How to Make Your Stream Sound Professional (Music, Alerts & Audio Setup)

Disclosure: Some of the links below are affiliate links. This means that, at zero cost to you, I will earn an affiliate commission if you click through the link and finalize a purchase. Learn more!

One of the biggest mistakes new streamers make is ignoring how their stream sounds when it comes to their microphone, game audio, and music that's added to the stream. In this article, I'll be explaining how you can make your stream sound professional so that when viewers come to your stream, everything sounds amazing. 

Let's go ahead and get into it. 

Microphone Placement

Where you place your mic does actually matter. If you're too close, then it's going to sound muffled. If you're too far back, it's going to sound like you're in a tunnel. 

A good way to generally figure out where your mic should be is to take your thumb and extend your pinky, and this is the distance away that your mic should be. You can also make a fist and that should be about the same. This way, your voice sounds clear. 

Another tip is to put your mic slightly angled from where your mouth is instead of straight ahead. This way, it will help to reduce plosives while you're speaking. 

These tips are going to help your viewers to have a better listening experience. Later, we'll also get into some filters in OBS Studio that are going to help every mic sound better and more professional. 

Music 

The next thing we're going to dive into is music. I've watched streams before where the music has been too loud and overpowers what the person streaming is trying to say.

With multistreaming, you can't always use the same music on every platform. Especially if you're a growing streamer, the last thing you want is for your content to get a DMCA strike or to get taken down because you're using music that you don't have the rights for. This is why I would encourage you to check out Epidemic Sound. 

This is what I use to get all of the background music for my videos and streams. The reason for this is that it's worry-free music, meaning that you're able to use it on every single platform including Twitch, YouTube, or TikTok. 

With Epidemic Sound, you get access to over 50,000 songs and over 200,000 sound effects that you can utilize for your alerts, raids, or donations. There's so much here for you to utilize. 

One really cool feature that Epidemic Sound offers is the ability to search for similar songs to ones that you don't have the rights to. Say you want to use "Not Like Us" by Kendrick Lamar, but obviously don't have the rights to this, you can simply search for the song and it will give you similar tracks to utilize. You can even paste a link from Spotify into the search and it will give you songs that are similar. 

Once you find a song you like, you can simply download it and bring it into OBS to have it playing in the background of your streams. 

You can customize and create different versions of each song. Say you like the chorus of a song and just want to use that part, with the 'Create Versions' feature, you can do this. 

You can select the portion of the song you want to play and then loop this to create your own version. Now, you can use this for alerts or any kind of animations that pop up on your stream. 

I would highly encourage you to check out Epidemic Sound for all of your stream music needs. I also have tons of videos on my YouTube channel, LAS Curry, showing you how to utilize Epidemic Sound, create playlists, and use background music in the right way. 

Again, with Epidemic Sound, you don't have to worry about getting any kind of copyright claims, copyright strikes, or having your content get taken down. You work way too hard on your stream to have it taken down for something like using music you don't have the rights to. 

Filters and Settings on OBS Studio

Next, we're going to look at the filters and settings on OBS Studio that help to balance out your sound.

Balancing Your Music, Game Sound, and Mic Volumes

First, we'll look at how to balance out your music, game sound, and mic. This is really important and it often gets overlooked. 

On my 'Gameplay' scene, I have my game sound at '-20', my mic at '-6', and my music at '-40'.

This is really important as it means the music isn't going to be overpowering my voice or the game itself. It also makes it where the game sound won't be overpowering your voice either. 

The most important part of your stream is you talking and engaging with your viewers, so you definitely don't want your game audio or music to be overpowering. 

You can adjust these volume levels if you feel like the game sound or music is too loud or too quiet, but this is a good starting point. I would recommend always keeping your mic volume at '-6' as then, no matter how loud you get, you won't risk your sound going into the red. If it does, this creates a bad listening experience for your viewers. 

Filters in OBS Studio

Now, we're going to go over how you can make your audio sound crisp, even if you have a budget mic, by utilizing some filters in OBS. These filters will help any mic to sound professional. 

What I want you to do is to copy what I'll be sharing with you below and then adjust it to your liking. 

Under 'Audio Mixer', start by clicking the three dots next to your mic. Then, select 'Filters'. To add a new filter, press the plus sign icon in the bottom-left corner. 

Add the 'Limiter' filter and set the 'Threshold' to '-3.00 db'. Then, set the 'Release to '60 ms'. 

Next, add the 'Compressor' filter and set the 'Ratio to '4.00:1'. Set the 'Threshold' to '-18.00 db'. Adjust the 'Attack' to '5 ms'. Set the 'Release' to be '100 ms'. Lastly, leave the 'Output Gain' set to zero. 

Now, add the 'Noise Gate' filter. This is going to make sure that any fans or other background noise gets muted as much as possible. Set the 'Open Threshold' to '-26.00 db'. Change the 'Attack Time' to '25 ms'. 'Hold Time' should be '200 ms'. The 'Release Time' should be set to '150 ms'. 

Lastly, add the 'Noise Suppression' filter. Then, set the 'Method' to 'RNNoise (good quality, more CPU usage)'.

Now, you can close this and it's going to have made your mic sound completely different. If you had no filters on your mic, you'll be able to instantly hear a difference. 

At this point, you have a professional-sounding stream, know where to place your mic, understand the levels of audio you should be using, and you know where to find background music. Now, it's time to make sure your stream looks good and professional too. 

If you want to be able to add overlays to your stream, like a 'Starting Soon' overlay or a 'Countdown Timer', check out this video here. In this video, I'll walk you through how to add all of your overlays in OBS Studio so that your stream not only sounds professional, but looks professional too.