Microphone is not working

[Sindre]

Hi,
I got a new microphone some days ago, and i want to make some narrating at a
video i'm making.
But the microphone wont work.
The sound is on full and everything is unmuted.
The driver is updated.

I've tested it in Sony Vegas, Skype, Audacity and the built-in voice recorder.

I'm using Windows XP 32bit HP m7695sc-a and Røde NTG-2 microphone with XLR
to Jack cable

What to do to get it working?

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Hi,
I got a new microphone some days ago, and i want to make some narrating at a
video i'm making.
But the microphone wont work.
The sound is on full and everything is unmuted.
The driver is updated.

I've tested it in Sony Vegas, Skype, Audacity and the built-in voice recorder.

I'm using Windows XP 32bit HP m7695sc-a and Røde NTG-2 microphone with XLR
to Jack cable

What to do to get it working?

The first thing to do is consider two possibilities:

1. the microphone or its cable is defective

2. it's plugged into the wrong jack.

 

[Yousuf Khan]

Hi,
I got a new microphone some days ago, and i want to make some narrating at a
video i'm making.
But the microphone wont work.
The sound is on full and everything is unmuted.
The driver is updated.

I've tested it in Sony Vegas, Skype, Audacity and the built-in voice recorder.

I'm using Windows XP 32bit HP m7695sc-a and Røde NTG-2 microphone with XLR
to Jack cable

What to do to get it working?

Besides what Ken said, you should also make sure you know whether you've
plugged it into the microphone plug, or the line-in plug. Either will
work for your microphone, but you'll have enable and unmute a different
input in the control in the Advanced Tab of the Volume Control.

Also, make sure that you use the Sound and Microphone Wizard in XP's
control panel.

Yousuf Khan

 

[Bill in Co.]

Besides what Ken said, you should also make sure you know whether you've
plugged it into the microphone plug, or the line-in plug. Either will
work for your microphone,

A microphone won't really work if plugged into the Line-In jack, because the
signal from a microphone is too weak to effectively drive it. (At best he
might *barely* hear it).

 

[Andrew E.]

Xp by default doest have a recording utility that records to any time over
10 seconds or so.Download windows encoder 9 series from microsoft,its
recording audio/video time is only based on youre pcs hd.In the encoder,
select:record audio/video,default sound,make a file to record to,start.
Also,R.click the speaker by the
clock,properties,options,properties,recording,
chk line-in or mic.If you have a cassette deck,mic in to it,Record_Play_Pause
will increase youre audio,line out from cassette,to line-in pc.If all else
fails,
go to start,run,type: DXDIAG Run the Direct X microphone tests.

 

[Swifty]

A microphone won't really work if plugged into the Line-In jack, because the
signal from a microphone is too weak to effectively drive it

I believe that it goes further than that. My old PC had a microphone
socket at the front, and Line-in at the back. My microphone comes with
a pre-amplifier so works fine in the Line-in socket. On to the
problem:

I was using Live Messenger. I went into the audio setup and adjusted
my microphone volume. It worked perfectly (remember, into Line-in).

Then I started a video call. The other person could not hear me.

It seems that the audio setup monitors both Microphone and Line-in,
but the video call takes input only from Microphone. A bit of
re-wiring fixed the problem, albeit nowhere near as neat as it had
been.

So I got a new PC, and that had both Microphone and Line-in round the
back. Perfect! (I had better reasons for the upgrade)

 

[Yousuf Khan]

A microphone won't really work if plugged into the Line-In jack, because the
signal from a microphone is too weak to effectively drive it. (At best he
might *barely* hear it).

Well, then that'll probably be one reason he might not be able to hear
anything.

Yousuf Khan

 

[Bill in Co.]

Well, then that'll probably be one reason he might not be able to hear
anything.

Yousuf Khan

Yeah. A microphone might typically put out around 10 mv or so. The Line
Input typically expects around 0.5 V (500 mv) or so.