How to play sounds in game voice chat

The quick version

1. Download Onion Board and run it.
2. Pick your mic, then click Put my sounds in my mic and Yes.
3. In your game's voice settings: keep your normal mic, turn noise suppression off, use push to talk.
4. In Onion Board: Setup tab → Who's listening → Game.

Plus, for your game

Not working? Common problems, or every step with pictures in Advanced.

1. Set it up once

1. Download OnionBoardSetup.exe and run it. Onion Board opens with a short guide.
2. Pick the mic you talk into and the headphones you listen on. Say something: the bar on your mic should move.

3. Click Put my sounds in my mic, and Yes when Windows asks. Your sound drops out for a second while it sets up. There's no extra mic to pick in any game afterwards.

4. Click Finish. Drag sound files onto the window, then right-click a pad to give it a hotkey. Hotkeys work while a fullscreen game has focus.

2. Every game: four switches

Game voice chat is built for talking. Left as it is, it treats music and sound effects as background noise and cuts them out. In the game's Audio or Voice chat settings:

1. Microphone / Input device: keep your normal mic. Your sounds are already in it.
2. Turn off anything called noise suppression, noise cancellation, denoiser, background sound removal, voice clarity or automatic gain.
3. Use push to talk, not open mic or voice activation: voice activation cuts the quiet parts of sounds, and some games send only speech on it, never music. Put the same key in Onion Board under Settings → Hotkeys → Auto push-to-talk and it holds the key while a sound plays.
4. In Onion Board's Setup tab, set Who's listening to Game. It shapes your sounds for the game's voice chat.

The same steps are in the app: Setup tab → Connect your chat → Set up game voice chat.

3. Your game

Games share a few voice chat engines. Find yours:

Valorant, League of Legends, Rainbow Six Siege, Overwatch 2

These use Vivox. Who's listening → Game spots it by itself while the game is open.

• Valorant: on open mic (Automatic) it sends only speech, so music never gets through. Use push to talk. Its anti-cheat ignores keys other programs press, so Auto push-to-talk can't open your mic there: hold your push-to-talk key yourself while a sound plays.
• Very deep bass is cut (nothing under about 80 Hz). Onion Board's Game mode makes up for it.

Counter-Strike 2, Dota 2, Deadlock, Team Fortress 2

These use Steam voice, and they have no mic setting of their own: they take the mic you pick in Steam. Once:

1. In Steam, click Steam → Settings → Voice (in a game: Shift + Tab, then the ⚙ gear).
2. Voice Input Device: your normal mic.
3. Under Advanced options, turn off Noise cancellation, Echo cancellation and Automatic volume/gain control.
4. In Onion Board: Who's listening → Advanced → Steam voice. Restart the game if it was open.

• Steam lets sound through in bursts and drops quiet parts by itself: quiet intros and steady tones can vanish. Loud, punchy sounds work best. Use push to talk.
• Steam voice is low quality (nothing above 12 kHz), so sounds come out a bit dull. That's Steam, not your setup.

Fortnite

Fortnite uses Epic Online Services. In Onion Board: Who's listening → Advanced → Epic Online Services.

• Nothing gets cut out, but its automatic volume sometimes dips loud songs for a moment.
• Friends hear you quiet? Their own Voice Chat Volume slider is probably low: ask them to turn it up.

Phasmophobia, Lethal Company and other Unity games

These use Unity voice (Photon or Dissonance). Who's listening → Game spots it by itself.

• They only send sound above a set loudness: use push to talk, or quiet sounds go missing.
• In Lethal Company walls and walkie-talkies muffle you. That's the game, on purpose.

VRChat, Minecraft (Simple Voice Chat)

These clean up your mic with an AI denoiser, which wipes out music almost completely.

• Turn the denoiser off in the game's own voice settings (VRChat: noise suppression in its audio settings; Simple Voice Chat: press V and turn off Denoiser).
• Use push to talk: their voice activation cuts quiet sounds.

GTA V roleplay (FiveM), TeamSpeak, Mumble

These run on Mumble-style voice chat. In Onion Board: Who's listening → Advanced → Vivox (it suits these too). Use push to talk. On an in-game radio, sounds are squeezed into a narrow walkie-talkie band: that's the server's radio effect.

Roblox, Among Us and other games

The four switches above are all there is. Most games clean up the mic the way browsers do: turn off any noise suppression you find and use push to talk. No microphone setting at all? Nothing to do: the game uses your normal mic, and your sounds are already in it.

Discord while you play

Talking in Discord instead of the game? Discord needs its own two-minute setup: play sounds through your mic in Discord.