Re: Decrease input level of a USB connected microphone to almost zero? (Vista)

Hi Mark,

Controls for things of that nature would be a feature of either supporting
software for the device, or for the input of the sound card (meaning a
function of the sound card's device drivers and supporting software). It
wouldn't be something addressed by the operating system. Check with the
manufacturer of the sound card for a full set of drivers and supporting
software, as you may be running only a basic driver set that allows only for
basic functionality.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/
Windows help - www.rickrogers.org
My thoughts http://rick-mvp.blogspot.com

"Mark Conrad" <none-> wrote in message
news:071220082120072239%none-...
>I have a expensive mic "theBoom E" which I want to reduce the
> sensitivity, such that I will have to place the boom of this mic
> very close to my mouth to enhance its capability of rejecting
> background noise.
>
> So far, have only found one setting that _slightly_ reduces
> input level of mic, even when I set that slider to zero.
>
>
> The mic is NOT a line-in mic, rather it plugs into the USB port.
>
>
> Is there anything I am missing, or is it impossible to reduce the
> input level of a "USB microphone".
>
> Thanks,
>
> Mark-

"Rick Rogers" wrote:

> Controls for things of that nature would be a feature of either supporting
> software for the device, or for the input of the sound card (meaning a
> function of the sound card's device drivers and supporting software). It
> wouldn't be something addressed by the operating system. Check with the
> manufacturer of the sound card for a full set of drivers and supporting
> software, as you may be running only a basic driver set that allows only for
> basic functionality.

I believe Mark is using one of the standard USB sound cards made
specifically for speech recognition. Let him correct me if I'm wrong but it
is likely either one of the Andrea, Buddy, or VXI USB pods. These USB sound
pods are designed specifically for the frequency range of the human voice and
work very well for speech recognition. The best thing about these USB sound
pods is they use the generic USB audio sound driver built into Windows (XP
and Vista). When these USB pods were used in XP, they did not have the
problem where the audio level was reset unknowingly. The audio level in Vista
remains correctly set when using Dragon NaturallySpeaking.

I was invited out to Redmond in the summer of 2006 to preview Windows speech
recognition being built into the Vista operating system. At that time and
currently, we have noticed the problem with the audio subsystem setting the
microphone to a level much too high for WSR.

Although it is quite annoying, we run the audio setup in WSR (Windows®
Speech Recognition) every time we use it. This is the part where you, "Set up
microphone," and read Peter dictates to his computer.....

On a microphone/USB pod combination we manually open the microphone level
and set it at one half whatever Windows sets it to. In the case of
theBoom/Andrea USB-SA sound pod found at:
http://www.mymsspeech.com/microphone...asp?prodID=146
Windows sets it at the maximum 100. We manually set it to 50 and it still
works great for accuracy but more importantly it does not automatically turn
a microphone back on when we put it to sleep and it does not automatically
page up, page down or any of the other weird things it is known to do when a
microphone level is too high.

You can set the microphone level manuall by:
1. Right click on the speaker icon in the lower right Taskbar
2. Choose Recording Devices
3. Double click the microphone device you are using (USB or soundcard)
4. Click the levels tab and set that to one half what it was after running
Set up microphone.

Marty Markoe, eMicrophones, Inc.
http://www.mymsspeech.com

"Mark Conrad" wrote:


> That all is correct in your post Marty, as you know I am trying to
> optimize my setup here for maximum noise rejection, when using
> Vista Speech Recognition and "theBoom E" headset USB mic.

You should not have to set the volume slider down to zero. Try running the,
"Set up microphone," with the level slider open and showing. And after you
click Finish, said the slider to ½ the amount. If it is set to 80, set it to
about 40%.

My professional office building has quite a noisy blower system for the
heating/air conditioning. You would think the problem would be that it is
cycling on and off all day. However with this newly found technique of
cutting the volume level in half, it does not seem to matter if the blower is
on or off.

Have you tried another microphone with WSR?

Marty

"Mark Conrad" wrote:

> Naw, that won't work Marty, it boils down to being the same
> volume slider that I was setting to zero manually

After further testing yesterday I have to agree you are absolutely correct.
Background noise in my office usually never gets worse than what I would call
moderate levels. This is when our shipping manager about 20 feet away starts
packaging orders to go out. The loudest noises actually when he rips the
packing tape from the tape gun. Up to that level I have no problem.

Yesterday I played a recording made in a noisy brokerage stock trading
office. I had the noise coming from left and right at about 95 dB. Even with
three different highly noise canceling microphones, and with the volume
sliders set to zero (they magically set themselves back up to 100 somehow)
WSR became much less accurate.

I have to visit a demonstration by a major manufacturer today in New York
City, but tomorrow I will write up a report for submission to the speech
recognition workgroup at Microsoft. They are very open with me about issues
they are allowed to talk about and I look forward to hearing back from them
and will report here if I'm able to.

Thanks for bringing this issue to the forefront.

Marty

"Mark Conrad" wrote:

> I will write up a report for submission to the speech
> > recognition workgroup at Microsoft. They are very open with me about issues
> > they are allowed to talk about and I look forward to hearing back from them
> > and will report here if I'm able to.

A prominent member of the speech recognition workgroup responded quickly to
our concerns. They wrote:

"1. Microphone volume can be changed by AGC or by another applications. You
can turn AGC off and play with it to see if it chances anything, if your
microphone has a “boost� feature, turn it off too. If you use same microphone
for other applications, consider to use a dedicated microphone for speech."

I responded that using an Andrea USB-SA full duplex pod does not have an AGC
setting or boost. Also, the microphone is only used for WSR.

"2. I have read a few of your posts, you had good tips thereJ I would like
to add one. When microphone wizard in Vista doesn’t work well for my
microphone, I open GoldWave to record something and ensure the volume level
is at about 30%. This has been working pretty well for me."

I downloaded GoldWave yesterday and will try this later today.

Before leaving the office yesterday I found in the Advanced tab of
Microphone Properties, settings Exclusive Mode were enabled for:
1. Allow applications to take exclusive control of this device
2.Give exclusive mode application priority

Have you played with these? I will try disabling/enabling the various
combinations and see if that helps.

Marty Markoe, eMicrophones, Inc.
See us at: http://www.mymsspeech.com

PS. It seems this thread would be more appropriate at:
microsoft.public.speech.desktop
so I'll post over there as it may be easier to find the posts and respond to
them.