Good video quality can attract viewers to your stream, but audio quality often determines whether they stay. Most viewers can tolerate an average webcam or a less polished visual setup, but background noise, inconsistent volume, clipping, or a microphone that captures every keyboard click can quickly become tiring.

The good news is that you do not need an expensive studio microphone to dramatically improve your voice. OBS Studio includes several built-in audio filters that can make even a relatively inexpensive microphone sound cleaner, fuller, and more professional.

With the right setup, you can get much closer to what is often described as a cinematic voice, broadcast voice, or radio voice: a voice that sounds close, controlled, clear, and pleasant to listen to.

There is one important thing to understand, though. Filters cannot completely change the natural character of your microphone or your voice. Their main job is to remove problems, control dynamics, and enhance what is already there.

Pro Tip: Before adding any filters, place your microphone reasonably close to your mouth. In many cases, keeping it around 10–20 cm away will improve your sound more than adding another plugin.

Set Your Microphone Level First

Before adding any filters, make sure your microphone input level is set correctly. This is one of the most commonly overlooked parts of an OBS audio setup.

Speak into the microphone the same way you normally speak during your streams. Do not test it by quietly saying “test, test” if you are usually much louder while gaming.

Watch the audio meter inside OBS.

During normal speech, a good starting point is to have your voice sitting somewhere around -18 to -12 dB, while louder moments can reach approximately -10 to -6 dB.

There is no reason to push your normal voice close to 0 dB. You want some headroom for moments when you suddenly laugh, shout, or react loudly during gameplay.

If your microphone is extremely quiet, increase the input gain on your audio interface, microphone, or operating system first. The Gain filter inside OBS is better used for smaller corrections rather than fixing an extremely weak input signal.

Pro Tip: If you need to add +15 or +20 dB of Gain inside OBS, check your microphone input settings first. Large digital gain increases can also make background noise much more noticeable.

Quick OBS Microphone Settings for Better Voice Quality

If you do not want to spend hours tweaking every audio parameter, start with four basic filters:

Noise Suppression → Expander → Compressor → Limiter

This simple filter chain can already make a major difference to your microphone quality.

The exact numbers will vary depending on your voice, microphone, room, and speaking volume, so treat the values below as starting points rather than universal settings.

Filter	Recommended Starting Point
Noise Suppression	RNNoise or another high-quality suppression method
Expander	Threshold around -45 dB, Ratio around 2:1
Compressor	Threshold around -18 dB, Ratio 3:1–4:1
Limiter	Threshold around -3 dB

1. Noise Suppression

Noise Suppression should usually be the first stage of cleaning your microphone signal.

Its purpose is to reduce constant background noise such as computer fans, air conditioning, low-level room noise, or microphone self-noise.

If you are using RNNoise, it is often a good starting option without requiring much additional configuration.

If your suppression method allows you to control the amount of noise reduction, avoid immediately setting it to the strongest possible value.

Aggressive noise reduction can make your voice sound metallic, robotic, or similar to a heavily compressed voice call.

Start with relatively mild suppression and increase it only until the background noise is no longer distracting.

If the ends of words begin disappearing or you hear strange digital artifacts while speaking, your noise suppression is probably working too aggressively.

Pro Tip: Noise Suppression should not be used as a replacement for proper microphone positioning. A loud gaming PC sitting 30 cm away from your microphone is better fixed physically before trying to remove everything through software.

2. Expander

The Expander is one of the most useful OBS filters for streamers, especially if your room contains a gaming PC, mechanical keyboard, fans, or other low-level background sounds.

A good starting point could look like this:

Threshold: around -45 dB
Ratio: around 2:1
Attack: around 5–10 ms
Release: around 100–150 ms

An Expander works more subtly than a traditional Noise Gate.

When you stop talking, it does not simply switch your microphone completely off. Instead, it reduces the volume of quieter sounds.

This usually creates a much more natural transition between speech and silence.

If your keyboard, PC fans, or room noise are still clearly audible when you stop speaking, gradually raise the Threshold. For example, you could move it from -45 dB to -42 dB or -40 dB.

If the filter starts cutting off the beginnings of quieter sentences, the Threshold is probably too high. Lower it by a few decibels.

