Voicemeeter & Guitar VS Your Sanity

[00:00] if you're using a pc to make music

[00:03] stream games and possibly stream your

[00:05] music

[00:06] you've probably heard about voice meter

[00:09] don't worry

[00:10] i'm here to help

[00:16] hello heathens thank you so much for

[00:18] joining the channel i'm jd blood i'm a

[00:20] guitarist

[00:20] a goth a gamer and a giant nerd

[00:24] and for the purposes of this video we're

[00:26] gonna be giant nerds together

[00:28] i'm assuming you want to use voice meter

[00:31] to get

[00:32] your audio from your microphone

[00:36] and your guitar into your daw

[00:39] plug-in whatever else you want to use

[00:42] and then automatically out

[00:43] into something like obs for streaming

[00:46] you're in luck

[00:47] i have decided to task me with getting

[00:50] you there

[00:52] for this experiment you're gonna need to

[00:53] download voicemeeter potato

[00:56] the link is in the description you are

[00:58] going to need

[00:59] access to your sound cards routing as in

[01:03] your sample rate and buffer size

[01:06] and then just to make sure that we've

[01:08] done all this correctly you are going to

[01:09] need any plug-in or daw

[01:11] that you may want to route this to okay

[01:14] let's get started i'm spoiler alerting

[01:17] here

[01:17] just a little bit because i want to make

[01:20] sure that you've got

[01:21] everything that you need now when you

[01:23] install voicemeeter potato

[01:25] i'm going to assume you know how to

[01:27] install software

[01:29] just a guess please do actually restart

[01:33] your computer

[01:34] because it does help potato actually

[01:37] take over your audio i don't know the

[01:39] scientifics behind it

[01:40] but it totally does so what you have

[01:42] here is

[01:43] the three things that i mentioned you

[01:45] need you have in my case the 2i2

[01:48] routing sample rate buffer size

[01:51] you have the actual voicemeeter potato

[01:54] screen

[01:54] that is intimidating as balls but we

[01:57] will get there

[01:58] and then in the back here you have a

[01:59] plug-in i happen to love stl tones so

[02:01] i've got my tone hub back there we'll

[02:03] get to that in just a minute

[02:04] first things first what you want to do

[02:06] is actually set up

[02:08] where your audio is outputting

[02:11] this seems kind of counter-intuitive

[02:13] because you'd want to make sure

[02:15] that you're getting the inputs right as

[02:16] you can see

[02:18] my voice is making that view meter move

[02:21] but we got to get that to go somewhere

[02:24] up here

[02:24] are your outputs you can see hardware

[02:27] out

[02:28] it tells you sample rate and buffer size

[02:31] and here it also tells you that i have

[02:33] chosen my focusrite usb

[02:34] ausio which is what the 2i2

[02:37] uses when it's installed on a pc how you

[02:40] pick it is you simply go into your a1

[02:43] and scroll don't worry so much we're not

[02:47] going to use

[02:48] mme or ks or wdm those are all windows

[02:51] specific we want asia

[02:53] so you're definitely going to pick your

[02:55] focusrite

[02:56] yours will vary of course whatever sound

[02:58] card you happen to have

[03:00] pick the main asio driver that you're

[03:03] expecting

[03:03] you can pick any alternative number of

[03:06] outputs as well

[03:07] i used to for a while have my a2 as

[03:09] speakers and then i routed my speakers a

[03:11] little differently

[03:13] don't worry about that you can not

[03:16] relevant to this conversation

[03:17] so first things first you have to figure

[03:19] out and i notice i got it wrong

[03:21] look at that we're going to correct it

[03:22] together you have to output

[03:24] you have to get your mic input going

[03:27] into the proper input or your mic output

[03:29] going into the property you know what i

[03:30] mean so we're gonna go into the menu

[03:34] i'll get to this in just a second

[03:36] because that's very important this is

[03:38] also very important

[03:39] this is not very important but we'll go

