---
title: 'Complete BEACN Studio and USB Mic Setup Guide'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=bjEXhEjmDzE'
video_id: 'bjEXhEjmDzE'
date: 2026-08-05
duration_sec: 1092
---

# Complete BEACN Studio and USB Mic Setup Guide

> Source: [Complete BEACN Studio and USB Mic Setup Guide](https://youtube.com/watch?v=bjEXhEjmDzE)

## Summary

This video is a comprehensive guide to setting up and optimizing audio for streaming using the BEACN Studio or BEACN Mic. It covers the BEACN app interface, essential audio effects like EQ, compression, and expansion, and advanced features such as the mixing suite and dual PC setup. The tutorial is part of a series on popular streaming audio devices, with this episode focusing on BEACN's unique DSP and user-friendly design.

### Key Points

- **Introduction to BEACN Setup** [00:01] — The video begins with an introduction to the BEACN Studio and BEACN Mic, highlighting their shared functionality and the goal of making professional audio accessible to beginners. The presenter mentions his background in sound engineering and sets up the video as part of a four-part series on streaming audio devices.
- **Prerequisites and Software Installation** [01:46] — The tutorial assumes the BEACN software is already installed. Viewers are instructed to plug the BEACN Studio directly into their computer (not a USB hub), connect the mic via XLR, and plug headphones into the headphone jack. A note mentions a beta update as of May 18th that may change the UI slightly.
- **BEACN App Overview** [02:37] — The BEACN app's interface is described: left navigation bar, mixer tab (disabled by default), and BEACN Studio subtabs (Mic settings, Lighting, Device settings). The main microphone page is divided into sections: EQ at top, effects tabs below, and a right panel with mic sampler, output gain, decibel meter, and profile switcher.
- **Onboard DSP Benefits** [03:49] — BEACN devices feature onboard DSP, meaning audio effects are processed on the device rather than the computer's CPU. This reduces latency and ensures consistent monitoring. The presenter emphasizes this as a key advantage.
- **Mic Sampler and Output Gain** [04:28] — The mic sampler allows recording a snippet to test changes in real time. The output gain slider adjusts overall volume after effects. The decibel meter helps monitor levels. Profile switcher is now collapsible to save screen space.
- **Mic Setup Tab** [05:10] — This tab controls headphone monitoring volume and PC audio playback volume. Users can link or unlink these levels. A second EQ is available for headphone playback to adjust for headphone characteristics. Amp power selection supports IEMs or high-impedance headphones.
- **Mic Effects: Gain and EQ** [06:43] — Mic setup includes a gain graph showing signal level over time, making it easy to set proper gain. The presenter recommends around 12 dB for his voice. EQ is likened to an Instagram filter for audio, allowing frequency boosts/cuts to brighten or thicken the voice.
- **Sponsor Segment: Own3d Pro** [08:09] — A sponsor break for Own3d Pro, a service providing stream widgets like combined chat, now playing music, label rotator, and hypometer. The presenter uses four widgets on his stream and highlights their ease of use and customization.
- **EQ Settings and Boost-Sweep-Cut Technique** [09:01] — The presenter shares his EQ preferences: boosting low end around 100 Hz and high shelf around 3.5-4 kHz by 1.5-2.5 dB, and cutting 2 dB at 500 Hz for dynamic mics to reduce muddiness. He demonstrates the boost-sweep-cut technique to find and reduce problematic frequencies.
- **Recording and Fine-Tuning EQ** [10:23] — After setting EQ, the presenter recommends recording yourself and listening back to make minor adjustments, ensuring you don't overdo the EQ.
- **Noise Suppression and Expander** [10:37] — Noise suppression is adaptive and effective. The expander is described as a gradual noise gate that reduces volume instead of cutting off abruptly, avoiding the choppy effect of traditional gates.
- **Compressor Settings** [11:31] — The compressor has a ratio of 4:1 recommended. The threshold should be adjusted so attenuation is between 5-10 dB while talking. Makeup gain can be used to match output levels.
- **Mixing Suite and Virtual Channels** [12:24] — Enabling the mixing suite unlocks virtual channels (system, game, browser, chat) that can be assigned to apps. Users can drag and drop sources, and the color changes based on channel. Dual listening devices are supported, switchable via the button on the device.
- **BEACN Mix Create Integration** [14:11] — If you have a BEACN Mix Create, it provides physical knobs to control virtual channel volumes and mute functions. Additional USB audio devices can be added as virtual channels via the plus icon.
- **BEACN Link for Dual PC** [15:07] — BEACN Studio is a dual USB audio interface, allowing connection to two PCs. The main PC runs the BEACN app, while a second PC runs BEACN Link, providing four stereo channels for routing audio between PCs. This enables controlling streaming PC audio from the gaming PC.
- **New Update Features** [16:29] — The recent update includes a collapsible profile drawer, hotkey support for changing mixer profiles, personal listening devices, muting virtual channels, and switching BEACN profiles. Crossfading between profiles allows smooth transitions, useful for OBS scene changes.