This is one of the filters you should not copy blindly from another streamer. Someone using a microphone 10 cm from their mouth in a quiet room may need completely different settings from someone whose microphone sits next to a loud mechanical keyboard.

3. Compressor

The Compressor is responsible for one of the most important characteristics of professional-sounding voice audio: dynamic control.

Without compression, a calm sentence can be relatively quiet, while a loud laugh or gaming reaction a few seconds later can suddenly become much louder for the viewer.

The Compressor reduces that difference.

A good starting point is:

• Threshold: around -18 dB
• Ratio: 3:1 or 4:1
• Attack: around 5–10 ms
• Release: around 60–120 ms
• Output Gain: 0 to +3 dB

The Threshold determines when compression starts working.

If your voice still sounds very inconsistent, you can lower the Threshold slightly, for example from -18 dB to -20 dB.

Ratio determines how strongly the signal is compressed once it crosses that threshold.

For streaming, 3:1 or 4:1 is a good place to begin. There is usually no reason to immediately use extreme settings such as 10:1 because your voice can quickly become flat and unnatural.

After applying compression, you may notice that the microphone sounds slightly quieter overall. In that case, you can add a small amount of Output Gain, such as +1, +2, or +3 dB.

Compression is one of the main reasons a voice can start sounding more close, controlled, and broadcast-like.

Pro Tip: More compression does not automatically mean a better cinematic voice. Over-compressed speech becomes tiring to listen to and loses its natural dynamics.

4. Limiter

The Limiter should normally sit near the end of your microphone filter chain.

A good starting Threshold is approximately:

-3 dB

The Limiter is not really there to change the character of your voice. It acts as a safety mechanism.

If you suddenly shout, laugh loudly, or create an unexpected volume spike, the Limiter prevents the signal from exceeding the level you have set.

This reduces the risk of extremely loud peaks and unpleasant clipping.

If your Limiter is constantly working during normal speech, something earlier in your signal chain is probably too loud. Check your microphone gain and Compressor settings instead of relying on the Limiter to control everything.

How to Make Your Voice Sound More Cinematic

The four filters above mainly clean and control your signal.

If you want to change the actual character and tone of your voice, the next filter to consider is an Equalizer.

EQ allows you to add some weight to your voice, reduce unpleasant muddiness, or improve clarity.

However, one of the biggest mistakes when trying to create a cinematic or radio-style voice is assuming that:

More bass = better voice.

That is not necessarily true.

If your voice already contains a lot of low frequencies, boosting them even further may simply make it sound muddy and difficult to understand.

A good cinematic voice should first be clear, close, stable, and easy to understand.

Only after that should you start adding additional warmth or tonal character.

All OBS Audio Filters Explained

OBS includes considerably more audio filters than you actually need for a basic streaming microphone setup.

Depending on your version and configuration, you may see filters such as:

3-Band Equalizer, Compressor, Expander, Gain, Invert Polarity, Limiter, Noise Gate, Noise Suppression, Upward Compressor, and VST 2.x Plug-in.

That does not mean you should use every filter.

In most streaming setups, four or five properly configured filters will sound better than ten filters added without a specific purpose.

3-Band Equalizer

The 3-Band Equalizer allows you to control the low, mid, and high frequencies of your microphone.

It is the simplest built-in OBS tool for changing the tonal balance of your voice.

You can slightly increase the lower frequencies if your voice sounds too thin, reduce parts of the midrange if it sounds boxy, or add a little high-frequency presence to improve clarity.

The important word here is slightly.

Adjustments of only a few decibels are usually a much better starting point than aggressively boosting or cutting an entire frequency range.

The built-in 3-Band Equalizer is perfectly adequate for basic corrections. If you later want much more precise control, a parametric EQ through a VST plugin gives you considerably more flexibility.

Compressor

The Compressor reduces the difference between quieter and louder sections of your voice.

It is one of the most useful filters for streaming, podcasting, and voice-over work because it keeps your voice at a more consistent listening level.

Whether you are calmly explaining something to your viewers or suddenly reacting to what happens in a game, compression helps prevent large volume jumps.

Expander

The Expander reduces the volume of sounds that fall below a specified level.

