Voicemeeter Potato Tutorial
Video version of tutorial: https://youtu.be/dVVct7Z68IE
Content
Introduction
Hardware Inputs
Virtual Inputs
All Outputs
Start up
Microphone
Streaming Software Setup
Microphone Tuning (Gates, effects and section in Voicemeeter)
Soundboard using Virtual Cable
Implementing VST Plugins
Conclusion
Introduction
Voicemeeter Potato is a mixer program for your windows computer and is the newest version of the software. Using Voicemeeter will allow for greater control of your audio and much more creativity for your stream, videos and general use.
When you download Voicemeeter Potato the screenshot above is the layout of the program when installed.
Voicemeeter Potato works by having 8 ins (A1,A2, A3, A4, A5 Hardware ins and B1,B2,B3 Virtual Ins) and 8 outs (A1,A2, A3,A4,A5 Hardware outs, B1,B2,B3 Virtual outs). While Voicemeeter Banana has 5 ins (A1,A2, A3, Hardware ins and B1,B2 Virtual Ins) and 5 outs (A1,A2, A3. Hardware outs, B1,B2 Virtual outs). Confusing I know.
If you want to read the actual manual for the Voicemeeter Banana which I highly recommend since I won’t be going through everything and it will also give added understanding on the functions of everything.
Unfortunately, there appears to be no Voicemeeter Potato manual as of yet.
Go to: https://www.vb-audio.com/Voicemeeter/VoicemeeterBanana_UserManual.pdf
Quick rundown of the sections you need to know.
Hardware Inputs
These are the hardware inputs, generally where at least your microphone will be selected or virtual cable inputs (A1, A2, A3, A4, A5 ins).
Virtual Inputs
These are the virtual inputs, so computer playback. (B1, B2, B3 ins)
All Outputs
These are all the outputs, up top is the hardware out. This is the speakers, headphones etc (A1, A2, A3, A4, A5 outs, physical). The B1, B2, B3 outputs are Voicemeeter VAIO, VoiceMeeter AUX VAIO and VAIO 3 which are the virtual outputs.
At the bottom is the level and eq section for all outputs. This section you can change the volume to your headset and differ it to volume to the stream. I generally don’t mess with the modes and EQ’s because it’s complicated but if you are an audiophile, it’s quite extensive.
In between the hardware outputs and the output levels is a recorder (for recording within voicemeeter) and an External FX Return section. This will be used in later stage to implement VST plugins.
Start up
To start the setup it is necessary to download Voicemeeter Potato. For extra stuff that will explored late you will need VB audio cable too. Both of these can be downloaded from https://www.vb-audio.com/
After installing it is necessary to restart your computer for the audio drivers.
When you restart, you will not have any audio straight away until Voicemeeter is launched and setup, I have mine set to start on startup. Otherwise you need to launch it every time you boot up your computer.
Next is to change your playback default devices in windows. Change the playback to one of the VoiceMeeter Inputs. I have my personal setup set to VoiceMeeter VAIO 3 which corresponds to B3 virtual input. VoiceMeeter Input is B1 input and VoiceMeeter AUX is B2 input.
In Voicemeeter Potato where it says hardware out (top right area), press the A1 and select your headset/speakers, wherever you want to desktop sounds to go so you can listen to it. As you can see there is WDM, MME and KS. Generally speaking choose WDM because this has the lowest latency than MME. KS is the best of all but isn’t used a lot.
From this step you need to press/select the ‘ ► A1’ button in the input section you chose for default desktop playback, for me this is VAIO 3. This routes the audio from the B3 input to the A1 output ( B3 (computer playback you selected before) -> A1 (hardware output speakers/headset you chose).
After this step, test out any audio coming from you computer maybe a youtube video, spotify or video game.
If all is well, next is to set up your microphone input
Microphone
So next up is to set up your microphone. In the hardware input section press one of the titles where it says hardware input. I chose hardware input 1, since most people do that. Choose your microphone.
So when that is done, route it to your headset by selecting the ‘►A1’ button to test. Though you should see the level meter go up and down when you talk.
Once that is sorted next is to set up your xsplit, Streamlabs obs or Standard OBS (which I am currently using) to hear the microphone and desktop sounds.
