Step-by-step setup guides, configuration tips, and workflow documentation for getting the most from vb audio software on any Windows machine.
Route your microphone through banana voicemeeter before it reaches Zoom. Apply EQ and noise gate for cleaner conference calls with a noticeably better voice presence.
Read Guide →Send game audio, voice, and music to separate OBS audio tracks using virtual outputs. Perfect for multitrack streaming and post-production editing workflows.
Read Guide →Keep Discord chat audio on its own track, separate from game sounds and music. Essential for any gamer who streams or records their sessions for later editing.
Read Guide →Use VBAN over your local network to send a PC microphone signal to a Mac in real time. No cables, no latency spikes, no extra hardware required for the setup.
Read Guide →Configure the VBAN protocol to stream audio between computers on your network. Send up to 8 simultaneous streams with near-zero latency using vb audio technology.
Read Guide →Complete walkthrough of the installation process, including the critical Step Zero audio device assignment that most new users accidentally skip on first setup.
Read Guide →A practical guide to the Color Panel EQ, compressor, gate, modulation, and 3D binaural controls on every banana voicemeeter input strip — with real-world examples.
Read Guide →Connect Ableton, FL Studio, or Reaper to banana voicemeeter via the virtual ASIO interface for low-latency recording and monitoring at up to 192 kHz sample rate.
Read Guide →Use banana's 8-channel integrated recorder to capture multitrack audio directly from any bus or input strip in MP3, WAV, BWF, or AIFF format without additional software.
Read Guide →Getting voicemeeter up and running for the first time takes roughly ten minutes if you follow the steps below in order. The most important part — and the one most new users accidentally skip — is configuring Windows to route all audio through banana voicemeeter as the default device. Skip that step and the interface will appear to work correctly, but nothing in your actual audio chain will change.
Follow the on-screen prompts. The installer places the application and driver files in your Program Files directory and registers the virtual audio device with Windows automatically. The entire process takes under two minutes.
This is the step that causes the most confusion among new users. Open Windows Sound settings by right-clicking the speaker icon in your taskbar and selecting “Open Sound settings.” Under both Playback and Recording, set the default device to VoiceMeeter — this tells Windows to route all system audio through banana by default.
Play any audio from a browser or media player. You should see the level meters in banana moving in response. If the meters move but you hear nothing from your speakers, verify that the A1 button is lit on the input strip and that your hardware output is correctly assigned in the MASTER SECTION on the right side of the banana interface.
The most frequent request from voicemeeter banana users is improving how they sound on video calls. The routing system makes this straightforward once you understand the basic flow: your microphone signal enters banana, gets cleaned up and processed, then exits through a virtual output that Zoom or Skype treats as its dedicated microphone input.
Physical microphone → Hardware Input 1 in VoiceMeeter → processed through EQ and gate → sent to Virtual Output B1 → Zoom receives B1 as its microphone source.
OBS Studio supports multiple audio tracks in recordings, and banana voicemeeter is the tool that makes those tracks genuinely useful. Rather than recording everything into a single stereo mix, you can send game audio, voice, and music to completely separate tracks — adjusting them independently in post or mixing them differently for stream versus recorded output.
Game audio from your PC plays back through the default Windows playback device — which you have set to VoiceMeeter Input — and arrives on Virtual Input 1. Enable both B1 and B2 on that strip. B1 feeds the main stream mix (OBS track 1). B2 feeds the isolated game audio track (OBS track 2) for recording.
Your microphone sits on Hardware Input 1. Enable B1 only, keeping your voice on the main stream mix. In OBS, navigate to Settings → Output → Recording, enable multiple tracks, and assign track 1 to “VoiceMeeter Output” and track 2 to “VoiceMeeter Aux Output.”
VBAN is the vb audio network audio protocol built directly into voicemeeter banana. It allows you to send and receive audio streams over any IP network at near-zero latency, which opens up a wide range of creative possibilities that go well beyond what most users expect from a free audio mixer.
For newcomers to voice meeter, the interface can look overwhelming at a first glance. There are five input strips on the left side, a master section on the right, and a row of output assignment buttons on every strip. The good news is that the layout follows a completely consistent logic: everything on the left is an input source, everything on the right is an output destination, and the master section determines where the mixed output buses actually go in the real world.
The three hardware inputs at the top accept devices you connect physically — a microphone, an audio interface, or a hardware synthesizer. Below those header labels, you will find a row of buttons labeled A1, A2, A3, B1, and B2. These determine which output buses receive the signal from that particular strip. A buses route to hardware outputs like your speakers or headphones. B buses route to virtual software outputs that applications like Zoom or OBS see as microphone or capture inputs.
The two virtual inputs at the bottom accept audio from software applications rather than hardware. When Windows routes game audio, music, or any other application sound through VoiceMeeter, that audio lands on one of these virtual input strips. You then decide which output buses receive it — exactly the same way you would handle a hardware input.
While most of the guides on this page focus on banana, many of the same principles apply directly to voicemeeter potato. The routing logic is identical — inputs go to strips, strips route to buses, buses reach output destinations. The difference with potato is that you have eight strips and eight buses rather than five, plus access to the professional effects chain that banana does not include.
For users upgrading from banana to voicemeeter potato, the transition is smooth. Your existing banana configuration carries over in large part, and you will immediately notice new options on each strip — specifically the full parametric EQ section, the C5 multiband compressor insert, and the send/return loops for external plugin processing. The additional inputs and outputs simply appear as additional strips in the interface, following the same logical layout you already understand from working with banana.
The denoiser in potato is worth particular attention for podcasters and streamers who record in less-than-ideal acoustic environments. Unlike simple noise gate approaches that cut all audio below a threshold, the potato denoiser applies spectral subtraction to remove steady-state noise — fan hum, air conditioning, electrical hiss — from the signal continuously, without the abrupt transitions that a gate produces. The result sounds significantly more natural than gating alone, especially on voice recordings where background noise is constant rather than intermittent.
Every input strip in banana has two layers of equalization available. The Color Panel EQ is a three-band shelving EQ with a musically useful response curve — excellent for quickly warming up a voice or adding brightness to a dull USB microphone. Think of it as the “make it sound better immediately” option that requires minimal technical knowledge to use effectively.
For more precise frequency correction, each virtual input strip also carries a dedicated 3-band graphic equalizer. This gives direct control over specific frequency ranges and is particularly useful for cutting the low-end desk rumble that microphones pick up when you type, or for addressing a resonant peak that makes a specific vowel sound excessively nasal or honky on a particular microphone in a particular room.
The most common complaint among new voicemeeter banana users is perceived monitoring latency — a slight delay between speaking and hearing your voice in the headphone mix. This is adjustable through the system settings panel in banana. Navigate to Menu → System Settings to find the buffer configuration for each audio interface. Lowering the buffer size reduces latency but increases CPU load and the risk of audio dropouts during complex processing operations.
The ASIO interface typically delivers much lower latencies than standard WDM or MME, so if your hardware supports ASIO output, using it for the main A1 hardware output is always advisable. For most home setups, a WDM buffer of 512 to 1024 samples provides a stable balance. If you are experiencing crackles or digital artifacts at lower settings, increasing the buffer is always the correct choice — audible monitoring latency is far less disruptive than audio dropouts during a live broadcast.