In practice, this helps reduce background noise from your computer, keyboard, fans, and room during moments when you are not speaking.

Because it reduces the signal instead of completely shutting it off, it often sounds more natural than a Noise Gate.

Gain

Gain increases or decreases the overall volume of your microphone signal.

If your microphone is slightly too quiet, you can add a few decibels. If it is too loud, you can reduce it.

However, Gain should not replace proper input level configuration.

Whenever possible, start by setting the microphone itself correctly and use the OBS Gain filter only for smaller adjustments.

Invert Polarity

Invert Polarity reverses the polarity of an audio signal.

For the average streamer using a single USB microphone, you will probably never need it.

It becomes more useful in advanced audio configurations where multiple microphones or audio sources are capturing the same sound and phase-related problems occur.

If you simply have one microphone connected to your PC, you can generally ignore this filter.

Limiter

The Limiter determines the maximum level your microphone signal should reach.

Think of it as your final safety layer against extreme volume spikes.

For that reason, it normally makes sense to place it toward the end of your microphone filter chain.

Noise Gate

A Noise Gate completely closes your microphone when the input signal falls below a specified level and opens it again once you start speaking.

It can be extremely effective at removing keyboard noise, computer fans, and other sounds between sentences.

The downside is that an aggressively configured Noise Gate can cut off the beginnings and endings of words.

For a natural-sounding streaming voice, I generally prefer starting with an Expander.

A Noise Gate becomes more useful when you are streaming in a particularly noisy environment and completely removing background sound between sentences is more important than maintaining perfectly smooth transitions.

Noise Suppression

Noise Suppression analyzes your microphone signal and attempts to remove constant background noise.

It is particularly useful for PC fans, room noise, air conditioning, and other relatively consistent sounds.

Good Noise Suppression settings can dramatically improve stream audio. Excessive suppression can do exactly the opposite and introduce robotic or metallic artifacts.

Use as much suppression as you need, not as much as the software allows.

Upward Compressor

An Upward Compressor works somewhat differently from a standard Compressor.

Instead of primarily reducing loud parts of your voice, it increases quieter parts of the signal.

It can be useful in certain situations, but it is generally not necessary for a beginner streaming microphone setup.

You also need to be careful with it because increasing quiet sections can simultaneously increase background noise, breathing, room ambience, and other sounds you did not necessarily want to emphasize.

For a straightforward streaming setup, Noise Suppression + Expander + Compressor + Limiter is usually much easier to configure.

VST 2.x Plug-in

VST plugins open up significantly more advanced microphone processing possibilities inside OBS.

They allow you to use external audio plugins including more advanced equalizers, compressors, de-essers, and other voice-processing tools.

This is where you can take your microphone processing beyond the standard OBS filters.

For example, a parametric EQ allows you to target very specific frequencies instead of adjusting only broad Low, Mid, and High ranges.

However, I would not recommend starting your audio setup by installing ten different plugins.

First get a clean, controlled microphone signal using the basic OBS tools. Then use VST plugins to solve specific problems that the built-in filters cannot address.

Noise Gate vs. Expander: Which Should You Use?

If your goal is a natural cinematic voice, I would start with the Expander in most situations.

A Noise Gate behaves much more like an on/off switch. Your microphone is either open or closed.

An Expander simply reduces the volume of quiet sounds, so the background ambience does not suddenly disappear every time you finish a sentence.

This usually creates a more natural sound.

A Noise Gate is still useful if you have a significant amount of unwanted noise between sentences. Otherwise, an Expander is generally the smoother choice.

Does OBS Filter Order Matter?

Yes.

The order in which audio filters process your microphone can affect the final result.

For a straightforward streaming setup, I would start with:

Noise Suppression → Expander → Compressor → 3-Band EQ → Limiter

Noise Suppression first reduces unwanted background noise.

The Expander then pushes quieter remaining sounds further into the background.

The Compressor stabilizes your voice level.

The Equalizer shapes its final tonal character.

Finally, the Limiter protects the finished signal against extreme peaks.

There is no single filter order that is perfect for every advanced audio configuration, but this is a very practical starting point for streamers.

