---
title: 'Voicemeeter & Guitar VS Your Sanity'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=9u4DkZxXI74'
video_id: '9u4DkZxXI74'
date: 2026-06-15
duration_sec: 0
---

# Voicemeeter & Guitar VS Your Sanity

> Source: [Voicemeeter & Guitar VS Your Sanity](https://youtube.com/watch?v=9u4DkZxXI74)

## Summary

This video tutorial explains how to set up Voicemeeter Potato to route a guitar and microphone into a DAW or plugin, and then into OBS for streaming. The host, JD Blood, provides a step-by-step guide, emphasizing the importance of ASIO drivers, proper input/output mapping, and the 'insert' patch for signal return. The video also addresses common issues like latency and sample rate settings.

### Key Points

- **Introduction to Voicemeeter for Music and Streaming** [0:00] — The video addresses PC users who want to make music, stream games, and possibly stream their music, and have heard about Voicemeeter.
- **Requirements: Voicemeeter Potato, Sound Card Access, and DAW/Plugin** [0:52] — You need to download Voicemeeter Potato, access your sound card's routing (sample rate and buffer size), and have a DAW or plugin to route audio to.
- **Installation and Initial Setup** [1:14] — After installing Voicemeeter Potato, restart your computer to ensure it takes over audio. The host uses a Focusrite 2i2 sound card and STL Tones ToneHub plugin.
- **Setting Up Audio Outputs** [2:04] — First, set up where your audio is outputting. In Voicemeeter, select your ASIO driver (e.g., Focusrite USB ASIO) for hardware out A1. Avoid MME, KS, or WDM.
- **Configuring Inputs in System Settings** [3:36] — Go to Menu > System Settings to map your microphone and instrument inputs. For a 2i2, mic is on input 1 and guitar on input 2. Set them to mono and assign the correct input numbers.
- **Using the Insert Patch for Signal Return** [5:17] — Highlight the 'insert' button on the input strip (e.g., right on input 2) to allow the signal to return from the plugin/DAW. This is essential for real-time monitoring.
- **Sample Rate and Buffer Size Settings** [6:42] — Leave sample rates at the highest default (e.g., 384 kHz). For buffer size, 192 is reasonable for voice; musicians may notice latency increase from 32 to 192 (about 2-8 ms round trip).
- **Understanding A and B Channels** [8:52] — A channels (input strips) are for monitoring; B channels are for broadcasting final audio to destinations like DAW, plugin, or OBS. B3 is VAIO 3 output, B2 is aux, B1 is for PC audio like Spotify.
- **Additional Settings: Auto Restart and Run at Startup** [12:36] — Enable 'Auto restart audio engine' to fix crackles automatically. Enable 'Run at startup' in system tray so Voicemeeter takes over audio on boot.
- **Configuring the Guitar Plugin** [14:01] — In the plugin's audio I/O, select ASIO, choose Voicemeeter Insert Virtual ASIO as the device, set input to the correct channel (e.g., mono right on channel 2), and ensure sample rate and buffer size match.
- **Final Result and Host's Preference** [16:14] — The setup works, but the host dislikes the latency and plans to use a lower-latency alternative. However, this method is functional for those committed to the Voicemeeter ecosystem.

### Conclusion

The tutorial successfully demonstrates how to route guitar audio through Voicemeeter Potato into a plugin and out to OBS, but the host notes that latency is a trade-off and suggests exploring lower-latency alternatives.