### Conclusion

The BEACN Studio and Mic offer a powerful yet user-friendly audio solution for streamers, with onboard DSP, comprehensive effects, and advanced mixing capabilities. By following this guide, users can achieve professional-quality audio and streamline their streaming setup.

## Transcript

things and I'm still rocking the Beacon Mic and my main setup. We're just jumping into it. Here's how to set up your entire stream audio using the Beacon system. Either the Beacon Studio or the Beacon Mic because they work the
or the Beacon Mic because they work the exact same way. Just just managed to do something nobody else has. They they were able to take truly
professional audio and redesign it in a way that's easy enough for a beginner to way that's easy enough for a beginner to use it. Things like their impressive EQ, their compression, their expander, which by the way is like the main reason I
studied sound engineering in college. That was my major. And the Beacon stuff video in a series of four where I'm walking you through the four most popular streaming audio devices. And in each one of these videos, I'm doing a
deep dive into a different element of audio for you to learn. In the last video on the Elgato device, we went really deeply into submixes and why they up. In this video, we're going to go into those super important audio effects
that I mentioned earlier, things like EQ, compression, expansion, because to talk about it in this one. The reason I'm splitting this up across the four videos is so that I'm not repeating myself in every single video. So, make
them all linked down below. Should make it a little easier on you. Just watch to the Beacon stuff. This is perfect timing, though. Beacon just dropped a huge update. And fortunately, Nick on the team here is actually part of the
Nick's going to handle the meat of this video, talking about the interface, how talk about those audio effects later. So, I'll see you in a
assume that you already have the software installed. If you don't, pause here. Take care of that. Just make sure if you have any other Beacon devices to follow the onscreen prompts for unplugging and replplugging in those
devices like a mix or a mix create if you have them. One quick note, as of May 18th, Beacon released an update that is currently in beta and there are some slight changes to the UI. So if yours looks a little different than mine,
there might be an update waiting for you. If it's out of beta, we'll see. A few ground rules to make sure you have the best time Studio is plugged directly into your computer and not going through like a
USB hub or switch. Make sure you got your mic plugged into the XLR jack on make sure your headphones are plugged into the headphone jack. The only other part on the Beacon Studio I'll mention is the massive lovely knob. That is both
your volume adjustment and push to mute and unmute. With everything plugged in, software installed, behold the Beacon app. As a quick overview, on the left side of the app, this is your navigation bar with each button taking you to a
different part of the app. The mixer yet, which is right here, is not enabled a little bit. Right under that is our Beacon Studio, which is broken up into three subtabs. Mic settings, lighting, and then the device settings. Not to be
confused with the Beacon app settings, which are more like global and not per device. That's in the bottom left. This main microphone page is kind of separated into four different sections. Top and center is the equalizer, often
abbreviated to EQ. This is a realtime representation of the signal that is Beacon Studio, and it's displayed in a waveform. This is where you can manipulate frequencies to alter the sound of your mic. We're not going to
dive into that just yet, either. Below the EQ portion is the tabbed menu for all of the effects that are built into the Beacon Studio. Mic setup, noise headphones. One of the things that makes the Beacon Studio and the Beacon Mic
unique is the onboard DSP, meaning all of the effects that you can apply to a microphone, they happen on the device as opposed to the CPU in your computer processing the audio. There are many benefits to this. The big one being that
mic that you're monitoring in your headphones. But Nicholas, I don't That's yucky. You listen to me. You're going to
do it. You're going to like it. You will. You'll learn to like it. I promise. Lastly, on the right side of the app, we're going to work from the bottom up since the top has the most recent changes. Down here is the mic
sampler, which lets you record a quick snippet of you talking into your microphone, and then you can make changes to the mic and then hear those changes in real time. The output gain slider is for increasing the volume of
effects have been applied. The decibel meter for the mic that you can see profile switcher, which is now a collapsible menu, and you can expand and little What is What is that? A little little guy. little guy in the top right.
for myself cuz I use the Beacon Studio, I'm just going to create a new one. And then I can rename it by rightclick and rename senpai. Even though the mixer is currently disabled, I'm just going to
While we're at it, before I kick you back to Harris to have him cover all of the microphone effects, I'm going to cover the final tab of the mic setup starting from the left side, this is where you can control how much of your
own voice you can hear in your headphones when you're monitoring because you do that. Now, as well as the volume uh of your PC, all of the audio playback from your PC. You can choose to keep these linked so that these levels
will both change at the same time or you can unlink them and then just change them individually. You can see if you keep them linked, they change based on a ratio. So, even though one is going only halfway down, the other one is going all
