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The Best Microphones for RTX Voice

By Bill Miles
Created on Feb 5, 2021
The Best Microphones for RTX Voice

Background noise is the bane of everyone who wants to use a microphone for… just about anything.

Whether it’s the electric hum of that heater sitting at the back of the room, a dog barking, a disturbance in the crowd, or a computer fan getting extra frisky, background noise can mess up your audio recording experience.

Sometimes it’s just annoying, forcing you to re-record something that is easily reproduced. Other times it disrupts live broadcasts or events. And occasionally, it can screw up once in a lifetime moments.

One answer to background noise is the amazing RTX Voice, a driver and program put out by Nvidia. It uses software based calculations to eliminate background noise on the fly. You can download it here, and at the same time read the installation and usage guide. The newest version works on both RTX and GTX cards, though a 20xx or 30xx series card is usually recommended for minimal performance impact. For RTX Voice on GTX, you might see a 1% to 10% performance slowdown when it is active.

Now that we know what’s happening on the software side, what hardware is best paired with such groundbreaking noise cancellation technology? For the answer to that, you would have to do some microphone research. Or just let us do that for you!

Criteria for the Microphone Research

The main criteria for rating how well a microphone works with RTX Voice is improvement. It doesn’t make a lot of sense to use expensive hardware based noise cancellation mics with RTX Voice unless they aren’t doing their job in the first place.

So the key was to find mics that had incredible value, but were prone to a lot of background noise. Then run them in conjunction with the software and see how much the overall experience was improved.

We scoured the net and compared dozens of videos trying RTX Voice out on multiple different streaming and recording mics. We searched for the most improved sound quality in each video. The results are in, so let’s have a look!

Results from the Microphone Research for RTX Voice

Best Studio Mic with RTX Voice: When you think of a near-perfect USB microphone at a reasonable price that only suffers from background noise issues, experienced streamers would immediately call out the Blue Yeti.

Blue Yeti USB Mic for Recording & Streaming on PC and Mac, 3 Condenser Capsules, 4 Pickup Patterns, Headphone Output and Volume Control, Mic Gain Control, Adjustable Stand, Plug & Play – Blackout

And they would be right. But the insane power of Nvidia’s RTX Voice completely eliminates that weakness. Here’s an example of this combination eliminating the sound of two hair dryers located less than a meter from the microphone. And another, eliminating three levels of rotary fan noise with just RTX Voice and a pop filter. The fan test was particularly useful, as it demonstrated the expectation of a pop filter being used as extra protection from sharp or buffeting sounds. There are dozens of similar examples available on YouTube and other media sources.

No more strange creaking, clicking, buzzing, or whirring. In fact, you can drop a hammer on your desk just a couple feet away and the audio will barely be affected. It effectively turns a $130 mic into a noise cancellation powerhouse. Absolutely stunning results.

Suggestions for Mobile Microphones with RTX Voice

Additionally, we talked to some of the professionals who are currently using RTX Voice for more mobile applications, ranging from seminars to independent news reporting. They had their own suggestions as to the best mobile mics to use with RTX Voice.

Best Lavalier or Lapel Mic with RTX Voice: Mobility mics. These are the kinds of microphones you would use if you were filming something on the go without a camera and boom operator. These small, clip-on mics can be used for everything from seminars, to cooking shows, to active livestreams.

Purple Panda Lavalier Lapel Microphone Kit - Clip-on Omnidirectional Condenser Lav Mic Compatible with iPhone, iPad, GoPro, DSLR, Zoom/Tascam Recorder, Samsung, Android, PS4

And one of the best reasonably priced options is called the Purple Panda Lavalier microphone. It allows you to go hands free with a USB wireless pickup, but as you might imagine it can suffer from both background noise and friction noise. RTX Voice eliminates all of that, unless there’s a direct touch on the mic itself! This $40 mobile option suddenly becomes a realistic replacement for $150 setups. Perfect for your ‘Let’s Chat’ stream, YouTube cooking show, or fitness podcast.