Streaming Software Setup
To start off you need to select an virtual output channel that will act as the input into your streaming software. I chose B2 (Voicemeeter AUX output). To get your microphone and desktop audio to B1 channel, select the ‘►B2’ button in both sections.
Next is to setup this input into your streaming software, as stated before I am using Obs so the screenshots will be of that. This will be a similar approach that you would select a microphone into other streaming programs.
Select an input in your audio mixer area, click the cog and go into properties. You only need one input since Voicemeeter will handle everything else now. (mute other channels if necessary)
Then in the properties section in devices dropdown, select Voicemeeter Aux Output as the option, as this is B2 output. If you chose another output, choose the corresponding output you have chosen.
After this section your streaming software should pick up your mic and desktop sounds running through Voicemeeter. From this point you can stream and it should operate basically as before.
From now on you can fine tune things and change up for the possibility of soundboards in discord, listening to music that stream can’t hear, gates/compression to limit background noise and a variety of combinations that when you get used to how it all works you can decide. I’ll be running through some of the things mentioned above starting with your microphone tuning.
Microphone Tuning (Gates, effects and section in Voicemeeter)
There is a few sections of the microphone/hardware input section that hasn’t been explained. Important section is the compression and gate section.
Up top is the where you select the hardware input from the sections before. Don’t need to go much into detail about that.
Below that is the ‘intellipan’ section which is a colour panel where you can quickly change the sound of the audio.( I recommend reading the Audio Controls section in the Voicemeeter manual to understand this stuff better since they explain it well.)
By right clicking the dark box of the intellpan section it will cycle through 3 different panels. You can move the blue rounded square around and if you want it back to default place, just double click it.
1st Panel (Default)
This section enables you to quickly change bass, treble, medium and even add a reverb.
See this diagram from the manual to understand but also just play around with listening to yourself works well too!
2nd Panel: Modulation
Not much to say here just play around with and your voice will be all funky.
3rd Panel: Distance and Positioning (stereo L/R)
This moves where the sound is coming from and how far away it sounds.
See this diagram from the manual for some examples placements.
The next section is where you need to read if you have background noise you want to eliminate or limit what gets picked up by.
There is a compression knob to the left and a gate to the right. Compression enables your highs and lows to be closer together. The gate on the right enables you to cut out sounds that are low, like background noise. Play around these settings to cut out background noise and use the compression to make your voice more level when you are talking quiet and loud.
Compression setting has something called ‘auto-make up’ which means when you use compression it will automatically boost the signal. This means that it might be necessary to lower the dB level meter.
The next section is new to Potato, Special Fx and External FX Send section. In this section you can utilise the inbuilt reverb and Delay effects which can be found to right hand side of the Voicemeeter window. This will be used later to implement VST plugins through another program.
The last section is the sound indicator, level db meter, routing section. It also has buttons mono, solo and mute. Mono makes stereo(L/R) sound into equal both sides. Solo button mutes all other sound meaning that only sound is from that channel. The mute is opposite of Solo, it mutes the channel.
Soundboard using Virtual Cable
Voicemeeter allows to easily incorporate a soundboard into anything you want. Whether it be just for discord gaming shenanigans or for streaming content. Also being able to do this will show you some more of the utility of the Voicemeeter software.
First install vb-cable and soundboard software of your choice, I recommend EXP soundboard. EXP is super easy to use and simple.
Once both have been installed you then choose where you want the soundboard output sounds to, which you want to choose VB-Cable if you want to utilise it through discord.
Next step is to setup Voicemeeter to have vb-cable as a hardware input. Simply select input device and chose VB-cable in Voicemeeter.
After this stage make sure you route it to your headset and streaming output (if you have followed the guide ‘►A1 headset/speakers ►B2 stream audio output).
You will also see I have routed it to B1. This is the output I have chosen for discord microphone. Make sure you setup your microphone routed to B1 too, so that when you setup discord the mic will go through and the soundboard.
As you can see in the above image, microphone and soundboard are routed to B2.
Before we make it work in discord, let’s make a table of where things are going, in case all these have you a bit confused.
The best way to set up is so that the default recording device is B1 output (Voicemeeter Output) in windows.