[03:41] in order so you go into your system

[03:43] settings

[03:45] and here you will see

[03:48] oh no wonder it sounded like trash okay

[03:51] i don't know why this happened whenever

[03:53] there's a windows update

[03:55] potato banana voice meter og

[03:59] they all screw up this is not how

[04:01] they're supposed to be

[04:02] so you can right click to back that off

[04:06] and then you can what this does

[04:10] is it maps your microphone input on my

[04:13] 2i2 which is a two physical input

[04:15] i have my mic on the left input and my

[04:18] guitar

[04:18] or instrument on the right input so what

[04:20] should happen

[04:21] is your inputs should also match well

[04:24] you have

[04:25] five inputs that's why it says in one

[04:27] two three four five

[04:29] those all work up here one

[04:32] two three four five there's your math

[04:34] lesson for the day

[04:36] so your input one it really doesn't

[04:38] matter if you do stereo or mono

[04:40] i prefer mono and then you'll see i also

[04:42] have it labeled mono because i'm

[04:44] really anal about this and then your

[04:46] input 2

[04:48] which in my case is my instrument you

[04:51] just click it up

[04:52] to 2 and away you go and if you were

[04:54] looking at the screen you saw

[04:56] tonehub there actually shift a little

[04:58] bit this is a really great example of

[05:00] how

[05:01] things can screw up and i'm happy it did

[05:04] because now i've got it correct and now

[05:07] i can start to go on with everything

[05:09] else the other main thing you want to do

[05:12] is whatever

[05:13] you label here on your on your

[05:16] instrument

[05:17] input whether it's 1 2 7 20 who cares

[05:21] is make sure that first of all you're

[05:24] down here at the patch

[05:25] inserts this is key this is how we get

[05:27] it to go

[05:28] into your plug-ins daws whatever

[05:31] and fully route the signal if you don't

[05:35] highlight these

[05:36] and i'll show you what i mean they will

[05:39] not take the signal back from the

[05:42] plug-in

[05:42] daw etc etc you won't have real-time

[05:45] monitoring

[05:46] in fact as in my experience you won't

[05:48] have any monitoring

[05:50] so we've highlighted right two on input

[05:53] two

[05:54] so my input to right is highlighted

[05:58] what that does is it transports the

[05:59] signal these ones here

[06:01] in four left and right is kind of a

[06:05] little trick

[06:06] i picked up i won't go over that in this

[06:08] video

[06:09] but this is wonderful for

[06:13] setting a master track output

[06:16] on your daw and having it come back in

[06:19] through voice me that's all the spoiler

[06:22] i'm going to give you basically we need

[06:24] here

[06:25] also for whatever reason you don't need

[06:28] to do that

[06:29] for your microphone i have not figured

[06:31] out why i cannot explain it please just

[06:34] go with me

[06:38] now we have everything set up

[06:42] one thing you may notice when potato

[06:43] comes in is that these

[06:46] sample rates are insanely high

[06:49] do not change them do not be alarmed i

[06:51] don't know why

[06:52] sometimes they will default to the

[06:54] lowest which is 384

[06:56] and that sucks it ruins your audio

[06:59] just leave them at the highest one and

[07:02] never think about it again

[07:03] so right now you can see obviously that

[07:06] my latency is pretty high

[07:10] this will take you a good half an hour

[07:13] to figure out

[07:15] where your compromise is if you are

[07:18] using this application primarily for

[07:20] voice

[07:21] then 192 is a pretty reasonable buffer

[07:23] size

[07:24] and it won't matter nearly at all

[07:27] it'll still get you through voice meter

[07:30] into whatever you need and into

[07:32] i'm going to use obs because i'm

[07:33] assuming that's what you're using for

[07:34] streaming for the musicians in the crowd

[07:37] i understand this is driving you a

[07:39] little twitchy because it drove me a

[07:40] little twitchy

[07:41] i went from using about 16 to 32

[07:45] to get the maximum chug up to 192.