Best Interview Mic with RTX Voice: The true nightmare of background noise goes hand in hand with being the ‘person in the thick of it’. Roving reporters, interactive seminar instructors, and outdoor journalists all know the pain of missing their moment because of some unwelcome disruption. Passing cars, honking horns, cross talk, and dozens of other things can mess up a perfectly good report or interview.

Movo HM-M2 Dynamic Omnidirectional Handheld Interview Microphone with 3-Pin XLR Connector

Which is one of the few things that kept the Movo HM-M2 Interview microphone from hitting the big time. It has amazing omnidirectional pickup, but not all of the hardware noise cancellation and dampening found in far more expensive models. When combined with RTX voice, background and handling noise is virtually eliminated. It beats the Rode Reporter, which is three times more expensive. Not bad for $50.

The setup for an XLR microphone is obviously different from your typical home PC mics. Generally, you pair your laptop with a USB audio interface such as an M-Audio Air. But from there, it becomes a normal audio input that can be filtered with RTX Voice.

RTX Voice Software Interfaces

So what software supports the amazing on-the-fly noise filtration that RTX Voice has to offer? Just about all of the big names, including:

  • OBS Studio
  • Streamlabs
  • XSplit Broadcaster
  • XSplit Gamecaster
  • Twitch Studio
  • Discord
  • Google Chrome
  • Battle.net Chat

In other words, every major streaming and game chat system supports RTX Voice! And with good reason. Higher quality streams make the industry as a whole look better. More professional. Less background noise means more immersion, and therefore more audience retention in the long term.

But, as they say, that’s not all. The following communications suites also support RTX Voice, though by their nature the results can be less predictable:

  • WebEx
  • Skype
  • Zoom
  • Slack
  • Teams
  • Steam Chat

For Steam chat, make sure that you turn off the in-program noise cancellation, so that the software suites don’t step on each other’s toes.

RTX Voice also works on raw audio inputs, meaning that it can do its magic on a lot of different applications, whether or not they claim native support. You can fire up things like Audacity, select the right microphone input, and record multi-channel audio with live noise filtering enabled. The possibilities are endless.

Check out the official RTX Voice Setup Guide for all the details.

RTX Voice VS Krisp

In Q2 of 2020, the BBC did a report on the use of RTX Voice and a pure software alternative (no Nvidia specific hardware required) called Krisp. They used two laptops and simulated real world and on the go types of environments.

BBC Click's Chris Fox conducted the tests. There was a slight issue with the methodology: No pop filter was in use. This makes sharp and buffeting sounds much more harsh on any microphone, which can cause the software to overcompensate its adjustments. He also seemed to use two different laptops, which means possibly different CPU and memory usage, and the like.

But even with that in mind, the video was educational. Overall, RTX Voice performed slightly better, but Krisp was quite impressive for not using any hardware specific functions. The interview with one of the founders of Krisp indicated that they were looking to develop a learning, adaptive version of the software in the future.

A slightly more scientific test was conducted by SuprUsr Stan a couple of months later. His RTX Voice VS Krisp test took place in a studio under consistent conditions, using a Blue Yeti X. His test simply switched which software filter was being used so that the listener could hear the differences. This eliminates some possible anomalous things from the BBC test, like differences in laptop quality, memory usage, and the like. Under these conditions, RTX Voice still came out on top.

Conclusion

The addition of RTX Voice to these reasonably priced microphones turns them into absolute powerhouses. By adding these features in software, you can take full advantage of the omnidirectional hardware listed in our microphone research. This means you can avoid the more expensive hardware driven noise solutions.

And though it’s natural that less expensive microphones will do well in a ‘most improved’ test, that doesn’t mean that you should ignore Nvidia RTX Voice if you already have a more expensive home studio setup. Try it out. You’ll probably still be amazed.

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