Using Audacity for the first time today and I’m confused. When my mic is plugged in (Blue Snowball), the playback sounds great, loud and clear. When I unplug the mic, the volume drops dramatically and the recording sounds cheap/crappy. The exported file is super quiet and it sounds like I’m talking in a box.
Here are my settings:
What am I doing wrong?
Let’s try to separate the recording & playback problems…
When my mic is plugged in (Blue Snowball), the playback sounds great, loud and clear. When I unplug the mic, the volume drops dramatically and the recording sounds cheap/crappy.
That’s very weird… Is that just with Audacity, or with Widows Media Player, etc.? And does that happen when you play a known-good MP3 or WAV file?
The exported file is super quiet and it sounds like I’m talking in a box.
A quiet recording is probably normal, but make sure the -10dB pad is off. It’s normal for USB mics to record low, leaving headroom in case you want to record something louder without clipping (oerloading/distorting) the internal analog-to-digital converter. You can use the Amplify effect after recording. (A higher-end setup would have an analog recording-volume control.)
The sound quality is another issue… Are you close to the mic? Ideally you should be about 6-inches (15cm) away and speaking/singing with a strong-confident voice. The microphone should be set to cardioid (directional) and you should be speaking/singing into the front of the mic.
Let’s try to separate the recording & playback problems…
I don’t think you can. I think that is the problem.
Many people find it of value to record What’s Playing on the Computer.
That can mean running multiple bi-directional sound pathways at the same time. When you disconnect the Snowball, Windows tries immediately to find another microphone and the top candidate is the laptop built-in microphone and the internal sound pathways.
That can create destructive pathways and I would have no trouble imagining the speaker sound quality going into the bin.
If you want to perform quality control on a sound clip or file, you should do it on Some Other Computer, since that one is compromised.
The obvious question is how do I straighten that out. Find the instructions you used to set up for internet recording and do the opposite. There is no simple answer I know of.
Koz
That was it, it’s apparently my computer. 
The sound quality is 10 times better and much louder in all programs when my mic is plugged in. That’s so annoying.
About the recording: I use the same mic in the same way daily to record videos (via screencast-o-matic and loom), and somehow the quality is better in the videos.
make sure the -10dB pad is off
Where would I find this (obviously a noob). And I’ll try the Amplify effect, thank you!
Where would I find this (obviously a noob).
Per the user manual I found online the switch on the back of your Snowball should be in the “1” position.
Ha sorry, I thought it was an Audacity setting. 