I am trying to record audio in Audacity using my new Blue Yeti mic, but it comes out so quiet that I can hardly hear it. The soundwaves are extremely small, despite the fact that I have the mic quite close to my mouth and, as far as I am aware, I have the settings all set correctly on my laptop. In order for me to hear my recording, I have to go into Effects and hit Normalize. There is a lot of backkground nosie when I do this, but at least I can hear myself.
(btw, I get the same results when I try the mic in Camtasia)
Why are my soundwaves so small? I have watched Youtube tutorials on Audacity and the soundwaves on those recordings are normal size straight off the bat without any further manipulation.
First of all make sure you are actually selecting the Blue Yeti from the “input selection” dropdown (next to the microphone icon along the top bar in Audacity). You might be be using your laptops built in microphone by mistake.
Otherwise, I would suspect either your mic is defective, or there is an issue with the driver – the latter probably being more likely particularly if this is a Windows machine, so the first thing would be to re-install the drivers that came with the microphone, or look at Blue’s website to see if there are newer drivers available.
There are Gain (voice volume) and Pattern settings on the rear of the microphone. The pattern for most uses should be #3 Cardioid or Kidney pattern. That means it responds primarily from the front and the volume decreases as you walk around to the rear.
This is a side-fire microphone. You should be talking directly into the “blue” logo, not the top or any other surface.
It also appears to be a “Stereo” microphone. You should have Audacity set to Stereo in preferences not Mono.
As a test, speak into the microphone while you change the Gain knob. If your voice doesn’t change, then yes, the microphone may be broken.
But I doubt it. This microphone is easy to operate wrong by accident.