Mitigating a noisy room - Help

[Sarkonis]

Greetings, I am in a room next to the furnace and it's pretty loud, not going to lie. Any idea how to help mitigate the noise. I have tried noise suppression (high quality) under filters. Have not tried noise gating yet. Ambient noise according to OBS is around -37db while the furnace is running, which seems pretty loud by default. Some of my setup:

Blue Yeti - the silver one from around 2015. It's on my desk, NOT on an arm with a shock mount. I do have a pop filter.

When the furnace is off, the voice sounds pretty good for a default setup, but when it's on there's a noticeable hum. Sounds as if the suppression setting is in a losing battle with the ambient noise.

Not sure if links work, but here is an example of what I hear during one of my streams when the house furnace is running:
https://youtu.be/X6pSk9AG-hA?t=7179

This is the same stream earlier, when it's off:
https://youtu.be/X6pSk9AG-hA?t=3274

Anything I can look at in OBS or a third party app maybe? Or is this just going to be part of life moving forward. I would say just play with the thermostat off when I stream, but it's around -6 here so that's just not happening. Appreciate any ideas on settings I can fiddle with tonight after work.

-Sark

 

[koala]

Don't use mic far away on your desk. A mic on the desk is the best way to pick up any ambient noise very prominently. Use a mic directly in front of your mouth. Fix it not more than 2-3 cm away from one corner of your mouth. Corner, so you don't blow directly on the mic while you speak. The nearer the mic is to your mouth, the louder your voice is in comparison to the ambient noise, so the lower the ambient noise will appear.
In addition, use a noise gate to eliminate the hum while you are not speaking at all.

 

[thewitt]

Take a listen to this video - and pay particular attention to the use of the Expander at about 14 minutes.

 

[Sukiyucky]

A Blue Yeti is a very sensitive mic. Make sure you are setting the mode to cardiod so that it only picks up sound directly in front of the mic and not from all around.

 

[thewitt]

I guess a ink would have been helpful...

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[carlmmii]

Take koala's advice -- physics first, then software.

If you don't have a choice though, take a look at the ReaFir VST filter -- it lets you get a baseline frequency profile that it can try to tune out, which may help in your case. Past that, if you have an RTX GPU, you can use Nvidia Broadcast for noise suppression. Otherwise, noise gates and noise suppression filters are the last lines of defense.

 

[FerretBomb]

Move the mic closer to your mouth. Run the gain lower.

Condenser mics (like the Yeti) are a TERRIBLE choice for livestreaming. They're designed to capture absolutely everything, and so are meant for use in an acoustically-controlled environment like a sound booth, at ranges of 3 inches to at most a foot from your mouth, speaking directly into them. Having the mic on your desk is not an option for good quality with them.

 

[Sarkonis]

Thanks all for the advice. I will begin to experiment as I find time throughout the day. I have a pop filter and wind screen in place. Enabling sound gating helped a good deal, although I find now if my sentence starts with an "Sssss" it can get cut off.

I'm hesitant to spend more money, but would a mic stand and shock mount help at all? As an experiment, I held the mic in my hand and most of the noise vanished when lifted off the desk.

-Sark

 

[FerretBomb]

...would a mic stand and shock mount help at all? As an experiment, I held the mic in my hand and most of the noise vanished when lifted off the desk.

You've answered your own question. Yes.
You can get many cheap mic arms for $20 or less.

 

[Sarkonis]

I may look at that option next then. Appreciate the quick responses from everyone.

-Sark

 

[Sarkonis]

Wanted to follow up on this. I got a Rode PSA1 installed, which I read good things about. I now have a windscreen over the mic, took the pop filter away, and position the mic about 6 inches from my mouth, just out of frame. Sounds great. Now I just need to do some volume adjustments and I think we're golden. OBS says I dip into the red when I talk a bit and the mic hits 0db. Thanks for the help all.