Unbalanced Audio Input

[ion529]

Hey hey hey whats cracking,

 

OK so basically I needed a new mic because the ones on my headphones broke so I bought this Neewer one of amazon along with a box (I don't know what the box is called but it seems to give extra power to the mic or something. It doesn't have buttons on it just an input output and a power cable). The box was supposed to amp up the mic so it was nice and loud because the aux on my computer couldn't give it sufficient power. But its still too quiet and when I turn up the volume on my computer for the mic Its loader but there's lots of white noise. I talked to a very smart man about this and he rambled on about how I was going from balanced to unbalanced and I need something to balance it and amp it up before it goes into my computer. Now you know the backstory how do I fix this? Do I need a little sound mixer thing? Do I need a sound card? Is aux just pure sh*t? As i'm sure you can tell I know nothing about audio other then the fact that it cannot be polarized and travels parallel to its source. Thanking you in advance.

[Tabs]

21 minutes ago, ion529 said:

Hey hey hey whats cracking,

 

OK so basically I needed a new mic because the ones on my headphones broke so I bought this Neewer one of amazon along with a box (I don't know what the box is called but it seems to give extra power to the mic or something. It doesn't have buttons on it just an input output and a power cable). The box was supposed to amp up the mic so it was nice and loud because the aux on my computer couldn't give it sufficient power. But its still too quiet and when I turn up the volume on my computer for the mic Its loader but there's lots of white noise. I talked to a very smart man about this and he rambled on about how I was going from balanced to unbalanced and I need something to balance it and amp it up before it goes into my computer. Now you know the backstory how do I fix this? Do I need a little sound mixer thing? Do I need a sound card? Is aux just pure sh*t? As i'm sure you can tell I know nothing about audio other then the fact that it cannot be polarized and travels parallel to its source. Thanking you in advance.

 

Out of curiosity, what made you specifically use Aux input instead of Mic In for your mic? Aux tends to be for really high gain sources at the standard full frequency range (~10hz to ~22khz), usually other direct output devices like external mixers for feed combining. It isn't really designed for microphone communications, which fit within a much narrower band - usually way below 4kHz for full frequency sampling or, more realistically, below 1kHz. As such, the Mic In has additional filtering and intrinsic volume boosting to enhance the lower frequencies, whereas Aux simply cannot do that as it has to be able to accept a full frequency source.

 

If you have a dedicated Line In (or Mic In) connector instead of Aux, try using that instead.

 

Note: I'm not an expert in this field. I feel I have a moderate level of knowledge in understanding how most pc based audio circuits are designed, but I'm not an audio engineer. Take this advice as "worth a shot" and not an expert opinion.  

[ion529]

Is "Mic In" the XLR thing? I don't have one of them on my PC, its just a normal motherboard. Basically the mic was supplied with a cable that has aux at one end and XLR at the other. Do I need a sound card with XLR then? @Tabs

[Tabs]

20 minutes ago, ion529 said:

Is "Mic In" the XLR thing? I don't have one of them on my PC, its just a normal motherboard. Basically the mic was supplied with a cable that has aux at one end and XLR at the other. Do I need a sound card with XLR then? @Tabs

 

Do you know what motherboard you have? It could simply be a terminology issue on my side. If your motherboard has 7.1 analogue audio, it should have 6 total 3.5mm jacks - four for the audio channels (front left/right, rear left/right, left/right, center/subwoofer) and two additional inputs - one for mic in and one for aux in. 

 

If your motherboard jacks are colour coded, you want to be using the pink one for your mic. Aux is usually red or orange.

 

Alternatively you can check your sound settings in Windows and see whether audio is being detected on the "Microphone" device, or on another device.

I added a screenshot that should clarify what I mean.

 

[ion529]

20 hours ago, Tabs said:

 

Do you know what motherboard you have? It could simply be a terminology issue on my side. If your motherboard has 7.1 analogue audio, it should have 6 total 3.5mm jacks - four for the audio channels (front left/right, rear left/right, left/right, center/subwoofer) and two additional inputs - one for mic in and one for aux in. 

 

If your motherboard jacks are colour coded, you want to be using the pink one for your mic. Aux is usually red or orange.

 

Alternatively you can check your sound settings in Windows and see whether audio is being detected on the "Microphone" device, or on another device.

I added a screenshot that should clarify what I mean.

 

OK so I have a MSI Z170-A Pro Motherboard, and yes its going into my pink port. Do you think it might have something to do with the fact that its going from XLR - the aux mic thing in one cable without any significant looking adapter? Thanks so much for your help btw very much appreciated. Also windows seems to be detecting it properly aswell:

 

[Ahoy Hoy]

@Tabs Your going the wrong way about this.

 

 

@ion529 Im guessing from a quick google of neewer microphone which one you bought. You need phantom power to power the microphone. Its a cheap shitty microphone. Which requires an extra item to work. This extra item can cost anywhere up to 100 dollars. But you can go cheap again and buy a cheap one for 20 bucks. So now your like 45 bucks in and what youve got is a cheap shitty microphone which cost more money then its worth.

Just get rid of it. I can suggest ways to make it better but there's no stage of polish which can clean a dog turd.

 

Heres the cheap shitty one from neewer
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Neewer-1-Channel-Condenser-Microphone-Recording/dp/B01LVTOJNB/ref=pd_lpo_vtph_bs_lp_tr_t_1?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=S1J7QXZZS7DFJC2ZWARQ

Youll probably need a XLR cable to run from the microphone to this. Then use the XLR to jack to run from this box to your computer.