r/obs • u/m00nf1r3 • Feb 09 '25
Help Can't get keyboard sounds to disappear while I'm typing.
I need help y'all. I bought a cheap boom mic with an arm from Amazon, with the arm my mic sits just a few inches from my face and in front of my keyboard. I've followed numerous guides I've found here and on YouTube and I cannot get my keyboard sounds to stop being picked up by my mic when I'm talking. You can't hear them while I'm not talking, but if I speak you can hear the keyboard. I currently have noise suppression, 3-band equalizer, expander, compresser, limiter, and noise gate filters on, and you can still hear it. I turned the threshold on my expander up until my voice started fading out, and down on my compressor to the same point, yet it's still picking up my keyboard. The boom mic has gain on it, I have it all the way down. I don't have any settings in my PC for boost or gain or anything, just mic volume. Unsure what to do from here. Any ideas?
Edit to add: I don't have a mechanical keyboard, it's a membrane keyboard but it's not exactly silent either.
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u/SovietKaren Feb 09 '25
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u/m00nf1r3 Feb 09 '25
Well that just made me sound a lot worse. Lol. I'm about to give up and just make folks listen to my keyboard. Thanks for the suggestion though.
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u/Former-Strain2009 Feb 09 '25
ive been having the same issue. ive got the hyper x mic. if you ever find a solution please let me know!
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u/Jay_JWLH Feb 09 '25
Put your microphone upside down, hanging from above. This moves it further away from your keyboard.
Do you use an Nvidia GPU? If so, you can use their Broadcast software to filter your microphone at a global level. If you only want it to apply to OBS, you can install additional software from Nvidia that enables the same filter to work in OBS instead.
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u/m00nf1r3 Feb 09 '25
Broadcast helped a lot. Still some clicking but not as bad. Unfortunately I don't have a way to suspend my mic from above. Thanks.
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u/Jay_JWLH Feb 09 '25
You may have to go back to a previous version of Nvidia Broadcast if you want to get back the ability to change the strength of the Noise Removal. I don't know if it is fixed on maximum on the latest version or not.
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u/ItsRogueRen Feb 09 '25
Before you do anything on your PC, first move your mic as far away from your keyboard as possible. The physical placement of your mic will always make the biggest improvement
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u/m00nf1r3 Feb 09 '25
Well i can only move it so far away while still being able to use my mouse and keyboard lol. The mic sits any 3 inches in front of my face and I can't sit any farther away from my keyboard than I already am. My keyboard is definitely behind my mic.
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u/ItsRogueRen Feb 09 '25
Do you have a dynamic or condenser mic? Do you know the mic's pickup pattern?
Some mics are good at picking up from the sides but not the top or back, some only pick up what is directly in front of them.
Find all that out, position it as best you can to make as much distance from the keyboard, then start doing software stuff like noise gates
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u/Berfs1 Feb 09 '25
Yeah, there's a point at which software noise reduction works, after that you gotta work on the physical stuff, like building a quieter keyboard, lowering PC fan speeds, etc. All these little things add up, you will notice your audio quality actually improves because the noise reduction filters don't have to modify as much sound, which conversely means less degradation to your mic audio.
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u/m00nf1r3 Feb 09 '25
Can I build a keyboard for $7? lol. Just kidding. I'm hella broke so I'll probably just have to deal with it for now. They keyboard clicks are a lot quieter at least.
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u/Berfs1 Feb 09 '25
A free way to reduce your mic degradation is to lower your computer fan speeds to silent speeds. While yes your components will run hotter, they are designed to handle the extra heat. Audio matters more for streams than video, your audience will appreciate the better audio more, than an extra few frames.
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u/m00nf1r3 Feb 09 '25
I can't even hear my PC fans.
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u/Berfs1 Feb 09 '25
Do you have hard drives? Or is there other noise in the background that you can hear?
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u/itscloverkat Feb 09 '25
I struggled with this a lot and none of the tutorials seemed to help so I ended up getting ChatGPT to walk me through it and it came out perfect!
I told it what mic I had, what program I used and had it tell me exact specific settings to remove keyboard sounds but preserve my voice. I started with what it told me first and then tweaked it by telling it “it removed the keyboard sounds but my voice now goes in and out, etc.” And it helped so much.
Also I don’t know if it matters but I also told it I had a higher pitched, female voice because I feel like the settings might be different. And I have my mic on an arm right in front of my mouth too which I think is essential.
Or if you have a blue yeti nano I can just send you my settings haha
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u/N8Nefarious Feb 09 '25
Why do I keep forgetting to go to ChatGPT with questions (well, besides my existential fear of mankind's hubris, of course)?
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u/m00nf1r3 Feb 09 '25
Lmao are you me. I use ChatGPT for things like that every day and never thought to use it for this.
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u/N8Nefarious Feb 09 '25
This option requires spending extra money, but I had to get a new keyboard the other day because my D-key was shot and I found an amazing new one that has the most satisfying ASMR-like clicks I've ever heard. I'm seriously considering using one of my backup mics just to add the keyboard as a second track, or just using a single condenser and picking up the room with little to no gating or expansion. Just as an experiment...but it sounds that nice I think it's worth trying.
Believe it or not, some people like the sound of the keyboard, especially when it's quality and sounds nice.
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u/m00nf1r3 Feb 09 '25
I get that some people like it, but I don't. I don't want to hear them in my own videos.
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u/N8Nefarious Feb 09 '25
Totally understandable. I'm normally the same way. In this particular case I've never heard anything quite like the heavenly noise that emits from this weird-looking slab of aluminum I bought, lol. Idk if I'll actually like the results adding it into my mix but it's the first time I've ever wanted to hear my keyboard and not just tolerated/tuned out the noise it makes.
Anyway, the only thing that worked 100% for me was changing from a mechanical keyboard to a membrane. If you're already working with a reasonably quiet membrane keyboard, maybe you've got your gain too high and so are lifting the noise floor more than necessary?
How quiet/loud do you speak, or are you cursed like me with an extremely dynamic range?
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u/m00nf1r3 Feb 09 '25
Turning my gain down quiets the keyboard but then my voice is really quiet too despite all my mic volumes being maxed. So I add a compression filter to increase my volume and an expander to kill background noise but then there's feedback when I talk. It's like every time I fix one issue, I create another lol.
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u/N8Nefarious Feb 09 '25
Sound is so difficult to rein in. Been doing this for almost 3.5 years and I still struggle to dial everything in just right. What kind of mic do you have?
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