[07:48] now the scientists tell me that the

[07:50] human ear

[07:51] can't really determine the latency

[07:54] difference between 32 and 192 because

[07:58] that difference is about two

[07:59] milliseconds

[08:00] or less than two milliseconds

[08:03] to about eight milliseconds round trip

[08:07] i don't know if i'm being an uber nerd

[08:10] but i really can hear the difference so

[08:12] be aware that you will sacrifice latency

[08:15] in your music for this configuration to

[08:19] work

[08:19] it's not going to affect your technique

[08:21] at all i don't find

[08:23] it's that different when i'm playing

[08:26] but it is something to keep in mind and

[08:28] it's actually one of the main negatives

[08:29] i have about this

[08:31] so once you've set up your sound card

[08:33] and you'll know you've set up your sound

[08:34] card there won't be any crackles there

[08:36] won't be any weird distortion

[08:38] there won't be any artifacting

[08:41] it takes time i can't tell you what your

[08:44] magic number is

[08:45] you have to experiment so once you have

[08:47] that down

[08:48] you never have to set it again so we can

[08:51] get rid of that

[08:52] now how you're hearing me i have to go

[08:54] backward a little bit here how you're

[08:55] hearing me now

[08:57] is a direct result of this b3

[09:01] you can think of the a channels in your

[09:04] input strips

[09:05] as auditions so anything you want to

[09:09] monitor

[09:10] you can monitor of course so it doesn't

[09:13] matter to me because i'm not monitoring

[09:15] through cans and i don't have my

[09:16] speakers on

[09:17] but theoretically since my

[09:20] a1 output is my main sound card

[09:24] i would definitely want to generally

[09:26] monitor that

[09:27] and then you can see over here on the

[09:29] monitoring these are the outputs

[09:32] you can see that i am now mimicking the

[09:34] two meters

[09:35] the same is true for my guitar i

[09:38] definitely

[09:38] want to hear that so i would just click

[09:41] that on

[09:42] and again if you want that to come out

[09:43] through any of the other

[09:45] outputs that you may have selected

[09:47] through your choice

[09:48] all you have to do is click the

[09:50] corresponding button

[09:52] simple as that the b channels are

[09:55] basically broadcasting

[09:57] so this is where you route your

[10:00] final audio to wherever it is

[10:04] it's going be that your daw your plug-in

[10:07] straight into obs you know choice is

[10:10] yours

[10:12] this concept took me a little bit to get

[10:14] over but these are actually your b

[10:16] inputs up here bio this is actually

[10:19] called aux but i've

[10:20] already labeled it for my use for chat

[10:23] and then pc audio because you can

[10:25] actually route

[10:26] your the entirety of every sound your pc

[10:28] makes

[10:29] through voicemeeter useful for gamers

[10:32] useful for streamers not at all

[10:34] practical for music making so

[10:37] use at your own risk i'm not really

[10:39] gonna get into it the concept that took

[10:40] me a while to get into

[10:42] was the fact that these are not hard and

[10:45] fast

[10:46] like this input does not necessarily

[10:48] have to be that output

[10:50] and that took me way too long once i

[10:52] figured it out this all came together

[10:54] this is why this video is taking so long

[10:57] so b3 is my vaio 3

[11:01] output this is important when you're

[11:03] going into

[11:05] honestly just obs it doesn't matter

[11:07] about anything else really i don't think

[11:09] i'm probably wrong on that correct me in

[11:11] the comments so b2

[11:13] then becomes my aux i don't know why i

[11:16] think of

[11:17] guitar as an aux cable it's literally

[11:20] the thing in your car that you can plug

[11:21] your

[11:22] your friend's android into because

[11:23] they're too cheap to have an iphone and

[11:24] have carplay

[11:26] that's basically how i think of it so

[11:28] then your guitar

[11:29] would be routed through there and if you

[11:31] don't believe me i will show you a

[11:33] demonstration once we log in

[11:35] to the plugin of choice log into the

[11:38] plugin

[11:39] you get what i mean and then b1 i have

[11:41] it on again this is the special channel

[11:44] right here you also see i have spotify

[11:47] or your music

[11:48] app of choice and you can route that

[11:51] through here i highly recommend that

[11:53] for streamers or if you're the type of

[11:56] person who

[11:57] learns a song on a stream and you're

[11:59] chugging away and you want to just

[12:01] repeat and get that copyright

[12:03] demonetization going

[12:05] this is a way you can do that so your

[12:07] audience can hear what you're listening

[12:08] to

[12:09] they can hear your pause and rewind and

[12:11] all that other good stuff it's a great

[12:13] way to get that going

[12:14] and again that's routed through a1 and

[12:16] if i were

[12:17] to route it i think i would honestly put

[12:20] that on the b1 channel as well

[12:22] your mileage may vary not really

[12:24] important you're here for the guitar

[12:26] so we have our guitar it is set up it's

[12:29] broadcasting

[12:30] through the aux and we also have i'll do

[12:33] a little reminder here

[12:36] the insert this is key to getting it

[12:39] into your plug-in one more step before

[12:42] we go into the plug-in i'm going to show

[12:43] you that menu

[12:44] auto restart audio engine although voice

[12:47] meter is arguably

[12:49] the best program for audio routing

[12:52] in windows it is also one of the worst

[12:55] sometimes

[12:56] you'll hear a crackle a blur or that

[12:59] weird distortion

[13:00] and what voice meter can do is

[13:01] automatically correct itself

