10 Ways to Increase the Mic Volume in Windows 10
Given below are 10 different tips to increase the mic volume. There isn’t any universal method for the same, any one of the methods might work out in your case. Therefore, it is recommended to try each one of them until you achieve success. You could also try out two or more tips in combination to get the possible results. With that said, here are the required instructions for the same.
Choose a Default Mic
To begin with, you should make your PC aware of the mic that it should use. In this regard, it is of paramount importance to assign a default microphone to your PC. Usually, if you are getting different sound volumes from different apps, it is because the app isn’t able to decide which mic should it settle for. Therefore you could do their job much easier by assigning a default microphone to your setup. Here is how it could be done:
- Right-click on the Sound icon from the taskbar and select Open Sound settings. if you cannot see the Volume icon, you might have to expand it by clicking on the upward arrow.
- Now click on the Sound Control Panel from the right-hand side menu. From the Sound dialog box that appears, head over to the Recording tab.
- Right-click on the preferred mic and select ‘Set as Default Device’. Hit Apply followed by OK. That is it. Check if the mic volume issue in Windows 10 is fixed or not.
Increase the Mic level
- Sometimes, the mic level on your PC might be set to a lower level. To do so, head over to Sound settings > Sound Control Panel > Recording.
- Within the Recording tab, double-click on your default mic.
- Now head over to the Levels section and move the slider to the right up to the desired level.
- Hit Apply followed by OK. The mic volume on your Windows 10 should witness in considerable improvement.
Boost The Microphone Capacity
Unknown to many, there is an added option to boost up the volume of your microphone. The option is hidden and hence not known to many. To boost your microphone audio, head over to Sound settings > Sound Control Panel > Recording. Then double-click on the Microphone and go to the Levels section.
Then you should see the Microphone Boost, increase it as per your need, maximum is +10db. Though it is not recommended to take it to the absolute maximum as it might lead to a disturbance in the sound stability. Keep it at a balanced level and you should be able to increase the Mic Volume in Windows 10 to a sufficient high-level.
Disable Sound Enhancements
Windows also comes pre-equipped with some sound enhancements, unfortunately, it might also lead to some issues. Therefore, you could try disabling these sound effects and see if it leads to any improvements. To do so, again visit the Recording section. Now double click on the Recording section followed by your default mic and click on Enhancements. Finally, untick the to disable all sound effects or if you wish to modify any of its settings, manually select/deselect the options from the list. Hit Apply followed by OK and that is it.
Enable Far Field Pickup (FFP)
As evident from its name, Far Field Pickup helps to catch out sounds frequency of distant places. So if people are only able to feebly listen to your audio, you could try enabling this enhancement. Just keep in mind that enabling this will disable the Beam Forming Product. So to proceed, head over to the Enhancement section from the Recording menu and tick mark the Far Field Pickup (FFP) option. Click on Apply > OK. See if you could notice any considerable increase in the mic volume in Windows 10.
Prevent applications from taking control
See here is the thing. Sometimes an application takes over the audio control from your PC and whatever changes you make to that specific app, it gets applied to your entire device. Fortunately, you could stop this from happening and make sure that any single app doesn’t hijack your entire PC’s sound settings.
To do so, go to Sound settings > Sound Control Panel > Recording and then double-click on your default mic. Then go to the Advanced section and under Exclusive Mode, untick the ‘Allow applications to take exclusive control of this device’. Then click on Apply > OK. See if mic volume on your Windows 10 PC has seen an increase or not. Also, make sure that ‘Give exclusive mode applications priority’ is unchecked as well.
Change Bitrate to DVD quality
Other audio settings that you could try tweaking is increasing the bitrate of the audio. Although this will then require more amount of data packets to be transferred, yet the trade-off is worth appreciable. Unless you are looking to record and upload your audio, you should have no issues as such in increasing bitrate.
In that regard, go to the Advanced section your microphone using the steps mentioned above and click on Default Format. From the drop-down menu that appears, select 2 channel, 16 bit, 480000 Hz (DVD Quality) and apply it. This should prove to be of great help to increase the mic volume in Windows 10.
Increase Microphone’s Audio Level manually
- You could also try and manually increase the audio level of your microphone.
- To do so, head over to the Recording section of the Sound window and click on Properties.
- Then go to the Levels section and adjust the sound level using the Volume slider. Finally, apply these new settings by clicking on Apply > OK.
- Check whether the increase in mic audio level on your Windows 10 PC is worth your requirement or not.
Use a Third-Party App
Tons of third-party sound mod apps could prove to be of great use. Equalizer APO is one of those mods that managed to work out pretty decent. Download and install it and then head over to its ‘Configurator’ section. There you should find a plethora of options related to the audio enhancement. Try the one that meets your requirement and see if it fulfills the desired audio level. One thing to keep in mind is the fact that it wouldn’t give your PC any additional boost, it will only work within the li it’s that has been set up by Windows for your PC.
Update Sound Drivers
An old and outdated driver might prove to be the cause of relatively low mic volume Therefore, it is recommended to update it to the latest version. To do so, follow the below steps:
- Launch the Start Menu and search for Device Manager.
- Within that head over to Audio inputs and outputs and right-click on your microphone and select Update Drivers.
- In the next pop up that appears, click on Search automatically for updated driver software. Windows will then search for the latest sound drivers and will automatically apply it as well.
- Once that is done, restart your PC and see if the mic volume has been improved or not.
So these were some of the methods through which you could improve the mic volume on your Windows 10 PC or laptop. All in all, we have shared ten different types of methods, any one or combination of others should the job for you. Do let us know in the comments which one ultimately worked out for you. Rounding off, here are some other iPhone Tips and Tricks, PC tips and tricks, and Android Tips and Trick that you should check out as well.
