Audacity +Best settings for recording speech

[Dos_Box]

I'm currently working on doing a couple of short demos of Windows 8 using Camtasia studio. The problem I have is that the voice track is awful. Lots of noise, echoey voice etc. So I decided to record the voice track using Audacity, which has improved things...slightly. What can I do to improve the capture quality, or clean it up afterwards within Audacity? I've had a look at their forums and advice bounces around the place with nothing really being the answer I was looking for.

I'm capturing my voice using a Speedlink Medusa MX 5.1 headset mic which in normal operation works wonderfully, just not for this

Any help will be much appreciated as I've spent a day doing this now with no real joy and it's beginning to irk me.

[Dos_Box]

I have to add that I have a Realtek HD audio chipset on my PC, not a seperate sound card. Could this be causing issues I wonder?

[SHimmer45]

are you boosting the mic signal in the sound driver software as well and Audacity as it might be you are "overdriving" the signal and creating the hiss.

[Dos_Box]

No. There are no boosting options set.

[SHimmer45]

echoey voice might also be a sound effect which the realtek software can put on inputs had something like this before on realtek audio pc's but if everything is standard i doubt it is this

[Dos_Box]

Well, I've just used Audacity on the office Mac, and it records wonderfully. I suspect it's the PC's Realtek Chipset. I'll do the voice track on here I think.