Reduce Mic Level Sensitivity on Laptop?

[averydarkplace]

Hi,

I need to reduce the mic input level of a laptop beyond what the Volume
control pannel allows.

I have a cassette player's RCA outs plugged into the mic input of the
Dell laptop. The cassette player level is so hot, and the mic input is
so sensitive, that even when I reduce the laptop's mic level to just
above zero, the audio I record is distorted. There's no level
adjustment on the cassette player, so one solution would be to trim the
volume by inserting a mixer, but I prefer to avoid this.

Is there some software or system hack to reduce te sensitivity of the
mic input?

Thank you,
~ Avery

 

[Patrick Keenan]

Hi,

I need to reduce the mic input level of a laptop beyond what the Volume
control pannel allows.

I have a cassette player's RCA outs plugged into the mic input of the
Dell laptop. The cassette player level is so hot, and the mic input is
so sensitive, that even when I reduce the laptop's mic level to just
above zero, the audio I record is distorted. There's no level
adjustment on the cassette player, so one solution would be to trim the
volume by inserting a mixer, but I prefer to avoid this.

Is there some software or system hack to reduce te sensitivity of the
mic input?

Thank you,
~ Avery

This sounds like a level - not volume - mismatch, and the best thing to do
is to either use a small mixer, or to not use the mic input since it's
electrically mismatched with the line level signal.

I use external, USB audio interfaces. They can work extremely well. I
am at this moment using an M-Audio FastTrack Pro, which supports phantom
power for two condenser mics and is very versatile. It was about CDN$250.
There is also the Transit USB model, which will accept line-level inputs but
which has no real controls. It's a bit smaller than a deck of cards and
about CDN$100.
http://www.m-audio.com/index.php?do=products.list&ID=mobileinterfaces

For system hacks, you could try opening the case and swapping some resistors
on the board to convert the mic input to a line-level input, but that's
probably not what you have in mind.

HTH
-pk

 

[averydarkplace]

Is there some BIOS setting I can change to adjust the gain beyond what
the Volume control allows?

 

[Patrick Keenan]

Is there some BIOS setting I can change to adjust the gain beyond what
the Volume control allows?

Generally, no. This isn't really a software issue, it's the circuit
design.

You could try this:

http://www.behringer.com/UB502/index.cfm?lang=ENG

HTH
-pk