## Transcript

if you're using a pc to make music
stream games and possibly stream your
music
you've probably heard about voice meter
don't worry
i'm here to help
hello heathens thank you so much for
joining the channel i'm jd blood i'm a
guitarist
a goth a gamer and a giant nerd
and for the purposes of this video we're
gonna be giant nerds together
i'm assuming you want to use voice meter
to get
your audio from your microphone
and your guitar into your daw
plug-in whatever else you want to use
and then automatically out
into something like obs for streaming
you're in luck
i have decided to task me with getting
you there
for this experiment you're gonna need to
download voicemeeter potato
the link is in the description you are
going to need
access to your sound cards routing as in
your sample rate and buffer size
and then just to make sure that we've
done all this correctly you are going to
need any plug-in or daw
that you may want to route this to okay
let's get started i'm spoiler alerting
here
just a little bit because i want to make
sure that you've got
everything that you need now when you
install voicemeeter potato
i'm going to assume you know how to
install software
just a guess please do actually restart
your computer
because it does help potato actually
take over your audio i don't know the
scientifics behind it
but it totally does so what you have
here is
the three things that i mentioned you
need you have in my case the 2i2
routing sample rate buffer size
you have the actual voicemeeter potato
screen
that is intimidating as balls but we
will get there
and then in the back here you have a
plug-in i happen to love stl tones so
i've got my tone hub back there we'll
get to that in just a minute
first things first what you want to do
is actually set up
where your audio is outputting
this seems kind of counter-intuitive
because you'd want to make sure
that you're getting the inputs right as
you can see
my voice is making that view meter move
but we got to get that to go somewhere
up here
are your outputs you can see hardware
out
it tells you sample rate and buffer size
and here it also tells you that i have
chosen my focusrite usb
ausio which is what the 2i2
uses when it's installed on a pc how you
pick it is you simply go into your a1
and scroll don't worry so much we're not
going to use
mme or ks or wdm those are all windows
specific we want asia
so you're definitely going to pick your
focusrite
yours will vary of course whatever sound
card you happen to have
pick the main asio driver that you're
expecting
you can pick any alternative number of
outputs as well
i used to for a while have my a2 as
speakers and then i routed my speakers a
little differently
don't worry about that you can not
relevant to this conversation
so first things first you have to figure
out and i notice i got it wrong
look at that we're going to correct it
together you have to output
you have to get your mic input going
into the proper input or your mic output
going into the property you know what i
mean so we're gonna go into the menu
i'll get to this in just a second
because that's very important this is
also very important
this is not very important but we'll go
in order so you go into your system
settings
and here you will see
oh no wonder it sounded like trash okay
i don't know why this happened whenever
there's a windows update
potato banana voice meter og
they all screw up this is not how
they're supposed to be
so you can right click to back that off
and then you can what this does
is it maps your microphone input on my
2i2 which is a two physical input
i have my mic on the left input and my
guitar
or instrument on the right input so what
should happen
is your inputs should also match well
you have
five inputs that's why it says in one
two three four five
those all work up here one
two three four five there's your math
lesson for the day
so your input one it really doesn't
matter if you do stereo or mono
i prefer mono and then you'll see i also
have it labeled mono because i'm
really anal about this and then your
input 2
which in my case is my instrument you
just click it up
to 2 and away you go and if you were
looking at the screen you saw
tonehub there actually shift a little
bit this is a really great example of
how
things can screw up and i'm happy it did
because now i've got it correct and now
i can start to go on with everything
else the other main thing you want to do
is whatever
you label here on your on your
instrument
input whether it's 1 2 7 20 who cares
is make sure that first of all you're
down here at the patch
inserts this is key this is how we get
it to go
into your plug-ins daws whatever
and fully route the signal if you don't
highlight these
and i'll show you what i mean they will
not take the signal back from the
plug-in
daw etc etc you won't have real-time
monitoring
in fact as in my experience you won't
have any monitoring
so we've highlighted right two on input
two
so my input to right is highlighted
what that does is it transports the
signal these ones here
in four left and right is kind of a
little trick
i picked up i won't go over that in this
video
but this is wonderful for
