Tell me if this sounds familiar: you’re playing Call of Duty with the homies, one of whom refuses to use push-to-talk, and your entire match is accompanied by the sounds of his computer’s fans, the clack of his keyboard, and the constant barking of a dog that can only be described as an unholy hellhound.

You don’t want to hear all that. And you don’t want to be that, either. Most voice and video chat programs, like Discord, come with their own noise cancelation features. But if the game you’re playing doesn’t, some of our microphone adjustments can help, so your teammates hear nothing but your voice.

Head to the Microphone tab to see the options available to you. The settings may vary slightly between different headsets, but most will include some sort of Echo Cancellation and/or Noise Reduction, which should help cut down on unwanted noise when you talk. You may also want to turn the Noise Gate switch on, which prevents the microphone from kicking in until it detects a certain level of input, which completely eliminates noise when you aren’t talking. And Perfect Voice, as its name implies, helps your voice sound even clearer. Again, if your communication platform comes with its own noise gate feature, you’ll likely want to enable only one at a time. So play with these headset settings to find the right combo of adjustments for you.

The Sidetone feature, which you’ll find under the Settings tab, lets you hear yourself through the headphones as you talk, which some people like and some people don’t. This is completely personal preference, so try it on and off to see which you prefer.

If you have an ROG gaming laptop, desktop gaming PC or motherboard, you can also use our AI Noise Cancelation to remove background chatter from your teammates’ audio signals, so you get crystal clear comms from everyone in the match. You can enable this from your laptop or motherboard’s settings in Armoury Crate. For more, check out our full guide to ROG Two-Way AI Noise Cancelation.