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Software to boost input volume

MovitzMovitz Registered User regular
edited December 2008 in Help / Advice Forum
Hi there,

My USB headset provides me with a terribly low input volume which forces me to basically scream when playing L4D. Does anybody know of some third party software that would give me the option to boost the input as I like?

The "boost microphone" option in Windows is not nearly enough. I need about one more level on top of that (~20 dB?)

Movitz on

Posts

  • Sol InvictusSol Invictus Registered User regular
    edited December 2008
    None that I can think of. You might need to get a better headset or a better sound card.

    Sol Invictus on
  • MovitzMovitz Registered User regular
    edited December 2008
    Unfortunately, this is exactly what I think as well but let's see if any answers turn up.

    Movitz on
  • Sol InvictusSol Invictus Registered User regular
    edited December 2008
    Out of curiosity, what headset are you using, and is it an onboard soundcard of some sort? There really shouldn't be any problem with onboard soundcards and volume. I use an onboard with some pretty high end headphones (yeah, I can hear all the horrible static) as well as a good Plantronics microphone, and I don't have any problems with the microphone volume.

    A lot of cheap headsets have problems with the mic, though. It may be in your best interest to just grab a decent headset from Plantronics. It's what they make, and they're usually better than Logitech, though you can't really go wrong there either.

    Sol Invictus on
  • MovitzMovitz Registered User regular
    edited December 2008
    Out of curiosity, what headset are you using, and is it an onboard soundcard of some sort? There really shouldn't be any problem with onboard soundcards and volume. I use an onboard with some pretty high end headphones (yeah, I can hear all the horrible static) as well as a good Plantronics microphone, and I don't have any problems with the microphone volume.

    A lot of cheap headsets have problems with the mic, though. It may be in your best interest to just grab a decent headset from Plantronics. It's what they make, and they're usually better than Logitech, though you can't really go wrong there either.

    I'm using a pretty cheap USB headset and I've got a Realtek HD soundcard built into my MB. I'll probably get a decent USB headset some day. Now I'm a bit short on cash though. I'll pick me up a Logitech headset as you suggested. In my opinion they always make good stuff

    Movitz on
  • shadydentistshadydentist Registered User regular
    edited December 2008
    Did you turn your microphone recieve settings in both steam and windows all the way up?

    If you have, then the only solution I can think of is to buy an op-amp and some wires and rig up an amplifier.

    shadydentist on
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  • mcdermottmcdermott Registered User regular
    edited December 2008
    Did you turn your microphone recieve settings in both steam and windows all the way up?

    If you have, then the only solution I can think of is to buy an op-amp and some wires and rig up an amplifier.

    Also, are you at the full +40dB gain that Windows allows? At least I know Vista does, don't know about XP. It's in a menu...somewhere.

    mcdermott on
  • MovitzMovitz Registered User regular
    edited December 2008
    Yeah, I've got all the settings right. It just won't work. Which is really weird because I sound crystal clear on TeamSpeak. My best guess at the moment is that my headset really sucks at low bit rates, as in all steam games. On TS when I test with lower bit rates in the locally testing thingy I sound horrible. I don't really see why that would mess up my volume though...

    Movitz on
  • mcdermottmcdermott Registered User regular
    edited December 2008
    Movitz wrote: »
    Yeah, I've got all the settings right. It just won't work. Which is really weird because I sound crystal clear on TeamSpeak. My best guess at the moment is that my headset really sucks at low bit rates, as in all steam games. On TS when I test with lower bit rates in the locally testing thingy I sound horrible. I don't really see why that would mess up my volume though...

    Bitrate shouldn't affect your volume at all, and I'm comfortable saying that's not the issue. It seems to me like your issue must lie in Steam somewhere, if your volume level is acceptable in other applications.

    And keep in mind that if you use software to try and correct for this (by boosting your volume somewhere in the processing chain) and it really is just Steam attenuating it, you're risking boosting it into the clipping range at some point in the chain, which will only make it sound really bad. So I'd recommend trying to figure out what the actual problem is before you go that route. Note that the same goes even for the "build a hardware pre-amp" idea mentioned.

    mcdermott on
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