Filter mechanism other than Noise Gate.

[thesamim]

Apologies if this is not the right place to ask raw newbie questions, please redirect me if needed.

Full disclosure: I'm not a sound engineer, am brand new to OBS.

Use case: Worship Online from Church.
Set up: Using OBS to take in two video feeds (cell phone cameras, no audio), Yeti Microphone in, QSC Mixer in through Behringer Adapter. Out to Zoom.
Problem: The fans from QSC Amplifier, the HVAC Blower and my laptop make a truck load (tm) of noise!

I've experimented with the Noise Suppression filter and the Noise Gate filter. I can make the noise go away BUT: the resulting audio ends up clipping in quiet passages (eg: soft music, soft speaker, when music starts after a period of silence, when someone speaks after a period of silence.) It sounds like music does over Zoom if you don't have "Original Sound" turned on.

I believe the issue is that the Filters are trying to help me by cutting off the audio input below certain thresholds. And this is great for getting rid of the white noise, but not so great when real signal is coming in.

In my tiny little mind, a better solution would be to filter the white noise out of the mixed sound. I think that tools like Audacity have that capability, but don't know for sure. Even if something like Audacity does do that, I get the impression that I can feed the sound in to Audacity but I don't know if I can take the sound back out of Audacity and into Zoom. (I mean: it's a recording tool, not a live-streaming tool as far as I know. So that makes sense.)

I've thought about experimenting with VoiceMeeter, but the setup is frankly daunting. But if others have had success with it, I'd be willing to give it a shot.

Thanks so much for reading this far! I'm looking forward to any and all suggestions.

 

[thesamim]

In case anybody finds this while searching...

Found the Reaper plugins: https://www.reaper.fm/reaplugs/
suggest searching youtube for "reafir noise reduction"

 

[cyclemat]

Or you have an good PC you can use nvidia broadcaster.

But what i dont undersrand why your mic so near on amp and Notebook in a church?

 

[koala]

Noise suppression filters always distort audio slightly.
If the noise gate doesn't work for you, did you experiment with its Open/Close Threshold settings?
If the noise gate kicks in too early if music/voice becomes quieter over time, lower the "Close Threshold" value.
If the noise gate doesn't open if someone starts speaking quietly after everything being silent, lower the "Open Threshold" value.

However, if your noise is louder than the threshold values, the noise gate cannot be used. In this case, you should probably look for a way to isolate the physical noise sources and put distance between them and the mics that are picking them up. The best solution is always to prevent noise in the first place, not to remove it afterwards.

 

[thesamim]

Or you have an good PC you can use nvidia broadcaster.

I was under the impression that you have to have an nividia card for that to work. I have a decent laptop, but it's an AMD processor and an AMD graphics card...

But what i dont undersrand why your mic so near on amp and Notebook in a church?

Small Church, zero budget, massive resistance to technology. Is the short answer.

The longer answer: the "tech station" is right next to the sound equipment in a small corner of the sanctuary, out of the congregation's sight. The amplifier noise is horrendous. The Yeti mic can only be within reach of the laptop. The mics that go into the soundboard (lavalier for the minister, podium mic for the readers) are ridiculously sensitive and pick up the amp fans AND the A/C fans (because Covid, we have to have them running all the time.) Turning down the gain on those makes them almost inaudible over the church soundsystem....

Thanks for the input!

 

[thesamim]

Noise suppression filters always distort audio slightly.
...

Thanks for the clarification. Had experimented with those, but ran out of patience. :)

reafir, with detecting the base noise level automatically, took the work out of finding the thresholds. There's probably room for improvement there, but it works now. I'll deal with refinement and looking into the noise gate again at some point....

However, if your noise is louder than the threshold values, the noise gate cannot be used. In this case, you should probably look for a way to isolate the physical noise sources and put distance between them and the mics that are picking them up. The best solution is always to prevent noise in the first place, not to remove it afterwards.

In the fullness of time, and if the church ever gets a decent budget, we will definitely look into a better physical arrangement of the microphones.

Thanks for your input.