Content:
- What is VoiceMeeter Banana?
- Should You Use VoiceMeeter Banana?
- What is the difference between the three different versions of VoiceMeeter?
- How to set up VoiceMeeter Banana
- Installing everything
- Parts VoiceMeeter Banana
- Audio setting
- How to split audio
- Summarizing
If you’re a streamer, you’ve probably already heard about VoiceMeeter in one way or another. There are three versions – VoiceMeeter, VoiceMeeter Banana (which we will cover in this article) and VoiceMeeter Potato.
VoiceMeeter usually shows up when you’re looking for ways to separate audio sources or get more control over what sounds are broadcast on your stream. Depending on what you’re streaming, you’ll usually find suggestions for using some hardware mixers. However, if you’re only using your microphone as your audio input (and your desktop audio for the rest), the next suggestion is usually VoiceMeeter.
VoiceMeeter lets you do a lot with the audio of your stream. This gives you much more control over what you’re streaming, audio volume, and more. VoiceMeeter essentially acts like a mixer, except it’s a digital version, not a hardware version.
If you need more control over your audio, VoiceMeeter might be the way to go. This guide will help you figure out how to set it all up!
What is VoiceMeeter Banana?
Before we get started, let’s first talk about the VoiceMeeter banana being a donation. This means you can use it for free and pay whatever you want if you find it useful. You don’t even have to pay at all. However, for professional use, you can pay the company’s recommended license fee. Bulk licenses are also available.
VoiceMeeter Banana is an advanced software that works like a virtual audio mixer. It works in tandem with virtual audio cables (drivers are also available for free), so you can separate your audio sources and control them individually in Banana. Essentially, virtual audio cables allow you to isolate certain sources.
VoiceMeeter Banana also has built-in effects as well as some compression software that can help improve audio and microphone quality. You can also record audio from Banana.
Unfortunately, routing your microphone and audio through VoiceMeeter has some drawbacks – it can sometimes cause some delays in syncing with your video. So, if you want your mouth to move exactly in time with what you’re saying, you’ll have to make some timing adjustments in OBS.
VoiceMeeter Banana also has some issues when you use Bluetooth headphones or speakers as an output device, where the audio you hear can be heavily delayed due to latency. You will need to find some workarounds to make sure you hear everything exactly as it happens.
Should You Use VoiceMeeter Banana?
If you’re streaming, you’re probably using “desktop audio” in OBS to make your stream hear what you hear. Your desktop sound is essentially the only output of every sound your system produces (with the exception of your microphone).
There’s nothing wrong with only using desktop audio, as many content creators do. But what if you want to separate some of your audio sources so you can control their volume separately? For example, if you want to make it so your stream can’t hear people on Discord talking to you, VoiceMeeter Banana can help. You can do the same with your music, as separating it from desktop audio can allow you to control its volume and mute it separately without affecting anything else.
After splitting the audio, you can create shortcuts and hotkeys with VoiceMeeter Banana to better control the audio. In addition, you can also customize the experience with Stream Deck (or other alternatives like Touch Portal).
What is the difference between the three different versions of VoiceMeeter?
- VoiceMeeter is the basic version with two hardware inputs and one virtual output. This may work for certain purposes, but the fact that there’s only one virtual output usually means it’s not enough for streamers wanting to share their audio sources.
- VoiceMeeter Banana is the medium version and is also preferred by many content creators. It has three hardware inputs and two virtual outputs, as well as a small mixing function and effects library.
- VoiceMeeter Potato is the third and largest version with five hardware inputs and three virtual outputs. For most streamers, this is overkill and can be quite tricky to figure out. However, it has more effects in its library.
How to set up VoiceMeeter Banana
Installing everything
- Download VoiceMeeter Banana from this link and install it.
- Download Virtual Audio Cable from this link and install it.
- Restart your computer.
