A program for detecting a microphone on a laptop. How to connect a microphone to a computer or laptop - programs and online setup
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This page contains information about installing the latest Microphone driver downloads using the Microphone Driver Update Tool.
Microphone drivers are tiny programs that enable your Microphone hardware to communicate with your operating system software. Keeping your Microphone software updated prevents crashes and maximizes hardware and system performance. Using outdated or corrupt Microphone drivers can cause system errors, crashes, and cause your hardware or computer to fail. Moreover, installing the wrong Microphone drivers can make these problems worse.
Advice: If you are inexperienced with updating Microphone device drivers manually, we highly recommend downloading the Microphone Driver Utility. This tool will download and update the correct Microphone driver versions automatically, protecting you against installing the wrong Microphone drivers.
About the author: Jay Geater is President and Chief Executive Officer of Solvusoft Corporation, a global software company focused on innovative service offerings. He has a lifelong passion for computers and loves everything related to computers, software and new technology.
Today, setting up a microphone in Windows 7 can be useful not only for people from a creative environment, but also for millions of users who communicate with each other daily via the Internet or for people conducting various seminars, courses and business trainings via Skype (or other communication programs ).
Connecting a microphone to a computer
Step one:
If the Windows operating system has the necessary drivers, then the microphone can be configured automatically and it will begin to function normally immediately after connection. If this does not happen, proceed to the second step.
Step two:
Installing additional drivers
Windows 7, of course, is a full-fledged operating system with great capabilities, in particular, when using standard audio recording and playback devices, it easily finds the necessary drivers for them and installs them automatically. If for some reason this does not happen, it is recommended to install the drivers yourself, taking them directly from the disk that came with the device, or from the World Wide Web. It is strongly recommended to download them from the manufacturer’s official website; otherwise, the compatibility and performance of these devices on your computer cannot be guaranteed.
To personally verify which drivers are currently installed on your sound card, go to the “Control Panel” and look for your audio card in the list of installed devices. By opening its properties with the right mouse button, make sure that the card has the latest drivers.
Subscribers may notice faint audibility of sound when communicating via VoIP-telephony or other players in online games, the sound level may be weak when playing back a screencast you just made with a voice recording or recording sound from a microphone. The reason for the weak sound signal coming from the microphone on Windows devices lies not only in the low quality of certain budget models of microphones, systems Hands Free or webcams. Alas, successful installation of an audio driver in the Windows operating system does not yet mean optimal settings for the signal level coming from the microphone.
Microphone settings in individual applications
As a rule, only functional programs offer access to microphone settings. For example, in a powerful audio editor, options for setting up sound recording are placed on the program toolbar. Right on the toolbar you can assign the required microphone signal level, select a recording device if several microphones are connected to the computer, decide on mono or stereo sound for future recording, etc.
Low-functional applications that work with audio rarely provide tools for adjusting the microphone signal. So, for example, the standard Windows 10 application, in development of which, it seems, Microsoft went too far with minimalism, after launch the entire emphasis will shift to the start button for sound recording.
However, the microphone settings present in the application will be linked to the link in the standard application section "Options", where what you can do is either allow or not allow installed applications to use the microphone, and if allowed, set a list of such applications. But we will not find any settings for the signal coming from the microphone.
Some sound settings are available inside the desktop Skype: in the program settings section, you can select and apply one or another microphone specifically to Skype for communication, if several are connected, and set the signal volume.
As you can see, the settings of individual applications that work with the microphone will not always help solve the problem with a weak signal. It is much easier to configure the microphone sound once in the Windows system sound settings and not be distracted by this in each individual program.
Strengthening the sound coming from the microphone in Windows settings
So, we have a microphone connected to a computer device based on the Windows operating system, and we have a problem with its low signal level when working with voice communication services or during audio and video recording. To enhance the sound of the microphone, we need to get into the Windows system sound settings section. There is a volume icon in the Windows system tray, call up the context menu on it and select .
A window with sound settings will open on the tab we need with a list of recording devices connected to the computer, i.e. microphones. Only one of them, if there are several, will be designated as the default recording device in the system. Click on it and press the properties button at the bottom.
An additional properties window for the selected microphone will appear, where we are interested in the tab. Here, in this tab, you adjust the microphone signal level by moving the slider along the volume scale or along the gain scale located below.
The preset low microphone gain value in most cases is the reason for poor audibility of the sound. For optimal audibility, just drag the slider to +20 dB, since at a higher value the natural consequence of increased microphone volume will be annoying noise. But even with a slight amplification of the microphone to +20 dB It is better to additionally set the noise suppression option. It is in the next tab. The noise reduction option will only be available when all other sound effects are turned off.
Alternative ways to access system audio settings.
In rare cases, the volume icon may not appear in the system tray.
As a rule, these are cases of manual intervention in the settings of the Windows taskbar notification area or audio driver failure. In the latter case, of course, it is better to update the audio driver or reinstall it altogether. But if there are no problems with sound, and instead of the volume control in the system tray, the hardware buttons of the speaker system or multimedia keyboard are used, the solution to the problem can be postponed for a while by accessing the system sound settings using alternative methods.
You can open your audio settings and access your microphone options using the Windows Control Panel.
Versions of Windows 7, 8.1 and 10 allow you to get to any section of the system settings using an in-system search. In Windows 7, the keyword must be entered in the search field of the menu "Start".
In-system search in Windows 8.1 appears when you call up the charms by touching the right edge of the screen or by pressing the Win + Q keys.
The same combination of a quick call to the intra-system search is also available for Windows 10, but in this version of the system using the mouse button to call up the search field will be much easier, since such a button is located next to the menu button "Start".