the way down. You might have noticed there's also a second EQ. This is just an EQ for the playback audio in your headphones. So, if you have headphones that are a little muddy, you can boost the mids or the highs to bring out that
clarity. Or if you tend to have headphones that are a little bit more flat, you can add low-end by increasing the bass or increasing the subwoofer using the slider. This is all to personal preference. Every pair of
headphones is going to have a different sound stage. Last but not least, the amp power selection on the right side. So, those of you using IM or in-ear monitors, you'll be pleased to know that there's a setting just for you. Or if
you have some beefy headphones, you know, ones that draw a lot of power, uh you can change the amp to high impedance mode and you'll be in heaven. Hey, I'm back. I said I would be. Let's talk about mic effects.
Specifically, this area down here. These tabs are all the different effects for your microphone. Let's start with mic setup. Mic setup is just where you set much do you turn up the preamp boosting your voice. This is a very important
issues people have are because they set this wrong. Which is why I love what Beacon did with a gain graph instead of a gain meter. If you watched the last sometimes it can be hard to tell if you're getting it just right. Beacon
beautiful graph that shows you the signal level of your microphone over time, making it so easy to tell that your microphone is set properly. And you I'm talking, it fits somewhere in this
we're looking for. That's how I know I have my mic in properly set. And if it's voice is down here. If it's a little bit too high, it goes all the way up here. Audio actually uses 32-bit float. So, it's very difficult to peak on this
microphone, but it looks like 12 dB is about perfect for my voice, right around next tabs, let's actually jump up here to EQ, the next most important setting short for equalization. And let me actually reset this EQ graph before we
you put an Instagram filter on a photo to make it pop, except you're doing it frequencies and cutting out certain frequencies, you can brighten up your voice, and you can even thicken up your voice. I'm a big fan of a thick voice.
a little bit here just so you can hear what everything does, all while I tell you about today's sponsor, your one-stop shop for all your stream widget needs, own.pro. Did you know that own.pro has been hard at work working on clean,
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label rotator widget that shows the latest events, and the hypometer widget for sub and donation trains. And they're just as easy to customize as they are to set up. Look at all the different now playing music widget options there are.
And in the label rotator, I can choose which events are included. And in the hypometer, I can choose which events trigger a new train. A ton of their widgets are free. They're just waiting for you to install them today. So, click
on own.pro, start adding some cool widgets to your stream today. Now, you the EQ that boosting the low end made the voice thick. Boosting the high-end made the voice a little bit brighter. I I like to give these two areas a 1 and
1/2 to a 2 and 1/2 decel boost. It just makes my voice pop a little bit more. The low frequency I put at around 100 hertz. The high frequency I use a shelf continues up the rest of the way. And I do that around 3500 to 4,000 htz around
a dynamic mic, I like to give about a two decel cut right at 500 htz. These microphones, dynamic microphones, tend to be a little bit midheavy, which makes them sound muddy. Cutting a little bit out of there cleans up your voice a
little bit. Now, keep in mind, everybody's voice and mic are different. So, what I like to do is add a band, boost it up around 5 to 10 dB, something really extreme, and then while I'm listening to it, sweep left and right
and left again. Do it slowly until you can find a spot that just sounds ugly. I'm actually going to use the Q here. That's going to narrow this band to make sounds like. And when I find the
frequency that sounds bad, oh, that sounds bad. I'm going to pull this down. Now, that's called a boost, sweep, and cut. And that's actually how a lot of EQ you have your EQ where you like it, I recommend you use the little recording
button down here. Record yourself, listen to it back, and make some minor how you make sure you're not overdoing it, making your voice sound overboard with EQ. But that's pretty much the biggest one. The rest of these
suppression, I've actually never touched. It's adaptive. It's very great. It cuts out a lot of the extra noise in the background. The expander is like a noise gate, but it's 10 times better. The way a normal noise gate
and as soon as your microphone goes down microphone, cutting out all the noise in the background. Now, that does work at you've ever used a noise gate and you've talked too quiet, you get that weird
out cuz the noise gate is turning on and there. Now, an expander is a gradual noise gate that works very similarly. You still set the point where the expander kicks in. But if the signal
drops below that, instead of cutting it off entirely, it just drops the volume down more heavily, expands that signal down lower. It makes that transition hear it. Now, the compressor I also really like. It works just like any
other compressor except they added this attenuation number both in this bar and you should all have the same compression settings. Your ratio should be 4:1. You don't have to touch attack or release. But the thing is, setting the threshold
hard, especially when you don't even know what to listen for. So, what I can tell you is what you're looking for is this attenuation to be typically between 5 and 10 dB. So, you just set your ratio at 4:1 here, and then you move this
