Bad Audio Recording

A Few Headsets

I have a nice gaming headset. Logitech G430. Works fine with Discord. However, it fails when I use it with Corel Video Studio, or with Windows 10 Gaming Capture for captures in a game. It clips and drops parts of the audio, especially at the beginning of phrases. I’m in a very quiet space, so background noise is not the problem.

I decided to purchase another headset by another manufacturer to see if that fixes the problem. We’ll see. But in the mean time, I already have another device to record audio.

Headsets used to be very expensive. The G430 started out at $99 and is now $39, like the EKSA. Lots of choices on Amazon and elsewhere. Looks like they probably all use the same USB – Audio chip.

Older Headsets Have Their Own Problems

Plantronics USB Headset, circa 2000

This older headset has it’s own problems. Turns out the hard plastic parts rub against each other, causing pops and snaps during recording. I guess the plastic got old and sticky over the years. The pops and snaps are so loud that the headset is unusable for recording.

Also notice that I had to replace the muff with some cloth. The foam had rotted away, as foam of that type does over time.

Enter the Webcam

I’ve had this Logitech C510 webcam for a long time. And it still works fine. But has long since been superseded by newer models. However, the problem with this device is that it hasn’t worked for sometime, for audio. Works fine for video, but Windows 10 has not seen the microphone for some time.

Let’s use google to find out why.

Did Microsoft Intentionally Disable Webcam Microphones?

It turns out that this is a long time, well known problem with Windows 10. A google search turned up the solution on the Microsoft support website.

This is very curious. I suspect that it’s actually intentional. The audio interface is DISABLED by Windows 10. And the Troubleshooter is willing to ENABLE it. Since this has not been fixed, I’m guessing that Microsoft decided to “Disable” the microphone on the webcam for privacy reasons. So that malware would have less of a chance of “Eavesdropping” on the folks surrounding the computer. Just my guess.

Webcam Mikes Work Great!

Anyway, once I enabled the Webcam’s mic, I selected that mike [How do you spell the short form of Microphone anyway? Mic or Mike? Anyway. ] So then I tried recording a game hint video [ The one in the previous post by the way. ] using this Webcam mike with the G430 headset – not the speakers – so there would be no cross talk during the recording.

Guess what? It worked great! Not only was the sound clear with no clipping, but the C510 microphone has a level that you can set and really good gain. Unlike the G430 headset mike, which has almost no visible level in the test and no way to adjust the level. Anyway. Problem solved.

It will be interesting to see whether the EKSA headset is better in this regard than the webcam. Also it will be interesting to test both the EKSA and the C510 with Discord that I use all the time to game with my friend online.

Stay Safe!
:ww