Audio very low - how to increase?

[leviticus49]

I am having difficulty in getting a reasonable volume level when making mono voice recordings. I am learning Spanish and want to make looped recordings of my Spanish lessons and use my MP3 player to listen. The problem is that even after following all help and online messages, when speaking into my Genius microphone connected into my AMD Athlon(tm) XP 2400+,2.00 GHz, 1.25gb ram desktop running Windows XP Home Edition version 2002 service pack 3. My Audacity version is 1.2.x. the volume produced is so low that even on top volume on speaker (if I forget to alter back to a normal level - this nearly busts the speakers on a normal recording)or MP3, I can hardly hear it. The wave form produced is barely noticeable and there is little 'punch' in the audio. Can anyone help please?

[kozikowski]

I am having difficulty in getting a reasonable volume level when making mono voice recordings.

You need to finish the sentence. "Speaking into my XXX microphone connected by XXX into my XXX laptop running Windows xxx. My Audacity version is 1.2.x.

Fill in the X's.

Koz

[bgravato]

I am having difficulty in getting a reasonable volume level when making mono voice recordings. I am learning Spanish and want to make looped recordings of my Spanish lessons and use my MP3 player to listen. The problem is that even after following all help and online messages, when speaking into my Genius microphone connected into my AMD Athlon(tm) XP 2400+,2.00 GHz, 1.25gb ram desktop running Windows XP Home Edition version 2002 service pack 3. My Audacity version is 1.2.x. the volume produced is so low that even on top volume on speaker (if I forget to alter back to a normal level - this nearly busts the speakers on a normal recording)or MP3, I can hardly hear it. The wave form produced is barely noticeable and there is little 'punch' in the audio. Can anyone help please?

Leviticus, instead of editing you're original message, you should post a new one with the relevant information you need to add, otherwise it will be very hard to follow the thread and reply properly to your doubts if you keep changing the already posted messages with new information.

[kozikowski]

Genius microphone

Can we assume a Genius MIC-01A?

Look in your Windows Sound Control Panels and see if you have a [X] 20dB Microphone Boost setting in addition to the regular microphone volume controls. If there is no boost setting, then you have one of the "quiet" sound cards. Audacity has nothing to do with it.

You can help existing quiet performances in Audacity by Effect > Amplify > OK. That will supply the boost that the sound card is missing, but the voice may become noisy if you do that.

Since you have a desktop computer, you could get a new soundcard and this time look for the "boost" setting in the advertising. You can work around your sound card with an external USB sound card like the StarTech series.

http://www.startech.com/product/ICUSBAU ... io-Adapter

Although sometimes they have their own problems. I got one with DC offset on the show.

Koz

[kozikowski]

You could also stop using the analog connection completely. I have a very nice USB microphone.

http://www.logitech.com/en-us/webcam-co ... evices/221

Koz