Vista - Microphone levels in Windows Vista Home Premium

The sound level recorded with my microphone is very low.

I have tried to change the mic level but Windows will put it back to 47%,
without allowing me to put the level up to 100%.

Does anybody know why?

Thanks.

I have the same issue and have been searching the web for atleast an hour now
on how to disable this. Someone said that it may be speech recognition or
another sound program that's auto adjusting it. I haven't seen how to disable
speech yet. I'll post back if I actually find a solution.

"Dasaecor" wrote:

It might be ventrilo Line Volume under the Hardware input mixer setup. It
seemed to reset when I changed the bar volume there. The same might apply to
other voice communication like skype.

"x75" wrote:

I guess:

Windows Vista has completely changed it's volume mixer. Now you need to know how to tame the so-called "Pre-Application Volume Control". The new volume mixer is created on-demand, according to the sound devices "active". Say, if you have a voice recorder running, but muted, then you may have a problem of not seeing it in the volume mixer, and the sliding bar and the mute button may disappeared and can't be control.

The best available way, but not perfect, is to start from the Control Panel > Hardware and Sound > Sound / Text to Speech. Then available options will be unhidden for you to config.

Unfortunately, hardware manufacturers are just converting their sound devices (recording and playback devices) without redesign to cope with the design of the Pre-Application Volume Control. So, the sound device drivers are behaving as bad boys.

Take a look at how the PAVC is working:
1. close the sound / volume mixer.
2. run Task Manager, and keep looking at the application tag.
3. double click the sound icon from the system tray, then open the sound mixer.
4. you shall see the Volume Mixer application appearing as a task under Application tag of the Windows Task Manager.
5. Right-click on the Volume Mixer, and select Go To Process. SndVol.exe should be highlighted. It's now a Volume Control Applet where you can find from System32 folder.

Okay, back to the Volume Mixer, you may find dynamic columns of "active" sound devices and their levels aligned to the maximum output as determined by volmgr.sys from System32/drivers/.

** If you want a better control, don't rely on the convenience of the system tray. Go strict to the Control Panel, my advice.

Got similar problem. My audio input sounds very bad through microphone input
jack.
Its not the professional mic that is reliable and still works well on other
XP computers, its Vista. I have not installed anything (skype or else), just
have Vista Home that came with Toshiba laptop.
I configue MIC VOLUME to 20% through taskbar, controlpanel HDaudio or
controlpanels sound icons. As I start recording... the sound that starts nice
for first second swiftly gets bad (miliseconds). I check that the voume is OK
and oh SURPRISE it is back on 100%. If user determines a setting it should
stay so.
So I dont get what Im supposed to do to disable the automated mic volume
adjustment that Vista forces. I read it has something to do with speech
recognition. (Im a programmer myself so I wonder why I should find settings
at speech recognition that have nothing to do with sound adjustments)
Please how do I configure (exact steps) Vista to stop changing the mic volume.
¿Is there a way of disable that automated behaviour?
Thanks in advance.

For Microphone Levels:
Try Start>Control Panel>Sound then select Recording tag, and click Properties, select Levels tag, and adjust the Microphone level. Then go to Advanced tag, and untick the "Allow applications to take exclusive control of this device" from Exclusive Mode.

For poor recording sound quality:
Try Start>Control Panel>Sound then select Recording tag, and click Properties, select Advanced, and change the Default Format to something better, say, CD Quality, if it's an option.