Sound very low

Audacity Help Forum Windows
1

I’m very new to this. Using Audacity 2.3.3, Soundcraft Notepad-8fx with Rockville mics, standard USB from board to PC (HP - plenty of RAM and processor speed for Audacity) for 2 person podcast. When simply testing sound input (viewing the sound monitor within Audacity), I can snap my fingers in front of the mic with gain and input volume all the way up and only receive about -32db (recording the sound gets about the same levels - next to nothing). All the videos/tutorials I’m seeing show common talking getting quite close to 0db (esp. with gain and volume to max). I can get the audio in my headphones to blast the sound, but that’s only from the mixer not through Audacity.

Any assistance would be great.

2

Make sure you are recording from the mixer, not from the mic built-into your laptop.

Normally the USB output is simply a digitized version of the analog output but there may be a setting/option on the mixer.

Or, in some cases Windows can monkey with the sound - Make sure [u]Windows “Enhancements”[/u] are disabled for the USB device.