PC mic way too quiet-- looking for an amplifying program

[Itszutak]

Tried +20dB boost, tried raising the volume, tried pretty much everything I could think of.

The sound card is some Creative Sound Blaster I dragged out of an old Dell I had lying around

Mic is a cheap, $10 mic from Fry's

Won't work unless I stick my mouth on it, and I'd rather not.

Are there any programs that boost sound? Something like a software preamp? (Postamp?)

Thanks

[BananasGoMoo]

audacity?

or do you need something real-time?

[Itszutak]

Real-time-- I need it for TF2, so I'm okay with the quality being crap.

[R2Bl3nd]

It sounds like you're plugging a non-powered mic into a line-in port. Regular mic ports have a base DC offset to allow the mic to sort of "wiggle" the current, but line-in doesn't have this. You'll either need to get a powered microphone, or plug the mic into a proper mic port if you have one. You can see if you have an onboard sound device that will support a non-powered microphone.

[Itszutak]

Huh, never thought it could be the line-in causing the problem-- thank you!

I tried googling to fix this and nobody ever mentioned that.

Are you familiar with Creative sound cards? Do they have a non-powered mic port, or am I SOL?

I'd use my motherboard mic, but if I activate it my Creative sound card refuses to work.

[R2Bl3nd]

I have a creative card. It had an optional front panel with a real mic port for $50, but I didn't want to spend extra money on something I didn't think I'd need. But on Windows XP x64 edition, the line-in port on the back of the card was detected as a mic port, and worked fine for non-powered microphones. I don't know why it's not working this way now, though. Could have to do with new drivers.

But with your problem of the creative card not working when you enable the onboard one, I think all you need to do is set the creative card's speakers as the default output in your audio settings. Then set the microphone port of your onboard sound to the default recording device. Tell me if this solves the problem.

[Juggernog]

Or you could just use a Voice Changer software?

[R2Bl3nd]

[QUOTE=Juggernog;18004086]Or you could just use a Voice Changer software?[/QUOTE]

This is totally not the root of the problem. We're almost to the point of fixing the cause of the issue, and bringing up something like this is entirely unhelpful in my opinion, as it doesn't even address the problem.

[Marler]

Get a better mic or put it closer to your mouth