No External Microphones Working!

[Ben-at-work]

Hi guys,

 

We've had a bit of an odd one come up recently, students are trying to do audio recording with external 3.5mm microphones but as soon as the microphones are plugged into the microphone jack (not headphone!) the levels drop to the point where the recording is essentially silent.

 

Recording via an internal microphone (where available) works fine. I've done a test in SoundBooth recording alternating between internal and external (through the one soundcard listed) and you can see the levels drop right off as soon as the external mic is plugged in.

 

It happens across a wide range of hardware all running Windows 7, all with the latest drivers and still happens with the default Windows driver. This occurs in SoundBooth, Sound Recorder, Audacity and even in the sound options in Control Panel.

 

When the boxes where running on XP the recording was fine, no issues.

 

I know the microphone works because there are no issues when recording on OS X.

 

I've haven't had the chance to really look at this but wondered if anyone had anything similar.

 

Thanks,

 

Ben

Edited June 7, 2013 by Ben-at-work

[anwarmahmood]

Hi Ben,

 

Not encountered this specifically, but we do have different makes + models of PCs that *appear* to have the same "sound card" (Realtek or ADI, but I forget which). I thought I may as well get the latest generic driver from Realtek/ADI, and use that. Worked great... except that the PCs/sound cards have a feature where if you plug headphones in, the onboard speaker should be silenced. This didn't happen with the latest generic drivers. Had to go back to using manufacturer-specific drivers for each device. Perhaps something like this is happening to you...? Perhaps not...?

 

Kind regards,

 

Anwar

[Ben-at-work]

Cheers Anwar, I'll have a bit of a play.