Thread by @alyssilya

_A sound design plugin dev recently made a bunch of their effects plugins FREE, so here's a thread on leveling up your stream and voiceover audio in OBS! I'll be using the Kilohearts Essentials bundle, but the general method can also be applied to stock OBS. 🧵 #vtuber #ENVtuber

DISCLAIMER 1/2: I'm assuming you know your way around mic setup and placement. I'd also recommend splitting up your audio sources in a nested scene. Check out these videos first!
General Setup:
Split Sources/QoL:

2/2: Mixing and mastering is a subtle art. These effects won't be as blatantly obvious as distortion or autotune etc. They also won't magically fix a bad mic or bad recording space... If you want that kind of sauce check out oeksound's Soothe2 plugin. *None of this is sponsored.*

To start, you'll need to find your mic input channel in the OBS audio mixer. It will usually be labeled "Mic/Aux" by default. If your mixer doesn't match, you can change it to the vertical layout by clicking any of the gear icons as shown in the second image.

Once you have the right channel, click the gear and select filters. You'll be greeted with a nice empty box like this. We'll be building our processing chain here later.

Now for the plugins! Kilohearts Essentials comes with 30 plugins usually used inside a host program such as Phase Plant, but they work on their own too! You used to have to pay for most of these, but now you can download them for free at kilohearts.com/products/kiloh…

This next part is VERY IMPORTANT! Once you're ready to install the plugins, download and open the Kilohearts Installer. DO NOT change the file path. Make sure you install to the DEFAULT location since OBS can only read VST2s from certain directories!

Once you've installed the bundle, its back to OBS. To start, you'll want to add some sort of noise suppression. Unless you have a few hundred to invest in a plugin like Waves Clarity or iZotope RX, you'll want to use the built in noise suppression that comes stock with OBS.

In the filters window from earlier, click the + icon in the lower left and select "Noise Suppression" from the menu. Either setting is fine, but choose the best your system can handle.

Next click the + icon in the lower left and select "VST 2.x Plug-in" from the menu. You can name these whatever you want, but let's call this first one "Subtractive EQ"

Next, go to the drop-down menu and you should be able to see all our kHs plugins. Select kHs 3-Band EQ, then hit the "Open Plug-in Interface" button. You should see the plugin window open.

These next steps require some experimentation. Every voice is different so your settings won't be exactly the same, but the general idea is the same. With this first EQ we want to cut the highs and lows and leave the mids around where your voice range sits.

Next we want to reduce the harsh sounds of sibilances ("sss" sounds) and plosives ("puh" sounds) from our vocal. This is usually handled by a mix of tools such as de-essers and pop filters, but for this example let's assume you don't have a de-esser and make our own.

Back in the filters window, the first part of our de-esser will be a kHs Transient Shaper. Add it the same way you added the first EQ. We can help reduce harsh frequencies by lowering the sustain in the Transient Shaper.

For the second part of our de-esser, add a kHs compressor. The only knobs you should have to touch here are Threshold and Ratio. Raise the threshold and the ratio to help tame those harsh frequencies.

The last part of our de-esser will be kHs Dynamics. This is another compressor. I like to use both types to shape the high end of the vocal. Drag the mid range around where your vocal sits, then drag down the right side a bit. Those are threshold and ratio params respectively.

Next we're gonna sandwich our de-esser with another EQ. This one will boost the mids of the vocal. Separate the dividers to make even thirds and ever so slightly boost the mid gain. This will help your voice cut through bgm, game sounds, etc. without needing sidechain ducking.

The final piece of our signal chain will be a limiter. Add the kHs Limiter and talk at the loudest volume you think you'd ever use on stream. Lower the threshold until you stop seeing red on the mixer. The limiter will help prevent clipping and distortion even at loud volumes.

Congrats, you made it to the end! Your processing chain should look something like this. And remember, you'll probably need to experiment with the settings to dial everything in for your specific mic, interface, etc. If you have any questions or suggestions feel free to DM me! 💙

While this is casually blowing up, anyone interested in a discord server focused on music/audio for content creators? Workshops, mixing and mastering help for covers/original music, etc.