What is a noise gate and why do I need one?
A noise gate is a simple switch: when the signal is louder than a threshold, audio passes through; when it is quieter, the gate closes and mutes the channel. It cleans up streams and calls by silencing keyboard clicks, fan hum, and ambient room tone whenever you are not speaking. Without one, viewers hear your room every second you are quiet. Gates work best when there is a clear gap between your voice level and your background noise — typically at least 15 dB. If the gap is too small, the gate will cut off the start and end of words.
How do I set the threshold in Discord, OBS, or Streamlabs?
Discord: User Settings → Voice & Video → Input Sensitivity. Turn off auto-detect, then drag the slider so it sits about 3 dB above your idle noise (the indicator line shows your current level). OBS Studio: add a Noise Gate filter to your mic source; set Close Threshold to your idle p95 + 3 dB, Open Threshold to 6 dB above that. Streamlabs: similar Noise Gate filter under Filters → Add. All three apply the dB value directly as RMS. Find the exact values by measuring noise at https://devicecheckonline.com/microphone/noise.
What does the recommended threshold mean?
The recommendation is your idle p95 — the 95th percentile of your background noise — plus a 3 dB safety margin. Setting the gate here means 95 percent of your room noise stays gated out, while leaving 3 dB of buffer for the occasional spike (key click, breath, fan tick). Your voice has to clear this threshold to open the gate. If your voice's p5 (quietest moments) is less than 6 dB above this number, the gate will chop syllables — that is a 'narrow window' problem, fixed by closer mic placement or a quieter room, not by adjusting the gate further.
Why does my noise gate cut off the start of words?
Two reasons. First, attack time is too slow — the gate takes a few milliseconds to open after detecting signal, missing the initial consonant. Set attack to 1–5 ms for speech. Second, your hold and release times are too short — the gate slams shut between syllables. Set hold to 50–100 ms and release to 100–250 ms so brief pauses do not flicker the gate. Soft consonants like 'f', 's', and 'h' are quieter than vowels and trigger the worst chopping; lower the threshold by 2–3 dB if you hear it.
Should I use a noise gate or RTX Voice / Krisp / NVIDIA Broadcast?
Different tools, different jobs. A gate is a hard binary mute when you are not talking — zero CPU, zero latency, but no help when you are talking and there is noise underneath your voice. Krisp, RTX Voice, and NVIDIA Broadcast use AI to remove noise from underneath your voice in real time, even while you speak. They cost CPU/GPU and add a few ms of latency, but the result is dramatically cleaner if your room is noisy. Many streamers stack both: AI for during speech, gate for between sentences.
What if my voice and noise are too close together?
If your voice p5 is less than 6 dB above your noise p95, no gate setting will work cleanly — you will either chop syllables or let noise through. Fix the input, not the gate. Move 4–6 inches from the mic instead of 12–18 inches (every halving of distance gains 6 dB). Switch from a condenser to a dynamic mic (Shure SM7B, Sennheiser e835, Samson Q2U) which rejects room noise far better. Treat the room with foam panels behind you. Verify the improvement at https://devicecheckonline.com/microphone/noise.