Read on Twitter
Seems like my audio can be VASTLY improved using software noise canceling. Now... to find a way to setup it reliably.
Attempt 1: OBS, works GREAT! ... but seems to require hax to make the filtered audio an output device, in order to go to Zoom. Also, a bit heavy.
Attempt 2: cadmus. Works intermittently, and causes PulseAudio to restart, which disconnects my headphones. Not reliable enough.
A useful one-liner for testing your current mic: arecord -f dat --buffer-time=1 - | aplay --buffer-time=1
Attempt 3: NoiseTorch. Works ... extremely well? Stupid looking UI.
Attempt 4: PulseEffects. Lots of options, hard to configure, more reliable, but not nearly as good even after I figured out some configuration that sort of works.
After extensive testing of software noise filtering, NoiseTorch wins hands down. It also comes with a statically linked binary for those who don't want to compile anything, and ought to be cross-platform. https://github.com/lawl/NoiseTorch
I really wanted to like PulseEffects, which doesn't require sudo at any point and never restarts pulseaudio, but even after spending a ton of time working on the configuration, it just wasn't nearly as good. (Although, it was better than my default mic)
