Hope this helps. 🤘🏻😎🤘🏻

Thank you! On one hand pretty entertaing and on the other very informative! Learning alot!

thank you so much guys for clarifying about the rotation of the mic position! I normally have mine in an upright position and it just gets in the way... I would've preferred it on its side but was worried about my audio from the microphone coming out sideways for listeners

0:00 Wow, I didn't know that you're friends with the guy from Star Trek Voyager.

“Markiplier’s voice is sexy” Me: have you heard corpse husband

Dude you are the best, thx for that music! and all that cool tips you show to us!

I love alot of the content on this channel, but this video was super useful for me. Thanks alot guys.

EDIT: Fixed! Hey Ryan's Twitch link isn't working. You have an extra "i" in the name that needs to be removed. Wanna make sure our K1ng gets his due credit for his work.

hey harris the link to ryan's twitch is wrong doisn't have a i after the 1

Hey man, I've been enjoying your channel for a few months now! I was just wondering if it would be possible to add Chapters to your videos? It would make finding the right spot in the video that I am looking for that much easier instead of having to scrub through. Keep up the great work, love your content!

This not only explained everything perfectly, but also had the office reference. I'm thrilled.

you misspelled ryan's twitch url, it has an "i" after the "1"

You can't use: "I've been sound engineer for 8 years" and "I don't really know what Attack and Release settings do on a compressor" in the same sentence, video or EVER.

Nice vid. The compression part was especially helpful and the part on room acoustic control.

Fantastic and informative... and full of memes, just like we've come to expect from the channel ;)

What program does Harris use for eq settings?

I clicked Ryan's link, but it doesn't show a channel :(

Yo thank you for this video! I was able to learn a lot and this can even help with making music which is cool!

Duuuuuude! I had no idea about streambeats thank you man that's been a huge help!

There is an "i" to much in the twitch link in deskription

"10 sounds better than 8" No it just makes you seem older

That compressor tip was huge. That's my biggest hang up with audio, trying to get my audio more consistent on my stream. Big thumbs up to Ryan for that

The intro was gold! Lmao (haven’t watched the rest yet)

That guy was Asian? I couldn’t tell cus I don’t see race.

Literally to the 1% who’s reading this God Bless you stay safe and have a wonderful day.🥰(my dream is to become a famous KZfaqr.)

I really do love you're content Harris you teach a lot of stuff about streaming thank you so much for sharing it to us 🥺 ❤️ I've been your fan since I started streaming you help me a lot you help us a lot❤️ RESPECT 🙏

Just discovered this video. It's super helpful, thank you! :)