I mean it all depends on what's available to you, and what qualifies as "professional" to your ears. Audio is a quite tricky thing to reign in, and a general understanding of what's "good enough" will probably be the most beneficial thing, since you can always (and I mean
always) do "better". Now I write my own music and I sing, so dealing with vocals is a pretty regular occurrence for me, and probably to a degree that you'll never really have to bother with. But I'm gonna go ahead and lay out every layer when it comes to getting a good sound, in hopes that you'll find something useful that can help you along your way. Again, many of these things you might never really have to do, or may serve very little benefit, but all I can do is share my own experience, I've never done gaming commentary, just music. This might get a bit extensive, so please bear with me
K, so the first step on your voice's journey to its final form on the video is, well, coming out of your mouth
This part is really far more important to singers than commentators, as I don't think there are many ways to f*** up speaking, but it's always something to keep into consideration. I know it's not what you asked me, but making sure you have something worth recording is always going to make for a better recording. You seem to be doing a good job at that in your videos, so keep it up
Next up your voice needs to reach your mic, but before you jump into that, consider the short, but yet significant path your voice travels to your recording device. This tends to seem insignificant and even abstract to many, but it's worth bearing in mind. What your mic captures is not necessarily the same as what comes out of your mouth, since the
room you're recording in affects your sound in a significant way. Now I don't know how familiar you are with any of the concepts I'll present here, if you are then please forgive me, I'm just trying to make sure you're informed on everything you might need. But room acoustics isn't voodoo magic, it's certainly a thing. You ever noticed how some big YouTubers, think Pewdiepie, Markiplier, Totalbiscuit etc. sometimes have these panels of foam with ridges on them glued to the walls behind them? That's acoustic treatment, and it's meant to absorb the sound that reflects of your walls, leaving you with a clearer, more defined sound. Think of it like you're in a big church or theater or something, how you can hear a massive echo when you clap or shout. Well your room does the same thing, except to a lesser extent, so you don't really notice it because your ears adjust to it more easily. However, mics are stupid and therefore can't really adjust to what they're hearing, so they pick up the reflections in full. Now I can't go into too much detail about acoustic treatment, we'd be here for days
You can google about acoustics if you want to get more informed, and there is a whole range of solutions from DIY to all-in-one purchasable kits, to the manufacturers actually giving you free room analysis on their website. However you should keep in mind that acoustic treatment can be
quite pricey and does not give you the best bang for your buck in terms of improving your sound. So it does help and you should definitely consider it, but
only if you can easily afford it. Otherwise stick with what you have, you can absolutely get a good sound regardless.
Pro tip: you can use a mattress or a duvet placed behind you for a super easy free aid with the acoustics, but it will probably look awful unless you can angle your camera in a way that it's not noticeable, so it might not really be worth it.
Now your voice, altered by your acoustics along the way can finally hit your mic. But how it hits your mic can also have a big impact on how your recording sounds. You ever notice that the closer you are to your mic when you speak, the more "boomy" your voice becomes, and you start sounding like those dramatic, movie trailer guys with deep, epic voices? That's due to something called the "proximity effect", which is a fancy way of saying the closer the sound source is to a mic, the more bass build up there is in the recorded signal. Also, how your angle yourself or the mic effects the recorded signal in various ways. Remember, we have brains, microphones don't. So while our ears can easily pick up and focus on a human voice, the mic kinda needs to be told what we want it to hear. So my advice is to experiment a bit with mic positioning, as well as where in the room you record it. Just dedicate like a day or half a day to finding out how and where you sound best. Take it around the room and record a bunch of takes, angle it so you speak a bit to the side of it as well as directly into it, experiment with the distance... Basically go nuts
Now the difference may not seem drastic at first, but it's good to get the best sound out of the things you already have, it's absolutely free, and once you've done it once you never have to do it again! Convenient, right?
Now that your voice is being heard in an optimal way by your mic, a quick reminder that the mic itself, as well as your audio interface/sound card also has an effect. But changing your sound card in search of a better sound is utterly pointless, and the Yeti is a good mic, so you really shouldn't bother here. Do keep in mind that the most famous YouTubers generally have better equipment and better mics, so you might not get the
exact same sound as them. But you can still get killer recordings with what you've got
So when it comes to Audacity editing you seem to be hitting all the marks, but it's worth noting that all of that post processing is pretty powerful stuff, so use it responsibly. Less IS more, when it comes to audio editing, as the more stuff you pile on to the signal chain, the more audio degradation you get. So keep it simple. I don't know exactly how you EQ and compress your recording, but there really are no hard and fast rules to begin with, so I'm just gonna give general guidelines. Firstly, try to use the EQ to cut (turn down frequencies) as opposed to boost (turn them up). Now this is no universal law by any means, but a lot of nastiness tends to tag along with EQ boosts, cuts usually sound more natural. So try to find what sounds unpleasant in your voice and remove that, instead of artificially boosting to make it sound like something it isn't. This is where everything I've said comes in to play, if you've considered what I said and got your RECORDING sounding the best it possibly can, the less work you really need to do with your EQ and the better and more natural it will sound. Again, you're allowed to boost but
less is more, remember that.
Compression can also make or break your sound depending on how you use it. It's always advised to tread carefully with it in music, and keep it on the lighter side, and that's when your voice is competing with dozens of other instruments! Since your voice is usually solo, or significantly higher volume than the in-game sounds, that goes double for you
The ratio is fine, may be a bit on the "too much" side but it's fine, what you really need to be looking at is how your compressor is hitting your voice and how much it's reducing. Your compressor probably has a gain reduction meter or something similar, where you can see in real time how and when it hits your voice. Try to make it so it doesn't pump constantly, only when your voice gets a bit louder than the rest of the recording. Not in terms of when you're screaming, but for example when you say the word "prepare" chances are the "pre" is gonna sound a bit quieter than the "pare" so make sure it hits on the "pare" (just an example) by adjusting the threshold. I'm not sure if I'm making any sense here, if you have any questions do feel free to ask
My advice for both EQ and compression is to, just as before, experiment and see what sounds best. Don't be afraid to really dig in a bit, to get a feel for what you can do. If you're feeling like going the extra mile, there are countless tips and teachers on YT and such on mixing vocals in music, who'll give very detailed looks at both EQ and compression and really explain what they do and how to use them properly. The same principles apply to your case, so it might be worth your while
As for the normailzation/noise gate, not much to say there. Make sure you're gating only the noise and as lightly as possible in order not to mangle to voice itself, and make sure you're never clipping and you should be good. Also when you're recording, as in dry, just through the mic, make sure your audio levels are conservative as well, you should always err on the side of lower volume with that. There's not really any benefit to recording loudly on the way in, at least when recording to your computer, so keep it nice and steady, to make sure there's no chance of clipping, and then bring the volume up in Audacity to your desired level.
Woah, that was a mouthful
Sorry for the behemoth of a post! I'll admit I've kinda lost track of my thoughts many times in the course of writing it, so if anything's unclear or nonsensical, don't hesitate to ask, I might have just messed it up and talked pure ********. I've tried to condense a very extensive topic into a forum post, so I haven't really gone into any details or explained much about why any of this matters, so again, any questions regarding specifics you can shoot my way
If you haven't fallen asleep by now, then I hope it helps you guys a bit. Best of luck with your channel!