Recording a voice on a computer in today's conditions is as easy as shelling pears. It is enough to connect the microphone to a stationary terminal or use the built-in device on a laptop. But if you don’t know how to set up a microphone on Windows 10 or any other system, you may not be able to achieve normal quality. Next, we will discuss some issues related to setting the optimal parameters and applications used. But first, it’s worth focusing on the general principles of sound recording.
General principles for setting up a microphone on a computer
The very first and most important thing that needs to be clearly understood is that absolutely all applications related to sound recording are completely dependent on the operating system settings (installed devices, drivers, volume level, etc.)
Regardless of the acoustic system used (passive or active), so-called interference (whistle in the speakers) may occur from the microphone during the recording process. The general rule is to turn off the speakers while recording. You will not hear the voice being played back at the time of recording. But that doesn't matter.
The second point is related to setting the recording level. Half the volume is considered the best option. But for sensitive professional-grade microphones, you can install less.
The third question relates to the soundproofing system. It is clear that at home, you can achieve professional sound only with the help of a whole range of applications that allow you to remove extraneous noise after speech or vocals are recorded. Here you will need programs for setting up the microphone, called audio editors. Naturally, to set up devices that combine both headphones and microphones, which are mostly used in team games, special quality of signal transmission and reception may not be required. But there are some nuances here too.
Connecting a microphone
As for connecting microphones, any computer's sound card has a special input for a 3.5 mm plug. If the microphone model is equipped with a regular jack, you will have to purchase a special adapter separately.
On laptops, there may be no Line-In or Mic input. Therefore, you will have to be content exclusively with the device that is integrated into the device. You won’t get much quality, since such a microphone can only be used for communicating in instant messengers like Skype, although in this case you will also need to make adjustments.
Windows sounds and audio devices
The standard setting of any Windows system is called up through the corresponding section of the “Control Panel” or through the RMB menu (right mouse button) on the image of the volume icon in the system tray. Here you simply select the recording device.
If your sound card has additional software (for example, Realtek HD Audio Manager for motherboard-integrated devices), you can use that too. At least, there are somewhat more possibilities in terms of set parameters here than in the “native” Windows options.
Sound recording
Now you need to record the material. To do this, you can use a standard tool of the operating system itself in the form of a built-in recorder.
Here you just need to press the start recording button, then speak or sing what you want, and after stopping, listen to the material. If desired, it can be overwritten (the previous recording will be re-saved). But further editing of the material will be impossible without special software packages.
The most popular programs for setting up a microphone
Both allow you to record audio. The only question is how to edit it later. As you can already imagine, recorders only record sound, and programs for setting up a microphone in the form of audio editors allow you to change the recorded track, even adjusting the pitch.
Recorders
Among the usual audio recording tools today you can find quite a lot of simple programs that you don’t need to understand much about.
For users who are not looking for professional quality, we can recommend the following applications:
- Free MP3 Sound Recorder;
- MooO VoiceRecoder;
- Sonarca Sound Recorder Free and the like.
Audio editors
With audio editors the situation is somewhat more complicated. Programs for setting up a microphone of this level look much more complex and, so to speak, sophisticated. They take a different approach to the concept of audio recording than conventional recording applications.
Despite the fact that today there are many (compressed and uncompressed) with quite high bit rates and sampling rates, programs for setting up microphone sound of this type by default save material in the old WAV format, which is considered the most suitable for creating an original sound file for the purpose of its further conversion .
Among the most popular and widespread applications are Sony Sound Forge, Adobe Audition (formerly Cool Edit Pro), ACID Pro, etc. And this is not about professional studio sequencers like Pro Tools, which have even more tools.
But there is one more point. Some applications can not only record audio in any format or open it for editing, but also change the pitch of the recorded track if the vocalist, to put it mildly, at a certain moment did not reach the desired note. The most popular application is considered to be a program for setting up a microphone on Windows 8 or other versions of the system called Melodyne. It is available both as a desktop application and as plug-ins for DAW studios (VST, DX, AAX, AU, etc.).
The application opens any audio file as a wave. The editor itself has a piano keyboard or a note panel, which corresponds to the pitch of the track fragments. It is enough to set automatic analysis of the material, and the program itself will adjust inappropriate frequencies to standard ones. Along the way, you can do what is called the English term Quantize. This is the equalization of sound across beats at a given tempo.
Finally, when considering how to set up a microphone on Windows 10 or another OS, you can't ignore applications like AAMS, which are automated mastering systems based on a selected template.
Let's say you recorded a music track with vocals. Do you want it to sound like the classics? No problem! Select any track of the group as the source material from which the template will be created, and after that add your composition indicating processing based on the analyzed track. This, of course, takes a fair amount of time, but you won’t have to mess with the microphone settings. The program will still do everything on its own.
And one more “trick” that some audio editors have is that you can change your own voice, making it an exact copy of famous vocalists. Since we're talking about the band Metallica, in the same Adobe Audition application you can set a vocal template and then change your voice to his. But that's not all. There is also an interesting function of influencing the subconscious, when noise in the ultra- or infrasound range is added to the edited audio. But they can evoke completely different emotions, which, alas, do not depend at all on our consciousness.
What's better?
In general, any program for setting up headphones with a microphone or just a microphone allows you to perform certain actions in terms of recording and setting input signal parameters. But professional packages have the advantage that with their help the recorded material can be subjected to any processing you like. They look quite complicated, and the average user without special knowledge will take a long time to figure them out. But if he masters it, he will immediately appreciate all the opportunities they offer.