[13:03] highly recommend keeping this on you

[13:06] will lose

[13:07] like a second or two of audio if you're

[13:09] not monitoring you won't notice

[13:12] but it'll come back and you just have to

[13:15] do a plug-in

[13:15] system tray run at startup this is so

[13:18] that it automatically takes

[13:20] over again this is why i have my pc

[13:22] audio

[13:23] routed over here because as soon as my

[13:26] computer boots up voice meter boots up

[13:28] and it takes control

[13:30] of my audio how i show that since it's

[13:33] in the vaio 3

[13:35] is in your pc sound you can see voice

[13:37] meter vayo3

[13:38] this is all sort of next level stuff you

[13:40] don't have to but i honestly think if

[13:42] you

[13:42] are running your stream and your music

[13:46] all at the same time i think this is the

[13:47] optimal way to do it hook

[13:49] volume key i honestly turn this off i

[13:51] have no idea what the hell this does

[13:53] so whatever it can go away now we need

[13:56] to make sure this is inserted

[13:58] perfect let's go in to our guitar

[14:01] plug-in

[14:02] of choice shall we there's my tone hub i

[14:05] want to move it over here so you are

[14:07] looking at this channel strip

[14:09] and you are looking at the audio i o of

[14:11] your plug-in

[14:12] many plug-ins ios look very similar so

[14:16] this shouldn't be too difficult to

[14:18] decipher for your own end

[14:20] you can mute the audio if you want i

[14:22] actually like keeping it on because that

[14:24] feedback lets me know i'm alive

[14:26] so your audio device type of course

[14:28] windows audio trash direct sound trash

[14:31] azio it's what we're using the device

[14:35] spoiler alert here you can see you can

[14:37] just go through your sound card as you

[14:39] normally would if you weren't

[14:40] doing the voicemeeter setup reroute seo

[14:44] is

[14:44] for a different video because as soon as

[14:46] i finish this video and i like the

[14:48] quality

[14:49] i'm never using the setup again spoiler

[14:51] alert

[14:52] and then you have your voicemeeter

[14:53] inputs we highlighted that

[14:55] insert patch for a reason

[14:58] and it's this reason right here you use

[15:01] your potato

[15:02] insert virtual clicky clicky

[15:05] you have to make sure that you're set up

[15:07] correctly now even if you have the mono

[15:09] input

[15:10] make it a stereo output and this is on

[15:14] whatever channel you want you can see i

[15:16] can

[15:16] scroll

[15:19] down to input 8. so whatever input

[15:22] channel you have

[15:23] make sure that it matches that stereo

[15:25] output and then of course your input

[15:27] channel

[15:28] mine is the mono right on the second

[15:30] channel so there is a mono write

[15:32] on the second channel sample rate

[15:34] matches

[15:36] one second sample rate matches

[15:40] buffer size matches your plug-in will

[15:42] probably lie to you

[15:44] this is four milliseconds one way so

[15:46] therefore you double it it's an eight

[15:47] millisecond round trip

[15:50] again human ear can't decipher less than

[15:52] 10 milliseconds

[15:54] maybe i'm a nerd because i'm certainly

[15:55] not an audiophile

[15:57] i can hear the difference but this is

[15:59] the sacrifice we make to get this going

[16:01] pop that down and then once you close

[16:04] out of here

[16:05] you should be able to hear

[16:08] your guitar if i turn it on

[16:14] and voila you now have your guitar

[16:18] routed from your headphones per

[16:22] se or your speakers depending on what

[16:24] your sound card offers

[16:25] or your external speakers or your

[16:27] monitor or your printer

[16:29] or whatever you have that broadcasting

[16:32] to your obs which i'll do in another

[16:36] video this was just to get here because

[16:38] of that

[16:39] insert you have that audio coming

[16:42] in from voice meter so from your

[16:46] guitar into voice meter into your plugin

[16:49] and that little insert highlight button

[16:52] takes the processed audio and pops it

[16:55] back

[16:55] into potato and then back into your ears

[16:59] and then wherever you decide to

[17:01] broadcast it it goes as well

[17:03] so that is the quick and dirty setup

[17:06] it ain't pretty i still hate the latency

[17:09] once i'm done editing this video

[17:12] i will probably never use this setup

[17:14] again i have already found

[17:16] a better slash lower latency way to make

[17:20] all of this happen and i really think

[17:23] it's the better alternative but

[17:26] if you are in the voice meter ecosystem

[17:29] and if you

[17:31] are okay with the settings presented it

[17:33] works

[17:34] this setup legitimately works it's what

[17:36] i'm recording this video on right now

[17:38] make sure if you have any questions to

[17:40] leave them down below

[17:42] i think i did a pretty thorough job but

[17:43] i'm always open to helping i'm not going

[17:45] to delete

[17:46] voicemeeter i'm just not going to use it

[17:47] again if i have made your life better by

[17:50] making it more difficult for showing you

[17:52] this

[17:52] throw a like on the video it helps more

[17:54] than you could possibly imagine

[17:56] and if you are watching this without

[17:58] being subscribed consider

[18:00] subscribing i will do more guitaring i

[18:02] will do more

[18:03] gaming i will do more gothing i think

[18:07] and i will definitely do more giant nerd

[18:09] stuff like this because this has been

[18:11] hella fun for me

[18:12] either way if you've stuck around this

[18:13] long thank you

[18:15] so very much from the bottom of my black

[18:17] little heart and remember

[18:19] be safe be consensual and if you can't

[18:22] be good

[18:22] well then sweet satan on a pogo stick be

[18:26] good at