OBS Lemmings Video Recording/Uploading Future Plans: Help Me Decide the Format

[namida]

If the headphone is bluetooth wireless, use it to listen, use something else for the mic. If it's wired (in any form) or uses a proprietary USB wireless dongle, you can use it bidirectionally.

[kaywhyn]

The headphone connects via USB.

[IchoTolot]

Should I use the headphone's speakers or my laptop's speakers?

headphone's speakers

That was the whole point I was trying to get across earlier. This way even blasting loud music should not be picked up by the microphone as it will be mostly contained by the ear cussions.

Looking at the H540 headphone though it seems to be an "on-ear" -- it lays onto your ears instead of using cussions. I don't know about the sound isolation there.

Random example: The H390 headphone has cussions and does not just lay onto your ears. I would suspect the sound isolation being good there.

Simply test it out though if the laptop sound is still picked up my the mic again. It's should still be totally fine as long as you do not turn up the volume too loud.


This is also the main reason when we are playing lix that sometimes we get a huuuuuge echo on somebodies end.    Our voices come out of a laptop speaker and right back into a microphone ---> feedback.

The golden rule: If you can - never use speakers when using a microphone!

My laptop defaults it to a level of 9/10. From what I understand, it's supposed to make your voice more audible on the headphones so that you can hear yourself.

You never want to hear yourself while speaking. Trust me.


I would also suggest the headphones microphone if it's USB. Mine also has the functionality to mute itself when moving the mic up towards the speakers. This way when somebody enters your room or another distraction happens you can quickly mute/unmute yourself.

[kaywhyn]

Random example: The H390 headphone has cussions and does not just lay onto your ears. I would suspect the sound isolation being good there.

Funny. I was deciding between the H390 and the H540. I went with the latter. I knew I should had bought both. That way I could try them both out and then return the not as good one.

[kaywhyn]

Bought the Logitech H390 last night, picked it up in the store today. Yea Icho, you're right. Sound quality is many times better than the H540 and no background noise at all since the noise cancelling works much better on the H390 than the H540. Even with the keyboard/mouse clicks, you can barely hear it in the recordings. Mic even sounds so much better due to being digitally processed. The only thing I'm working on now is to fix the softness of my voice in the recordings. The audio is fine, but my voice always sounds pretty quiet compared to the game music and so it can be difficult to hear me. I've used my internal mic which fixes the problem of my voice being soft, but it reintroduces the keyboard/mouse clicks since my laptop's mic picks them up quite well. I just found out that you can expand the headset from both the left and right sides. I thought it wasn't possible, but you can, so I'm going to try that and see if it makes any difference. Unexpanded, barely fits on my head anyway. I can probably also try reducing the music volume in-game as well. I've noticed in your recordings that the music/sounds tend to be quite soft compared to your voice anyway.

I'll be returning the H540 later.

[IchoTolot]

The only thing I'm working on now is to fix the softness of my voice in the recordings. The audio is fine, but my voice always sounds pretty quiet compared to the game music and so it can be difficult to hear me. I've used my internal mic which fixes the problem of my voice being soft, but it reintroduces the keyboard/mouse clicks since my laptop's mic picks them up quite well.

1.) You can try turning up your mic volume in windows. Find the sliders and turn them up a notch.

2.) The 2nd thing you should do is turing down the desktop volume in OBS. In OBS there are 2 sliders in the middle: 1 for your mic, the other for desktop audio. Turn the mic up and turn the desktop audio down a notch. My desktop volume for example is at -8,2 db so even with louder game sounds it is not recorded as loud.
Don't forget to turn it up again when you only record game sound though.

3.) If that's still not enough: Also OBS can add a "gain" to your voice. At the mic slider there is a gear symbol - click on it - then click on filter. Here you can add filters with right clicking and choosing the ones you desire.
I use the following 3 for example:

- Gain: Adds more volume to your mic.
- Noise Gate: Here you can set an activation and deactivation gate for your mic. Only if you go above a certain dB value your mic will then be recorded. Excellent for avoiding recording you breathing or other small noises - as those do not reach that dB value. The deactivation gate then determines when a recorded sound will be cut off again. Highly recommended, but needs some testing to find suitable values for your setup.
- Noise Suppress

[kaywhyn]

3.) If that's still not enough: Also OBS can add a "gain" to your voice. At the mic slider there is a gear symbol - click on it - then click on filter. Here you can add filters with right clicking and choosing the ones you desire.
I use the following 3 for example:

- Gain: Adds more volume to your mic.
- Noise Suppress

Thanks to you, after hundreds of test videos, I was finally able to get videos to record to my liking. The gain and noise suppress were the filters that did the trick quite nicely. Gain might be a little on the high side, but it did quite well in making my voice heard over the music that plays in the video. Suppress I kept at the defaults and it almost got rid of the keyboard/mouse clicks quite nicely.

As a result, for the very first time in more than 10 years, I have my first Lemmings video uploaded to my Youtube. Just search Lemmings United Level Solving Commentary

[kaywhyn]

This is where I would like your input: the format my Lemmings videos should take. In order of preference, I can do 1) silent ones, where I simply upload my solution of the level, 2) post-commentary, where I upload my solutions, as well as give my thoughts/feedback on the level, or 3) blind playthrough of a level pack, either with or without commentary. Since I currently live with my elder folks, #1 is the easiest for me, since both #2 and #3 will be quite difficult for me to do in peace. The only way I can get around that is by recording late in the evenings. Of course, I could video edit, but as I'm not very good at it and prefer to avoid doing it, that's pretty much out of the question. At the same time, I love giving feedback, as you can tell by the huge posts that accompany when I post my replays, so I can certainly do #2 or #3. If I decide to go the audio commentary route, do expect a lot of fumbling and a lot of pausing in between voicing my thoughts, as I'm not very good at quickly thinking on my feet, but I don't mind, as I've seen from the other videos of LPers that we all get stuck in articulating our thoughts from time to time. Obviously, some are naturals at it, but we all seem to run into a block in our thoughts every now and then.

Now that I've managed to get out decent OBS recordings with a great headset/mic, after much thought and from the positive feedback for my first Lemmings video that I just uploaded to Youtube, I have decided I'm going to try all 3 approaches mentioned above. My first video is a commentary series on a level pack, so I'll eventually get to trying the other two approaches. I might stream a pack in the future as well, although if I do end up doing that sometime, again the best time for me would be in the evenings. I might also end up making another topic for this and asking what packs people want to see me stream/play/LP. I'm not much of an online chatter/multiplayer, but I figure it wouldn't hurt to try this sometime. Might be a lot of fun to see and read the comments while streaming. Just keep in mind that I'm one of those people who prefers to figure out solutions to levels for myself, so as long as you don't spoil it heavily it should be fine.