Imagine you want to just have a Zoom conversation with your friends or need to record how you play Top Roulette Games at Hell Spin Casino, but after a few minutes you realize that the quality of your microphone is terrible. Don’t rush to blame the hardware. You can improve the sound quality using free software. Here are 4 of the best apps for tuning your microphone on a computer. With these, you might just fall in love with your voice all over again!
SteelSeries
This is an audio tool from Danish developers. It’s designed to optimize sound on SteelSeries devices, but it also works with components from other manufacturers.
SteelSeries lets you apply individual presets to each audio source, adjust the equalizer, and fine-tune other sound characteristics. Here’s what the program offers:
- Compressor: Keeps your voice at a steady volume so it’s not too loud or too quiet.
- Two types of noise suppression: One removes background noise or keyboard clicks; the other uses AI to clean up the audio automatically.
- Noise gate: Eliminates all sounds below a certain volume threshold.
- 13 built-in presets, each with its own equalizer settings and sound effects.
- Manual equalizer control (independent of presets), allowing you to adjust overall volume or just your voice. You can tweak frequencies from 20 Hz to 20 kHz.
- Streaming mode: Mixes game audio, chat, browser sounds, and your mic for live broadcasts.
To use SteelSeries, you need to register on steelseries.com with your email and password. While it’s geared toward cleaning up audio for gaming streams, it also works well for regular calls. The noise reduction feature cleans up audio nicely, and the presets make noticeable but reasonable changes to your voice.
Voicemeeter
Voicemeeter is a full virtual sound card that helps you manage all your input and output audio devices.
Key microphone features include:
- Adjusting volume, pitch, and echo using a channel panel coordinate grid.
- Muting and switching to mono mode.
- Compression (keeping volume at a steady level) and gating (filtering out quiet sounds).
- Mixing your mic input with audio from other devices and apps (like browsers), and merging them into your mic signal. There’s also a VBAN network manager for working across multiple PCs.
- Modifying sound using third-party VST plugins.
The downside? It’s not beginner-friendly. Setting up your mic, for example, involves:
- Installing the VB-Cable A+B virtual cable, which links audio devices in the app.
- Adding your mic as an input device in Voicemeeter, opening Stereo Input 1’s properties, and selecting your mic.
- If done correctly, Voicemeeter will show your mic’s volume on its slot.
The standard version of Voicemeeter doesn’t include noise reduction or voice-changing effects; you’ll need separate VST plugins for that. The basic sound isn’t crystal clear, but it does boost mic sensitivity, picking up even very faint sounds.
Voicemeeter is perfect for streamers who want to combine game and mic audio. It’s also great for remote meetings when you need to play computer audio for colleagues.
MorphVOX Pro
This app is built to change your voice. Features include:
- Over 40 voice filters (child, man, woman, fantasy characters).
- Sound effects (horn, woman screaming, cuckoo clock, cow, and more).
- Background noise (some free options include city sounds or a store ambience).
Audio tuning features:
- Adjusting sound quality, channel count, bitrate, and bit depth.
- Selecting your input device.
- Noise suppression.
You can also create your own filters based on the defaults, modifying pitch, tone, and equalizer settings.
MorphVOX Pro offers solid echo and noise suppression, so you’ll hear a clean, altered voice from your speakers. A free trial is available for 5 days.
Clownfish
The main draw of Clownfish is real-time voice changing. It comes with 14 voice presets like “Child,” “Helium,” “Alien,” “Mutant,” and more.
Other settings include:
- Combining effects from different presets.
- Changing voice pitch.
- Adjusting high and low frequencies.
- Adding sound effects (like echo).
- Changing mic sensitivity and boosting volume.
- Loading external presets.
The voice presets are perfect for disguising your voice or just pranking friends. Boosting the low frequencies can also help reduce microphone noise.