setting a master track output
on your daw and having it come back in
through voice me that's all the spoiler
i'm going to give you basically we need
here
also for whatever reason you don't need
to do that
for your microphone i have not figured
out why i cannot explain it please just
go with me
now we have everything set up
one thing you may notice when potato
comes in is that these
sample rates are insanely high
do not change them do not be alarmed i
don't know why
sometimes they will default to the
lowest which is 384
and that sucks it ruins your audio
just leave them at the highest one and
never think about it again
so right now you can see obviously that
my latency is pretty high
this will take you a good half an hour
to figure out
where your compromise is if you are
using this application primarily for
voice
then 192 is a pretty reasonable buffer
size
and it won't matter nearly at all
it'll still get you through voice meter
into whatever you need and into
i'm going to use obs because i'm
assuming that's what you're using for
streaming for the musicians in the crowd
i understand this is driving you a
little twitchy because it drove me a
little twitchy
i went from using about 16 to 32
to get the maximum chug up to 192.
now the scientists tell me that the
human ear
can't really determine the latency
difference between 32 and 192 because
that difference is about two
milliseconds
or less than two milliseconds
to about eight milliseconds round trip
i don't know if i'm being an uber nerd
but i really can hear the difference so
be aware that you will sacrifice latency
in your music for this configuration to
work
it's not going to affect your technique
at all i don't find
it's that different when i'm playing
but it is something to keep in mind and
it's actually one of the main negatives
i have about this
so once you've set up your sound card
and you'll know you've set up your sound
card there won't be any crackles there
won't be any weird distortion
there won't be any artifacting
it takes time i can't tell you what your
magic number is
you have to experiment so once you have
that down
you never have to set it again so we can
get rid of that
now how you're hearing me i have to go
backward a little bit here how you're
hearing me now
is a direct result of this b3
you can think of the a channels in your
input strips
as auditions so anything you want to
monitor
you can monitor of course so it doesn't
matter to me because i'm not monitoring
through cans and i don't have my
speakers on
but theoretically since my
a1 output is my main sound card
i would definitely want to generally
monitor that
and then you can see over here on the
monitoring these are the outputs
you can see that i am now mimicking the
two meters
the same is true for my guitar i
definitely
want to hear that so i would just click
that on
and again if you want that to come out
through any of the other
outputs that you may have selected
through your choice
all you have to do is click the
corresponding button
simple as that the b channels are
basically broadcasting
so this is where you route your
final audio to wherever it is
it's going be that your daw your plug-in
straight into obs you know choice is
yours
this concept took me a little bit to get
over but these are actually your b
inputs up here bio this is actually
called aux but i've
already labeled it for my use for chat
and then pc audio because you can
actually route
your the entirety of every sound your pc
makes
through voicemeeter useful for gamers
useful for streamers not at all
practical for music making so
use at your own risk i'm not really
gonna get into it the concept that took
me a while to get into
was the fact that these are not hard and
fast
like this input does not necessarily
have to be that output
and that took me way too long once i
figured it out this all came together
this is why this video is taking so long
so b3 is my vaio 3
output this is important when you're
going into
honestly just obs it doesn't matter
about anything else really i don't think
i'm probably wrong on that correct me in
the comments so b2
then becomes my aux i don't know why i
think of
guitar as an aux cable it's literally
the thing in your car that you can plug
your
your friend's android into because
they're too cheap to have an iphone and
have carplay
that's basically how i think of it so
then your guitar
would be routed through there and if you
don't believe me i will show you a
demonstration once we log in
to the plugin of choice log into the
plugin
you get what i mean and then b1 i have
it on again this is the special channel
right here you also see i have spotify
or your music
app of choice and you can route that
through here i highly recommend that
for streamers or if you're the type of
person who
learns a song on a stream and you're
chugging away and you want to just
repeat and get that copyright
demonetization going
this is a way you can do that so your
audience can hear what you're listening
to
they can hear your pause and rewind and
all that other good stuff it's a great
way to get that going
and again that's routed through a1 and
if i were
to route it i think i would honestly put
