Removing Mic noise?

[mattdmg]

So I have the Massdrop Minimic on my headset (a not as popular alternative to ModMic) and I’ve been using it now for a while at it sounds decent for a headset microphone. I only have had one problem with it and it’s the background noise the microphone has. I am surprised more games don’t have voice chat that has things like background noise removal like Discord has (or even Windows itself). 

 

Is there any way to remove background noise in a microphone with a program live or any hardware solutions? I already have the mic plugged into a cheap external sound card I got off of Amazon. Thanks 

 

 

[userzero]

There is in Steam settings I think. And maybe in recording devices settings in Windows. Have you looked at all of these? Generally turning off boost, gain, effects etc will sort this. 

 

Why are you using an external sound card? That could be the issue?

[mattdmg]

1 minute ago, userzero said:

There is in Steam settings I think. And maybe in recording devices settings in Windows. Have you looked at all of these? Generally turning off boost, gain, effects etc will sort this. 

 

Why are you using an external sound card? That could be the issue?

Because my onboard port won’t get the mic loud enough 

[SupaKomputa]

Cheap external usb soundcards are rubbish.

What happened if you plug it into the onboard soundcard?

Does the noise go away?

[Guest]

15 minutes ago, mattdmg said:

Because my onboard port won’t get the mic loud enough 

Instead of using cheap usb audiocard plug the mic straight into the motherboard, and in windows sound settings turn the MIC BOOST to comfortable levels.

[mattdmg]

47 minutes ago, Some Random Member said:

Instead of using cheap usb audiocard plug the mic straight into the motherboard, and in windows sound settings turn the MIC BOOST to comfortable levels.

 

56 minutes ago, SupaKomputa said:

Cheap external usb soundcards are rubbish.

What happened if you plug it into the onboard soundcard?

Does the noise go away?

I plugged the mic into the audio port on the motherboard and It still has background noise. The background noise on the motherboard port sounds different from the usb card though.

[userzero]

If software changes do not solve this, the mic is crap. Sorry.

[SupaKomputa]

A. The mic is crap, test another mic like the ones that come with your smartphone. See if its still noised.

B. The motherboard is crap

C. You have some static electricity, you can solve this by connecting the pc case to a grounding like your wall with some wire.

[AAJoe]

First, @SupaKomputa not all USB soundcards are rubbish, though most of them are. Some of them are decent for mic input. I mean, decent in that they make a big difference for 10 dollars, not decent in "I am going to use this for a studio setup." We have a new one launching very soon (tm) that is pretty impressive for mic use! There simply aren't very many good 3.5mm audio interfaces out there. Our 10 dollar USB is going to be on par with the absolute best there is. Again, for microphone. For headphones we're not trying to compete directly with Schiit and Fiios, let alone the higher tier stuff.

 

Lucky for you @mattdmg even though you have a competitor knock-off product (boo!), I still have the solutions for you! They come in two different posts:

 

First use this one: https://antlionaudio.com/blogs/news/whats-that-noise to determine what type of line noise you have.

 

Next, if the problem is EMI related (which is most of the time) use this process to remove the noise and boost gain: https://antlionaudio.com/blogs/news/removing-background-noise-with-equalizer-apo-and-reapers-reafir. Report back on your success or failure using this method!

 

 

 

[SupaKomputa]

@AAJoe from what i recon from OP, he's using crap usb soundcard like this one:

 

i have this one too, its totally crap, i got this to replace my broken laptop soundcard.

[AAJoe]

Yeah no lie that is garbage @SupaKomputa - We use a CMedia 119b chipset in our upcoming USB with firmware settings specifically to ensure a good signal to noise ratio for the mic line. As far as we know, the only other USB device to use that same higher end chipset is the Syba CM-UAUD. We chose this after testing every single one of these cheap USBs on the market and then designing several iterations. The problem is these cheap'o cards like that one use either some mystery knock-off chipset or the bottom end Cmedia HS-100b chip, it simply doesn't provide the voltage it should to the mic. If you put a multimeter on your mic port you'll get about 2.1v out of yours when the USB port it outputting 5v.

End result is you still have to crank the gain up and with it all the line noise.