Mic Picks Up Keyboard Sounds

LegitHuman said:
I don't think I can put a pop filter on my mic (and it's $20)...what would be the best way w/o buying anything?[DOUBLEPOST=1416920907,1416920868][/DOUBLEPOST]
I don't use that but if there's no other non-costy solution I might use it :)
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Non costy? Audacity is free dude :P
 
LegitHuman said:
I don't think I can put a pop filter on my mic (and it's $20)...what would be the best way w/o buying anything?[DOUBLEPOST=1416920907,1416920868][/DOUBLEPOST]
I don't use that but if there's no other non-costy solution I might use it :)
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Ian's idea is probably a better option, it may not be 100% perfect sounding, but it would help and its free. :D
 
If you're not already using Audacity then you need to get downloading it asap! It's a gaming commentators best friend, even Lord Perrdepie uses it! I hope ya'll are good with sarcasm for that last part :p
 
Audacity noise removal is for ambient noise, not keyboard noise. It will do a poor job.

Your problem and solution is very simple. The microphone you're using is not designed for what you're doing or how your desk is set up. It's a podcasting mic, geared towards conversation in a quite room while doing those casts.

Quite simply, you need to be closer to it. Most condenser microphones are very sensitive. Turn down the input volume, get the mic 6-10 inches away from your mouth and the keyboard noise will be much much less.
 
LegitHuman said:
I need to find a way to prevent my mic from picking up keyboard sounds...I have a Samson Meteorite Microphone on top of some cube toys (Minecraft) and behind it is a mechanical keyboard (Razer Blackwidow)
and it picks up the keyboard sounds and I don't think it's enjoyable to hear keyboard sounds when you're trying to listen to commentary...I need help in eliminating this problem.
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As mentioned before, I would use Audacity. If the keyboard sounds are heard when there is no talking, you can simply silence the audio at those spots.

First, I would lower the input sensitivity and sit closer to the mic. That will make the keyboard a little quieter relative to your voice.

The noise removal tool in Audacity will have problems since the noise is intermittent. You can do some tricks with the hard limiter tool. First you would set db limit right above the sound level of the keyboard clicks. You can see the sound level when you switch it the track view into "Waveform DB". Next set the residue level to 1.0. The residue level is the percentage of the volume to be let through above the db limit. Since we want everything above that to pass through that's why we set it to 1. The wet level is the percentage below the DB limit. You want to play around with the wet level. Don't set it to zero, but you want something less than 1. Be careful with this as you can easily make the audio sound bad. Play around with some wet levels between 0.75 and 0.5. If you can get away with it you can go a little lower. I've heard of this trick being used to silence out a quiet crowd and reverb from a live performance to make it sound like a studio recording.

But I suggest trying not to talk at the same exact time as your typing. It's easier to isolate the waveform that way.
 
I've used audacity to remove keyboard noise by following the same proceedure for background noise (Ian W. outlined it here). It isnt perfect so you may end up hearing the odd key stroke (much softer) but it is effective and free. If you're using a cardioid microphone, be sure to orient it so your keyboard is behind it where it will pick up the least sound.

Consider looking for ways to lower the noise of your keyboard rather than how much is picked up. There are cheap rubber rings called key dampeners (I think theyre made by a company named WASD) you can easily install on the back of mechanical keys to soften the sound it makes when you bottom out. The problem with the blackwidow is its notoriously loud (one of the loudest key strokes you can get) which is a selling point for some but terrible for recording over.
 
LegitHuman said:
What level should I put the sensitivity?
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A good rule of thumb is to adjust the sensitivity such that the peaks of your audio will fall around 75% of max. This help prevent any clipping and give you some headroom to do other processing. You can generally eyeball the 75% level it if you're looking at a the little color coded recording level meter in whatever program your using.

If your lowering the sensitivity to avoid other sounds, obviously you'll have to move closer to the mic to bring the recording level up. It will be a balance.

Once your done doing any post-processing, then you can normalize to -3db to bring up the volume to where it needs to be.
 
Harry Of All Trades said:
A good rule of thumb is to adjust the sensitivity such that the peaks of your audio will fall around 75% of max. This help prevent any clipping and give you some headroom to do other processing. You can generally eyeball the 75% level it if you're looking at a the little color coded recording level meter in whatever program your using.

Once your done doing any post-processing, then you can normalize to -3db to bring up the volume to where it needs to be.
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How do I adjust it?
 
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