Parts VoiceMeeter Banana
Before we continue, let’s take a quick look at the parts of Banana:
As you can see from the diagram, each section of VoiceMeeter Banana serves a different purpose.
- Simple hardware inputs is where you set up your hardware inputs such as a microphone or musical instrument if you play one. You can use the A1 hardware input for a microphone.
- Virtual inputs are audio signals that you can send to either headphones or OBS (or both). The VoiceMeeter VAIO (B1) is what you select as the output device in the Windows audio settings (see steps below). VoiceMeeter AUX (B2) is the signal you will send directly to OBS or other streaming software.
- Hardware outputs send audio to your hardware devices such as headphones and speakers. You can use the hardware output A1 for headphones, etc.
If you see A1, A2, A3 and B1, B2 is how you control which audio signals go where.
A1, A2 and A3 are your hardware outputs (shown in the upper right corner of the diagram above).
B1 is your PC sound and B2 is your aux input which is the signal you will be sending to OBS.
Seems confusing, right? Don’t worry, everything will be explained below.
Audio setting
- Make sure your computer audio is coming through VoiceMeeter. To do this, right-click on the sound icon on the taskbar and select sound settings. In the audio settings, select VoiceMeeter Input (VAIO) . Do not select AUX input. Your computer audio will now be routed through VoiceMeeter Banana.
- Set mic input as hardware input 1 . If you don’t know what WDM, MME and KS mean, they are . WDM is the lowest latency driver and often the best choice. If you have connection issues or are experiencing problems such as static noise, you can change the driver (you may need to restart). Remember that you can only use one driver in VoiceMeeter Banana, so everything must match.
- Set hardware output A1 to headphones or speakers. Don’t forget to use the same driver!
- Send microphone audio to VoiceMeeter AUX by ticking B2 . This ensures that your stream will hear your microphone. Don’t check the A1 box because this will route your microphone to your headphones and you will hear yourself when you speak.
- Send VAIO audio to headphones by ticking A1 so you can hear your PC sound like games etc. Check B2 to make sure your stream will also hear your game, music etc.
- Set up OBS audio to make sure it uses VoiceMeeter’s AUX input. Go to Settings > Audio and disable everything except the microphone/auxiliary audio. Select VoiceMeeter Aux OUTPUT and this will use your B2 column in VoiceMeeter Banana.
With this setup, anything you have through VoiceMeeter that isn’t set to go to your B2 column can’t be heard by your stream. Which brings us to the next point below:
How to split audio
If you want to prevent your stream from hearing your Discord messages (or anything similar), you can split the audio through VoiceMeeter Banana using virtual audio cables. This is why you installed virtual audio cables (drivers) earlier.
In Discord, set the input to microphone and output to cable input .
What this does is send your Discord Audio to the virtual cable input. Virtual cables pretend to be hardware inputs, so you can use the cable OUT in VoiceMeeter Banana (by configuring it as one of the hardware inputs).
You can then check the A1 checkbox so that you can hear Discord messages through your headphones and the stream doesn’t hear them. If you also want your thread to hear it, you can tick B2.
This setting also works for music and so on. You can go to Windows sound settings, scroll down to advanced sound options, and change the output of individual applications.
For example, if you want to make sure your stream can hear your music and you can’t (or vice versa), you can set the Spotify output to cable input.
You can then set the cable output as a hardware input to VoiceMeeter Banana.
Note. If you’re using cable input on both Discord and Spotify at the same time, you won’t be able to control them separately. You will need more virtual audio cables (later driver versions are commercially available).
Summarizing
Setting up VoiceMeeter Banana can be confusing and sometimes frustrating, especially if you’re not too tech savvy. However, this does not necessarily mean that you should just give up. How VoiceMeeter Banana can improve your quality of life while streaming (as well as the quality of your broadcast) is well worth figuring it all out. If you want more control over the audio of your stream, consider VoiceMeeter Banana (or Potato if you’re so inclined!).