threshold number up and down until your attenuation is kind of sitting between 5 and 10 while you're talking. And that's it. If you notice your output, which your uncompressed voice over here. If you notice a huge discrepancy between
adjust the makeup gain to kind of make them match a little bit better. But that's going to be it for audio effects. Back to you, Nick. By default, out of the box, the Beacon Studio is a USB audio interface for inputting your mic
into the computer and then playing back your computer audio to your headphones. However, you can unlock it and have it be a digital mixer, giving you virtual channels that you can assign different apps to, control individually, dual
output listening devices, and submixing. Now, we're not going to go into submixing in this video. Harris just did a deep dive into submixing in the recent master class for Elgato Wavelink using the Stream Deck Plus with the XLR doc.
So, if you want to know more, check out that video. So, the Beacon mixing suite is what you need to enable for this, which can be done by clicking the mixer know, hey, we're going to enable the mixing suite. This is going to add some
audio devices. So, we'll just hit enable. This might take a hot second. enable. This might take a hot second. Sometimes it does. Why are you taking
suite, we had a limited number of virtual audio devices. You may have seen like microphone, beacon, studio, or you might have seen the link 1 through 4. But now that we have this on, we have a handful of virtual audio channels like
system, game, browser, and chat. Once that source is detected, it'll show up rename it, you can double click. And we're going to call Microsoft Edge the best browser because that's what it is. Once
the source is detected, you can click to drag and drop that source to any other channel. And the color of the uh source will actually change based on the color Another great thing about this mode is you get two personal listening devices
have your headphones that are plugged into the headphone jack on the back of the Beacon Studio, but you have speakers that are plugged into the back of your between those two devices just by pressing and holding the button on the
Beacon Studio. What's great about the Beacon ecosystem is if you have a Beacon Mix Create alongside the Beacon Studio, this gives you physical control of those virtual audio devices. So, the knobs control the volume of the channels. You
can use the push to mute functions. It's pretty awesome. Little bonus tip for you. If you click on the plus icon in the mixer, you might notice an AX one, AX 2, and hardware. If you have another USB audio device, like an analog mixer
that has eight inputs, you can add that USB interface into Beacon as a virtual channel, that means that any audio device that you plug into your computer can be tied into the Beacon mixing suite. You'll have volume control. You
can mute that audio. You can route it wherever you want. It's awesome. While dual PC setups are my favorite, we're not covering dual PC in today's video. I do want to mention Beacon Link because it's what makes the Beacon Studio a very
unique product and it's why I use it for my dual PC setup. The Beacon Studio is actually a dual USB audio interface, meaning that it can be connected to two different computers at once. The way this works is you choose whichever PC is
your main device. The Beacon app runs on that PC, like your gaming PC. The studio then also plugs into a second PC like a streaming PC and then a smaller Beacon app uh called Beacon Link runs on that second computer. That gives you four
stereo channels that can go from each PC. So if you were to look in your volume mixer uh you can see uh Beacon Link in and out. The outputs have link 1 through 4 and then the inputs have link 1 through 4. So, this means on your
second PC, you can assign apps to different channels and then you can control the volume or the mutes of those apps over on the gaming PC without having to touch the streaming PC at all. It for dual PC setups, it's awesome. If
Harris already told you to comment your favorite emoji for engagement, I can't go back in time and undo that. But if you have another emoji to spare and you want a video on dual PC setups using the Beacon Studio, just do a different emoji
the two computer content." As I mentioned earlier in the video, Beacon just pushed out a new update that made a few UI changes and also introduced a couple of new features. Some of these very highly requested by the community.
I already showed you the profile collapsible drawer on the right side, which is a gift from God. Gives you that sweet, sweet screen real estate back. They've also added hotkey support, which again, very highly requested. Uh, that
you can use a hotkey to change mixer profiles, change your personal listening device, mute virtual channels, uh, or change Beacon Studio profiles. This last out personally yet. Uh, but one of the
really cool use cases that Drix has told me about. He works for Beacon, also a solid dude. You could use hotkeys to change scenes in OBS as well as change mixer profiles in the Beacon app. And now that they've added crossfading
between those profiles, that would mean you would have a smooth transition of fade in or fade out uh instead of having to manually do this uh physically with faders. And that is pretty dope as well.
beacon streaming master class. Uh it may have felt a little bit like drinking splitting up really important audio stuff across multiple videos so it's you want to see more of a deep dive into submixes, which you can do on Beacon, I
will leave a link to that portion, the timestamp of the Elgato video where I below. And of course, all the Beacon stuff will be linked down below. Those and buy something, it helps the channel out a lot. Thank you very much. The next
the Roadcaster and using that for make sure you do so to check out that video. Uh, hit the like button if you're still watching. And as always, happy streaming.