How to Test Your OBS Microphone Settings

One of the biggest mistakes is configuring your microphone while calmly repeating “test, test, one, two, three” and then starting a stream where you behave completely differently.

Instead, record several minutes of test footage directly inside OBS.

Speak normally. Speak quietly. Laugh. Raise your voice. Make the kind of reactions that actually happen during your streams.

Then listen to the recording with headphones.

If the beginnings or endings of words disappear, check your Expander or Noise Gate.

If loud words are still uncomfortable, adjust your Compressor.

If your voice sounds muddy or boomy, reduce some low frequencies with EQ or slightly increase your distance from the microphone.

If your voice sounds robotic, reduce your Noise Suppression.

This method is much more effective than copying another streamer’s settings exactly.

Pro Tip: Save your initial setup and change only one parameter at a time. If you change six settings simultaneously, you will have no idea which adjustment actually improved your voice.

Microphone Positioning Matters More Than Another Plugin

If you want a close and powerful voice, microphone positioning makes a huge difference.

The closer your microphone is to your mouth, the greater the difference between the level of your voice and the level of background noise.

This allows you to use less gain, which means your microphone captures less keyboard noise, PC fan noise, and room reflections.

For many directional microphones, around 10–15 cm from your mouth is a good starting position.

You can also position the microphone slightly to the side rather than directly in front of your mouth. This can reduce aggressive plosive sounds from letters such as “P” and “B”, as well as some breathing noise.

If your microphone is sitting half a meter away at the back of your desk, no combination of OBS filters will produce the same clean result as simply moving the microphone closer.

3 Budget Microphones for Beginner Streamers

You do not need a broadcast microphone costing hundreds of dollars to start streaming.

Choosing a reasonable microphone and positioning it correctly is much more important.

FIFINE AM8

The FIFINE AM8 is an interesting choice for beginner streamers because it allows you to start with a simple USB connection while still giving you room to upgrade your setup later.

Its dynamic design is also useful in a typical gaming room where you have a computer, keyboard, fans, and no professional acoustic treatment.

That makes it particularly suitable for streamers who want their microphone to focus primarily on their voice rather than everything happening around them.

HyperX SoloCast

The HyperX SoloCast is a simple USB microphone for users who want to connect a microphone and start streaming without purchasing a separate audio interface.

It is easy to use and can produce very good voice quality when positioned correctly.

However, because of the way this type of microphone captures sound, room noise and microphone placement become especially important.

Do not leave it sitting far away at the end of your desk.

Adding an inexpensive microphone arm and moving it closer to your mouth can improve the final result more than adding another OBS filter.

Audio-Technica ATR2100x-USB

The Audio-Technica ATR2100x-USB is a particularly interesting option if you want a microphone you are less likely to outgrow after your first few months of streaming.

You can start using it through USB and later move to XLR together with an audio interface if you decide to upgrade your audio setup.

Its dynamic design is also useful for bedrooms, offices, and gaming rooms that do not have professional acoustic treatment.

Do You Need an Expensive Microphone for a Cinematic Voice?

No.

A more expensive microphone can give you a better starting signal, but a large part of your final sound comes from far less exciting things:

microphone positioning, input level, room noise, compression, EQ, and consistent speaking technique.

A budget microphone positioned 10–15 cm from your mouth can easily sound better during a stream than a much more expensive microphone sitting 70 cm away next to a loud keyboard.

Before spending money on another microphone, make sure you are getting everything you can out of the equipment and OBS filters you already have.

Final Thoughts

If you are just starting to improve your microphone sound in OBS, do not make the setup unnecessarily complicated.

Start with:

Noise Suppression → Expander → Compressor → Limiter

Set your microphone input level correctly, record a test, and identify what actually needs to be improved.

Once your basic signal sounds clean and controlled, you can add an Equalizer or experiment with VST plugins.

Your goal should not be to create an absurdly bass-heavy “YouTube voice.”

A good cinematic streaming voice should first and foremost sound clean, full, controlled, consistent, and comfortable to listen to for several hours.

And for your viewers, that matters much more than having the most complicated audio filter chain possible.

Audio is only one part of a professional streaming setup. You should also make sure your streaming settings are optimized for a stable broadcast and use a consistent stream overlay for OBS to create a recognizable visual identity.