Make the windows recording device default to B1 in the playback settings.
This makes it the default device for all applications that uses an input/microphone setting. This way if you want to use it for everything etc. in games too. It also means that the voice gate/compression stated before will be in effect.
Implementing VST Plugins
Implementing VST Plugins allows a greater control of perfecting the audio of your microphone by using plugins such as noise gate, compressor and eq. Using plugins can provide improvements to your audio system due to better options to fine tune.
VST plugins can be directly used inside OBS but i personally decided to implement VST plugins within Voicemeeter so that my microphone sounds great with any program that I wish to use.
First off, a few things need to be downloaded and installed.
I recommend downloading and installing ReaPlugs, which includes equalisers, compressors and noise gates.
Download at this link. https://www.reaper.fm/reaplugs/
Next step is to download Cantabile from https://www.cantabilesoftware.com/
After Installing and selecting a version of Cantabile to launch you will be faced with cantabile license. Simply enter your details and select the key for the Lite version when you enter the key from the email received. The other versions are 30 day trials.
Press next until you hit the following page.
For the audio driver you will select Voicemeeter Potato Insert Virtual ASIO from the drop down button. The sample rate and buffer size should be automatically set correctly.
This window can be left as default.
This window can be left as default as well.
When you hit the following page VST Plugins you will want to add the folder path to the ReaPlugs, if you installed to default location it is most likely in the following location C:\Program Files\VSTPlugins. As shown below.
Next step is to Finish and it should automatically launch Cantabile and show the following window.
Select the Add route and choose main microphone.
Next select blue space in Preset/Destination column and choose Output Port — Main Speakers.
At this stage sound will now come into Cantabile and straight out again. To get the microphone to pass through Cantabile you will need to go to Menu > System Settings in Voicemeeter Potato. On the bottom of the window in the patch insert section select in 1 Left and in 2 right.
After this if you can route by using the routing buttons to send audio to your headset. Personally, first time i was doing this I would often get really bad robotic noise coming through. If this is the case then I have found restarting the computer to work best.
If the output seems quieter than you would like you can use the External FX Send and Receive knob. Above the fader gain set the External FX Send knob to 10.
Next turn the External FX Receive for the output you would like, here we have A1 for headset, B1 and B2 .
After this step you should hear the microphone coming through louder than before.
Now we can start audio chaining and configuring the plugins to tune our audio to perfection. I will be using my limited knowledge in audio engineering through the following parts.
We will need to add our first plugin by selecting Add Object and Plugin.
You should now see a list of plugins if you selected the folder for ReaPlugs in the installation steps.
We will select reaeq-standalone to start of with. We will now need to port the main microphone to the plugin instead of speakers.
Open up reaeq by double clicking reaqstandalone.
By not speaking you will see the different frequencies that occur. Using Type:Notch will be able to cut out the big stuff, like a particular section from a fan etc. This is done by selecting type notch and then changing the slider of the frequency, and altering the bandwidth for how big.
Add a new object and then select the previous object’s output i.e. the eq to the new object which will be reafir.
Reafir is good for getting rid of the finer stuff, like that slight background noise/echo etc.
Select mode subtract and then hold automatically build noise profile to build a profile that will subtract the background noise.
The last two objects i use is the compressor and the gate. Below are the settings I use, if you skipped the above explanation of each
This is the compressor which compresses the audio, loud noise will get quieter and quieter noises will get louder. Which will create a much more equal level of sound. Good for those that get really loud when excited or bang desks. Will still be loud but not ear splitting.
This is the gate which allows only sounds above a certain range to get transmitted. This is good for not picking up keyboard click clacks or quiet background noise. Only your voice will be picked up.
With all these settings I highly recommend you play around so get an idea of what each value does or watch some youtube videos that others have made that go more in depth.
Conclusion
Hopefully, at this point, you have a bit of an understanding on how to use voicemeeter and have improved your audio to be much nicer for your streams, videos and everything in between. If not have no fear there are many youtube videos and other tutorials. There is also the manual which is helpful as well.
You can also contact me personally on twitter, discord or any other means to ask specific questions. I can help you the best I can from my knowledge.