How to fix: Microphone recording levels are too quiet (or get lowered automatically)

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If others on a call (Skype, SIP, ...) can not hear you loud enough, your volume levels are probably too low. Also, Skype may be changing your mixer levels.

Set a proper recording volume

  1. Open your mixer software (run pavucontrol).
  2. Switch to input devices.
  3. If you have more than one recording device, find the correct one.
  4. Make a test call to a colleague that can tell you if it's too loud or too quiet.
  5. Drag the volume slider for your input device to an adequate level -- for me, 75% (-7.46dB) work fine. 100% is usually way too loud.

Prevent Skype from changing your mixer settings

Switching your microphone on and off using the hardware switch on your headset's cable will cause a clicking sound, which is too loud for Skype's taste (while it actually is not that bad) -- Skype tries to compensate for that by reducing your recording volume, which causes your voice to be recorded too silent.

  1. Open Skype's settings dialog (Ctrl + O).
  2. Go to "Audio devices".
  3. Make sure "Allow Skype to automatically adjust my mixer levels" is not checked.
Arne Hartherz
Last edit
Keywords
ubuntu, linux
License
Source code in this card is licensed under the MIT License.
Posted by Arne Hartherz to makandra dev (2013-02-20 10:02)