Question Microphone recordings are either too quiet or with annoying noise ?

[Likendor]

Hello. This is probably a fairly common problem. I googled many similar cases on the Internet. However, I still don’t understand the reasons... The microphone records either too quiet a sound or with noise. At the same time, the equipment is quite high quality:

- External DAC Sound Blaster X7 Limited.
- Microphone BOYA BY-M2.

I tried the common advice - turn the level up to maximum in the system audio mixer, and also activate the microphone boost option. The sound became louder, but unwanted noise was apparent. And the microphone is still not as loud as when I record from a separate device (such as smartphone), and this noise is annoying.

At the same time, if I record voice from the same microphone by my smartphone (Samsung Galaxy A52) via a primitive built-in sound recording app, the sound is literally perfect! Almost studio quality - clear, loud and without any noise at all.

Why is this happening?

What solutions could be there to record sound via a computer with the same high quality as via a separate device like a smartphone?

 

[futureman 101]

I think the only thing you can do is follow the audio signal starting at your DAC, check settings and connections, then check any software settings, Windows Sound settings. Also by elimination, try without DAC.

It all depends on your equipment and set up.

 

[Likendor]

I think the only thing you can do is follow the audio signal starting at your DAC, check settings and connections, then check any software settings, Windows Sound settings. Also by elimination, try without DAC.

It all depends on your equipment and set up.

I guess mic input in X7 is not very good. Regardless that this DAC itself is quite expensive. On one of audiotech forums I was suggested using some sort of a preamp device. It seems I have to purchase some sort of simple home audio mixer.

 

[futureman 101]

That DAC should do the job, it's just a matter of testing it. I've got the earlier Creative DAC which I use as a spare. So I'm assuming you don't have an internal soundcard or a direct microphone input to you PC.

I haven't tried this with my smartphone but it should be possible to record sound to your smartphone and listen to it via a cable or bluetooth on your pc.

Also are the microphones on the DAC working.

I have a weird audio problem. I switch on my streaming device, which has no audio outs except to amplifier, but if I forget to switch amp on I can still hear the music(quieter) and noise on my headphones which are connected to amp. I assume it's some sort of induction.

 

[Likendor]

I finally got my mic to work normally with the computer via the Sound Blaster X7. I was very surprised that this was still possible.

In general, it is still inferior in terms of recording quality via a smartphone or through an external professional audio interface, but the result is still very good. In general, the difference is probably even greater in color than in quality itself. Through the X7, the sound is slightly flatter and less rich than when recording through Audient ID4 or a smartphone. Maybe the X7's noise reduction is just rough...

As it turned out, just system settings are not enough - there will be a guaranteed problem with them. But I finally got to the bottom of the necessary settings in the software of my Sound Blaster. There is flexible pre-amplifier control and fairly high-quality noise reduction. And even a whole bunch of special effects (you can even make your own demon voice with real-time overlay), various equalization presets, etc. As it turned out, all this rich features were simply hidden in the “CrystalVoice” submenu, which I perceived as just some kind of unnecessary “enhancer” setting, but in fact they shoved all the settings related to the microphone there. So, it turns out that you can achieve high-quality recording on your computer without a special sound card, although the system settings do not allow this, but it all depends on the degree of development of the audio card software.