Microphone Setup

"You're on mute" is really the only way to start an online meeting. The beginning of any meeting is really just audio set up for most people, which should be simple but really is not. I'm making this page as a quick reference for microphone setup since I've had to do a lot of microphone configuration not just for online meetings, but to make sure that I have good quality while using voice control described in my other post.

In fact, I came across crazy stories where laptops are not configurable for the user, where noise cancelling is permanently on, to the point that a user cannot transmit/record playing a musical instrument over their laptop microphone, because the instrument is filtered out and they cannot do anything about it, not even by configuring anything differently.

I had a similar issue when using voice control where a "pop" sound was filtered out by the microphone configuration, but I required it to be transmitted via the microphone.

So this post is a quick reference on how to turn off noise cancelling if your laptop allows it - and since the menus here are so comprehensive, it's also a reference for how to configure microphones in general. It also mentions how to configure gain (amplification) which can fix a lot of setup issues. It is Windows based.

"New" Windows Menu Sound Settings

Select the microphone below, and ensure audio enhancements is off. Also make "input volume" the max (this is software gain and should change the old control panel, but sometimes does not).

"Old" Control Panel

In the old windows menu (Control Panel > Hardware and Sound > Manage audio devices) on microphone, double click specific microphone, go to advanced and untick noise cancelling if it's there - untick "enable audio enhancements". Also in tab "levels" (this is software gain) - set the gain to high:

Other Software

A lot of laptops come with OS software (like DELL) that includes the microphone, or various brands like audio max pro, alienware command centre etc. Ensure you've checked all the settings in those too. Note that if such software is uninstalled - it may still have a service running somehow, so check that, and stop the service if needed.

Also check any custom software like those which allow you to mute and unmute via a user interface.

If you have an audio interface which I've had in the past, and have a fancy mic, you will likely have even more software and configuration available, so check all of their options.