Setting up microphone input

[Gary]

Audio input and output in Windows is somewhat of a maze, but makes sense after you learn your way around.  As with everything, you set something once and then forget how it's done.  This is here for both you and me

Firstly, VoiceAttack uses Windows' built-in speech recognition to do its thing.  Out of the box, the speech engine uses the default recording device to receive input.  The recording devices can be accessed by right-clicking on the, 'Speakers' icon in the system tray.  If you have the selection, 'Recording Devices' in the menu, click that and go on to the next step below.  If you have, 'Open Sound Settings', click on that instead - 'Sound Output' settings will then appear.  Click on, 'Sound Control Panel' over on the right.  Go on to the next step.

Next step -  You should see the, 'Sound' control panel app.  Go to the, 'Recording' tab.  Right-clicking on the desired microphone/headset and selecting, 'Set as default device' will do just that.  You will know your device is selected as default by the green check mark appearing over the device's icon.  This works for most, since we've usually only got one device on our machines that we primarily use.

For those that have multiple microphones/headsets/webcams, the default device is sometimes not what you want selected.  To change the recording device that the speech engine uses, just open up Control Panel and choose the Speech Recognition applet.  Click on the, 'Advanced speech options' link and then click on the button at the bottom labeled, 'Advanced...'.  This opens up the, 'Audio Input Settings' dialog.  There are two choices in this dialog: 'Use preferred audio input device' and 'Use this audio input device'.  The first choice allows you to continue to use the default input device (whatever that device might be).  Choosing, 'Use this audio device' lets you choose a specific device from the dropdown (default recording device is ignored).

Hope that helps some!

Gary


Thanks for all that have contributed on this... I can't recall immediately, but you know who you are