volume issues

[arjepsen]

I bought voice attack recently, and have been using it with edcopilot.
I run my mic (shure sm57) into an audio interface, which passes it through an analog out to the mic input of my pc.

Today I moved the mic, since it was picking up too much noise from the keyboard.
In the process I must have done something wrong, because now I hardly get any input into voice attack.
In windows, when I go to additional microphone properties, and enables "Listen to this device" - the sound is perfectly clear - I can pretty much hear a mouse fart next door...) :-)
I also tried using the mic in the program audacity, and I can see the volume is close to overdriving...

So what have I done wrong, since voice attack seems to almost get no signal?
I have tried going to settings (wrench) -> recognition -> utilities -> microphone setup -> other and choosing next until the volume control is shown. Here it is the same thing - almost no signal.

[Pfeil]

Have you checked to make sure VoiceAttack is configured to use the intended device?

E.G. is the "Windows Speech Recording Device" option on the "Recognition" tab of the VoiceAttack options window set to that device (or the "Default - "-prefixed device, if you want to use the Windows default multimedia recording device)?

[arjepsen]

Thanks for the answer :-)

Yes it's set up for system default.
If I tap on the microphone, I can see voice attack is registering it.
It seems that the audio level that voice attack receives is much lower than what the "normal" system volume is - as per my test with audacity. The input volume seems quite high generally - borderline clipping, so I don't quite understand why it seems that voice attack gets so much lower input.

[Pfeil]

Click the wrench icon on VoiceAttack's main window, and on the "General" tab of the VoiceAttack options window click "System info >", choose "Generate Settings Summary", then "Write to File"; Save the file and upload it here (attach it to a post).

[arjepsen]

ok, here you go.

[Pfeil]

That all looks in order (the majority being defaults anyway).


This issue is quite unusual, as the Microsoft SAPI speech recognition system doesn't have any volume controls, or methods for attenuating the volume.
There is no logical explanation as to why the input volume should differ between other applications and the speech recognition system, that I can think of.

The microphone setup wizard is also part of the Microsoft SAPI speech recognition system, so in that sense it does track that it would exhibit the same issue.


Something you can try, just in case, as it has helped with bizarre issues in the past, is to create a new speech recognition profile, and see if that makes any difference.

[arjepsen]

Hmm... not really.
In the bottom of the speech properties dialog where I can make a new profile, in the bottom, is a microphone part (with audio input, advanced, and configure microphone button.
When I speak in the microphone here, I dont see any level indication. If I tap the microphone (in the way I alsways tell my singing students they should never do) I do see some indication - but nothing when I just speak. So this indicates an input level that is too low.
But if I click the audio input button, go to the recording tab, and look at the level indicator of the microphone when I speak, it clearly peaks when I just raise my voice slightly over normal speaking.

I suspect the issue could be with the windows speech recognition - it seems that windows generally receives a fine full signal, but somehow the speech recognition gets a much lower signal.