Tech: mic hassles with PC

Subject: Tech: mic hassles with PC
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 27 Mar 04 - 07:41 PM

Just setting up for PalTalk - hope to be there soon.

My settings in Paltalk setup are greyed out - no mic, speakers etc

I am running a PIII 1G Intel Board with SoundMax Integrated Digital Audio.

Windows media player says an error when trying to play a wav file.
Error ID = 0x80040256, Remedy ID = 0x00000000
This error indicates that you either do not have a sound card or it is functioning incorrectly.

Well, that's obvious :-)...

I seem to not have the correct s/w and patches for the beastie - my supplier is doing his best for an obsolete second hand giveaway machine...

My mic problem is that I have to have everything in the mic channel - all sliders - cranked up to max to get any mic input - I have the add 20db boost box ticked, and so obviously I am getting static.

Paltalk help online is limited in its intellectual endeavours ... :-)

I have been an amateur radio/hi fi/electronics hacker for 45 + years and a PC person since 1975 & worked as a PC systems person before Telstra gave my job to India :-) - also did years of light & sound in theatre - all obvious things have been checked...

My speakers are OK - Lansing.

Mic - Labtech DeskMic 534 (Mute)

Thanks for any thoughts

Robin

Subject: RE: Tech: mic hassles with PC
From: GUEST,Russ
Date: 28 Mar 04 - 12:23 AM

Perhaps I am missing something, but why not just install a new sound card? A vanilla PCI card from someplace like CompUSA should be pretty cheap.

Subject: RE: Tech: mic hassles with PC
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 28 Mar 04 - 01:18 AM

so how does that fix the built in soundcard when I have no money?

Subject: RE: Tech: mic hassles with PC
From: GUEST,Billy
Date: 28 Mar 04 - 02:01 AM

Foole, you don't provide much info on your PC or Operating system.
A new sound card can be as little as $20 (just don't go to the pub one night) or you can spend hours trying to fix the problem for free.
A google search on "SoundMax Integrated Digital Audio" gave a lot of hits - try it - a lot of people seem to be having problems. It could be the driver is missing or corrupt - see http://www.driverforum.com/ to see if you can download the right one. Or it could be as simple as not realizing that the mic input to your PC is probably a 3.5mm STEREO jack and you are plugging in a mono jack or that the impedance is mismatched. (If I remember right, it's "High into low won't go, Low into high will fly").

Subject: RE: Tech: mic hassles with PC
From: s&r
Date: 28 Mar 04 - 06:55 PM

mic looks typical pc mic. Stereo plug powers electret element in these mics. Must be driver problem since relevant bits are greyed out.

stu

Subject: RE: Tech: mic hassles with PC
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 29 Mar 04 - 11:43 AM

Thanks for your current info so far - useful to know I'm not the only one with problems.

$US 20 translates into a much greater amount in Aus dolars maties! and I've only got three slots to play with... and I wouldnt waste my money on a crappy cheap sound card - I bought a cheap scanner...

The PC imploded the other night just after my past post - had tried to load the TWAIN drivers for my cheap scanner - "can't write to drive C (when reading a file)" BSOD - SCANDISK ---> "the two copies of your FAT are mismatched".... etc... BOOM! Format partition, Reload Win98... :-)

the file "reflash".reg" not installing after doing the sound stuff may be no small part of the sound problem...

It looks like I will be upgrading to XP home anyway at the moment... if the sound problem is as I suspect faulty s/w drivers, that will (hopefully) make it go away...

I'm not a PC newbie... been hacking away since 1975 - Teltsra gave away my Sysadmin job to India... done theatre lighting and sound, amatuer radio, etc..

"A fool knows evrything, a wise man leaves some room for new ideas"

Robin

Subject: RE: Tech: mic hassles with PC
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 30 Mar 04 - 03:54 AM

OK, didn't get to look at those sites yet, but cracked the main problem - got the registry update to take - old age and cunning beats youth and inexperience every time :-) - and now Media player runs OK.

So we are back to the hassle with the low volume and physical range (gotta nearly swallow the thing) of the microphone - Labtec DeskMic 534 with mute switch. Those of you who acess the Paltalk rooms etc, what mics do you use?

Robin

Subject: RE: Tech: mic hassles with PC
From: Bassic
Date: 30 Mar 04 - 05:19 AM

FT.........I also found that I was suprised at how poor the signal to noise ratio was of my setup on Paltalk. Using the Paltalk audio test I felt that I had to have the Speaker voulume turned up very high........with consequent increase in background noise...........in order to hear my test recording...........or like you say...........I had to be very close to the mic.
All I can suggest is that you try out in one of the Paltalk rooms. There is an additional control when a room window is open for mic level (bottom left) which also has a level indicator. When I actually took the plunge and tried it out I was apparently comming through loud and clear to others...........without having to be within an inch of the mic!.........My fiddle and singing voice have also been picked up ok in Open Mikes Mudcat Session. If, like me you are used to recording situations or working with Microphones in a stage setting then I think its a case of adjusting to a different level of sound quality and getting quite close to the mic. It also aparently sounds much better to them than it does to us! Look forward to a chat sometime soon :-)

Subject: RE: Tech: mic hassles with PC
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 30 Mar 04 - 07:23 AM

Thanks to Bassic

- who found me on Paltalk - my handle is a giveaway... :-) and assisted me for the best part of an hour to fiddle till we got it sounding not too bad. You play a nice fiddle mate! Now I am happy that the thing is as good now as it gets, and I have the right mic distances and level settings worked out etc - I was able to remove the 20db boost in the mixer and get the thing to work ok... got rid of the static even...

Thanks again

BTW I set up a personal room for the test - it's called foolestroupe - what else? and it's a music room - adult rating - free and open anybody welcome. If you want to organise a time, just let me know...

Thanks for your help...

Robin