Question / Help Mic Compressor Amplifies Quiet Sounds?

[TheVisionaryOne]

Hey all,

I added a Compressor filter to my Blue Snowball mic a few weeks ago to reduce peaking. Whenever I talk loudly or yell, it peaks really bad, and hurts my viewers' ears. I've been testing the Compressor filter off and on for a while, and I like the effect it has on reduce the peaks in my mic, but for some reason the quieter sounds are now louder? Awkward mouth noises (licking lips, tongue clicking, breathing, etc.), keyboard and mouse noises, vibrations from me bumping my desk, as well as noises coming from other rooms of my house are now 10x louder and I absolutely hate it. I'd rather have my mic peak horribly than amplify those quiet sounds, which were hardly noticeable (some not noticeable at all) without the Compressor.

Is there a certain setting I should tweak in the Compressor filter to make the quiet sounds quiet again? Or, is there another filter I should add on top of my Compressor to negate the effect it has on quiet sounds?

For reference, here's a clip of my microphone without the Compressor on: https://clips.twitch.tv/AnimatedSuaveAlpacaBuddhaBar
And here's a clip of my microphone with the Compressor on: https://www.twitch.tv/thevisionaryone/clip/TolerantAgreeableTigerDuDudu

I'd appreciate any input you guys have on how to fix this!

 

[koala]

Before you start with meddling with your voice with filters, you might try to train your voice and try to keep an equal volume level. Be careful and don't raise or lower your voice too much. This can be trained. News speakers for example are trained for this.

But if you need to process your voice volume, you will probably want to use the whole trinity of compressor, expander and limiter.
Add all 3 of them.

First the compressor to make everything of equal volume. This mainly increases volume where you speak too silently.
Then the expander to increase the dynamics and lower the silence again, so breath noises and mouse clicks vanish.
Last the limiter to avoid the peaks causing distortion.

The expander is the inverse of the compressor. You might think the expander is useless and just reverses what the compressor just did, but the trick is to use different thresholds and parameters.

Also see https://obsproject.com/wiki/Filters-Guide#audio-device-filters

 

[TheVisionaryOne]

I did consider training my voice, and I'm sure I could, but I feel like my content is more entertaining if I just react naturally. Trying to suppress any reactions that I might have for volume's sake might make my streams a little more...boring?

And I actually did try adding an expander, but never tried adding a limiter as well! Maybe that was the piece of the puzzle I was missing! Thank you so much for the suggestion. I'll give it a shot and see if it makes my microphone sound better all-around.