Audacity Forum

Anyone know how to increase the audio input level when using a Blue Snowball mic? It records in Audacity but the sound level is very low. I am using a Intel Macbook. Thanks.
JayNa

Is there a control panel that comes with the snowball?

Close Audacity and open up the Mac preferences. You should be able to select the microphone and see the panel's bouncing lights when you talk. If you see the lights but they don't bounce, then the output of the microphone is low.

We also need to pay attention to the difference between DV and SDI audio levels. Not all microphones peak at -3. As a matter of fact, that's dangerous for a live microphone because any live performer I ever met can create 20dB peaks all day long and twice on Sunday. That puts the average volume in the -20 range which seems really low compared to the highly processed CDs we listen to.

What does the snowball web site have to say about it?

Koz

The Blue Snowball website doesn't say anything. I looked at their forums and there were a number of people complaining of the low input levels when using it with Audacity. Most of them said that the Audacity volume slider didn't work at all with the Snowball. So, I hoped to find a solution by approaching from the Audacity side. I did go to the System preferences pane and slid the volume input to max and the bouncing lights only went halfway when I was talking directly into the mic. My clip-on Griffin mic connected through an iMic blasts off the scale on that volume setting.

The ArsTechnica web site agrees with you. The microphone suffers from seriously low volume.

http://arstechnica.com/journals/hardwar ... ini-review

Koz

There are alternative drivers available on the Blue site for high or low sensitivity (not sure if this is the case for Macs, but worth checking).