[Pantherophis]

I'm not sure where I should post this question because I'm not sure exactly what the problem is. But, I can't record anything with sound recorder. I have a Acer Aspire laptop and a cheapy mic plugged into the 3.5 mm mic input. And no matter what I try I can not get sound recorder to record my voice. I just what to record my voice for some youtube vids and having all kinds of trouble. :banghead:
Any advice at all would be helpful. Please help before I throw this damn laptop out the window. :smile:
I don't know if I'm having sound card problems, mic problems, volume problems or ????. And don't know enough about computers to know how to find out.
Thanks

 

[OldGrayGary]

Your Acer laptop, if it has a built-in WebCam, likely also has a built-in microphone. Both of these are very small, sometimes the microphone is nearly impossible to see. At least the WebCam is fairly easy to find: in the middle of the top part of the frame around your display screen. The built-in microphone is likely just next to it, or down somewhere near the keyboard/palm rest.

As a test, first unplug the external microphone.

To check your microphone settings, from the Windows 8 desktop right-click on the Volume icon in the system tray, and select Recording Devices from the pop up menu. If you have a built-in microphone, you should see it listed [it will probably be simply listed as Microphone - a green checkmark over its icon means that it is the default recording device]. Next click on the Properties option, which will take you to the General tab of the microphone properties. Make sure that in the option box "Device Usage", the option "use this device" is selected. Then click on the Levels tab, and check the settings: the default volume for most Acer/Gateway builtin microphones is 96%, and the Microphone Boost is set to zero (you can increase this if Sound Recorder continues to have trouble hearing your voice).

And, of course, your overall Volume should not be muted while recording.

That should produce a workable recording device for simple purposes. Headsets of course have fairly sensitive microphones & can improve the quality if necessary.

Best of luck
. . . Gary