that on the b1 channel as well
your mileage may vary not really
important you're here for the guitar
so we have our guitar it is set up it's
broadcasting
through the aux and we also have i'll do
a little reminder here
the insert this is key to getting it
into your plug-in one more step before
we go into the plug-in i'm going to show
you that menu
auto restart audio engine although voice
meter is arguably
the best program for audio routing
in windows it is also one of the worst
sometimes
you'll hear a crackle a blur or that
weird distortion
and what voice meter can do is
automatically correct itself
highly recommend keeping this on you
will lose
like a second or two of audio if you're
not monitoring you won't notice
but it'll come back and you just have to
do a plug-in
system tray run at startup this is so
that it automatically takes
over again this is why i have my pc
audio
routed over here because as soon as my
computer boots up voice meter boots up
and it takes control
of my audio how i show that since it's
in the vaio 3
is in your pc sound you can see voice
meter vayo3
this is all sort of next level stuff you
don't have to but i honestly think if
you
are running your stream and your music
all at the same time i think this is the
optimal way to do it hook
volume key i honestly turn this off i
have no idea what the hell this does
so whatever it can go away now we need
to make sure this is inserted
perfect let's go in to our guitar
plug-in
of choice shall we there's my tone hub i
want to move it over here so you are
looking at this channel strip
and you are looking at the audio i o of
your plug-in
many plug-ins ios look very similar so
this shouldn't be too difficult to
decipher for your own end
you can mute the audio if you want i
actually like keeping it on because that
feedback lets me know i'm alive
so your audio device type of course
windows audio trash direct sound trash
azio it's what we're using the device
spoiler alert here you can see you can
just go through your sound card as you
normally would if you weren't
doing the voicemeeter setup reroute seo
is
for a different video because as soon as
i finish this video and i like the
quality
i'm never using the setup again spoiler
alert
and then you have your voicemeeter
inputs we highlighted that
insert patch for a reason
and it's this reason right here you use
your potato
insert virtual clicky clicky
you have to make sure that you're set up
correctly now even if you have the mono
input
make it a stereo output and this is on
whatever channel you want you can see i
can
scroll
down to input 8. so whatever input
channel you have
make sure that it matches that stereo
output and then of course your input
channel
mine is the mono right on the second
channel so there is a mono write
on the second channel sample rate
matches
one second sample rate matches
buffer size matches your plug-in will
probably lie to you
this is four milliseconds one way so
therefore you double it it's an eight
millisecond round trip
again human ear can't decipher less than
10 milliseconds
maybe i'm a nerd because i'm certainly
not an audiophile
i can hear the difference but this is
the sacrifice we make to get this going
pop that down and then once you close
out of here
you should be able to hear
your guitar if i turn it on
and voila you now have your guitar
routed from your headphones per
se or your speakers depending on what
your sound card offers
or your external speakers or your
monitor or your printer
or whatever you have that broadcasting
to your obs which i'll do in another
video this was just to get here because
of that
insert you have that audio coming
in from voice meter so from your
guitar into voice meter into your plugin
and that little insert highlight button
takes the processed audio and pops it
back
into potato and then back into your ears
and then wherever you decide to
broadcast it it goes as well
so that is the quick and dirty setup
it ain't pretty i still hate the latency
once i'm done editing this video
i will probably never use this setup
again i have already found
a better slash lower latency way to make
all of this happen and i really think
it's the better alternative but
if you are in the voice meter ecosystem
and if you
are okay with the settings presented it
works
this setup legitimately works it's what
i'm recording this video on right now
make sure if you have any questions to
leave them down below
i think i did a pretty thorough job but
i'm always open to helping i'm not going
to delete
voicemeeter i'm just not going to use it
again if i have made your life better by
making it more difficult for showing you
this
throw a like on the video it helps more
than you could possibly imagine
and if you are watching this without
being subscribed consider
subscribing i will do more guitaring i
will do more
gaming i will do more gothing i think
and i will definitely do more giant nerd
stuff like this because this has been
hella fun for me
either way if you've stuck around this
long thank you
so very much from the bottom of my black
little heart and remember
be safe be consensual and if you can't
be good
well then sweet satan on a pogo stick be
good at