Is there any way to permanently lock the mic volume level?

[WebMaximus]

Hi,

As the topic suggests, is there any way to permanently lock the mic volume level so no applications no nothing but me myself can change it?

Reason I ask is for some reason my microphone volume level keeps resetting by itself. I like to have it at about 75% but all of a sudden it has dropped to 18% making my voice barely audible in audio recordings and sometimes I find it at 100% making my voice too loud.

I already did some Google searching and looks like this problem is very common and usually caused by applications such as Skype etc automatically adjusting the mic volume level. In my case I'm not running any of those "normal" applications but instead I'm running some special addon applications for Microsoft Flight Simulator X. My guess is one or a few of these are causing my issue but since I need these applications I can't solve the problem by getting rid of them. Instead I need to find a way to "lock" the mic volume if that is possible?

Any help would be most appreciated!

Guess I should also mention I'm running Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit.

Many thanks in advance!

 

[fireberd]

Programs are supposed to return the audio levels to what they were when you exit the program. Unfortunately many programs don't do that and leave the audio levels where they were in that program. In the case of "back acting" programs, if there are audio setups in the program you could set the mic level for what you want and then when you exit those "bad acting" programs it wouldn't change and be at the level you want.

Another possibility is a utility program that you could run and reset the levels to what you want. I saw reference to a utility recently on here. I'll try to find it and post back.

The thread is in the Windows8 forum. Here: http://www.eightforums.com/sound-audio/48972-how-set-sound-volume-boot.html It is for a set volume level at boot, but as its just a utility, it could be run anytime.

 

[WebMaximus]

I read somewhere about a tool too that would set the mic volume constantly to a level of your choice. A little bit annoying having to have a program running in the background only to keep the mic volume where you want it but maybe that's the only way. However I'm not sure where I read about it and can't find it anymore so if you find it that would be great.

I wish there was a way locking the mic volume in such a way that it would override everything else. Maybe via some registry hack or a policy.

 

[carwiz]

Check the software you use. I don't use it but I think Skype has an option for auto volume/mic. Turn it off.

 

[WebMaximus]

Thanks but as I wrote in my first post I'm not using any of those programs known to mess with the mic volume and the programs I'm running that might mess with the mic volume are all needed so I guess rather than trying to find a way for any program to not mess with my mic volume I instead if possible need to find a way to lock the volume.

 

[fireberd]

There is no way, that I'm aware of, to "lock" the volume. If that were the case then any program that uses audio would not be able to change it, if needed - and setting the volume for a given application is used by many programs.

As I originally noted, programs, if they are programmed correctly, will restore the audio levels to where they were when exiting the program. Poorly coded (programmed) programs will not do this. Thus users are stuck with audio levels that were set by the program after exiting the program.

Thus the only option is to have a utility program that you can run and reset the audio levels to what you want.

I can't do that with my recording studio equipment, either.

 

[WebMaximus]

Ok, guess I'll have to find that tool again that would constantly reset the mic volume if I only could remember where I saw that.

Thanks anyway for trying to help.

 

[fireberd]

Click on the link in my original post.

 

[WebMaximus]

Sorry, missed that link.

However the tool I found somewhere (but haven't been able to find again after all different forums I visited the last couple of days...) would run in the background and constantly setting the volume level several times each second making sure it will always be at the desired level.

Looking at the tool linked in your post after some quick reading it appears to only set the volume once and then you need to run the script again manually. Guess I could use Task Manager to schedule it to run as often as I like. Also I'm not sure if this tool will be able to set the mic volume, the discussion over in that other thread is about setting the speaker volume.

Will try searching a bit more for that first tool I read about somewhere but thanks anyway

 

[WebMaximus]

Finally I was able to find the post where I read about that tool/utility, here it is for anyone else interested

When using my microphone, the microphone level automatically adjusts. - Microsoft Community

 

[WebMaximus]

Having Task Manager trigger on a microphone volume event

I posted about a microphone volume issue I've been having over in the audio sub-forum where the microphone volume is set to different values automatically by different programs and I was hoping there would have been a way to permanently lock the microphone volume so that can't happen. Turns out there's no way doing that so now I found a command line utility instead called nircmd which can be used to set the microphone volume in a very fast and silent way using some switches.

Now my next mission is how and when to trigger this command which will set the mic volume back to the level I like. I was thinking of using Task Manager and I could of course set it to run the command to set the mic volume every 5 minutes for example. However that could mean I would be recording at some other level without knowing about it for up to 5 minutes until the task is executed again.

For this reason I checked Task Manager and found I can choose to use a trigger called 'On an event' rather than 'On a schedule' and I was thinking maybe that's what I'm looking for...? However I'm not sure what exactly to use if it's even possible to have Task Manager monitor the mic volume. Ideally I would like Task Manager to run my command whenever the mic volume is set to anything but the value I want in my case 75%.

Does anyone know if this is possible or maybe you have some other smart ideas...?

 

[carwiz]

Are you using Realtek drivers? If you are, turn Exclusive Mode off. (Both check boxes.)

 

[WebMaximus]

No, I have my mic connected to an external Asus Xonar U7 sound card.

However I already unchecked the exclusive options but to no avail.

 

[WebMaximus]

Need some help NirCmd

Just found a very powerful command line tool that let you do pretty much everything you could ask for.

I'm trying to use this tool to set my microphone volume and just setting the volume one single time works just fine but I want this to happen repeatedly making sure my mic volume is always at the same level where I want it.

The command to do this using NirCmd looks like this

nircmd setvolume 1 49500 49500 (this will set the volume to 75%)

Doing the same thing but repeatedly I should be able to use the loop switch like this

nircmd loop 5 1000 setvolume 1 49500 49500 (this should do the same thing 5 times every 1000 milliseconds)

For some reason this doesn't work. Looking at the nircmd process in Task Manager I can see how the loop command works because nircmd stays in the processes list in Task Manager for 5 seconds. However the volume is only set once and if I change the volume manually during these 5 seconds it should be returned to 75% every 1000 milliseconds but it's not.

Just to make sure the loop switch works I tried the exact same line as above but I replaced the setvolume command with another nircmd command sending a 'beep' to my speakers and sure enough I heard the beep loud and clear 5 times in a row every 1000 milliseconds. The command looked like this

nircmd loop 5 1000 beep 1500 1000 (where 1500 is the Hz and 1000 is the length of the beep)

So...I can't see why the setvolume command can't be repeated the same way.

Any experienced nircmd user in here who could help me understand what I'm missing here?

 

[n8n8baby]

I am having a similar problem using 'win activate' within a loop. 'speak text XXX' works fine within the loop.