Soundcard Mic Input Problem

[Confusitron]

Okay, as I can imagine you will say, recording from the mic input sucks, but, I'm not majorly concerned with the quality of rehearsal recordings, which I actually think sound quite okay. I can't seem to get the line-in to work...

Well, anyway, for some odd reason, on the mic input, the right channel has gone to an extremely low level and I cannot seem to fix it. The left channel is fine, but the right channel is extremely quiet. I have checked all the settings I can think of to fix it, but there appears to be nothing wrong. I have a feeling it's a system related problem since I even tried it with a different soundcard and it did the same thing. Is the mic input mono and I have never known?

Can anyone assist me? I'm recording in mono as of right now.

 

[Jim Y]

Yes. Mic inputs nowadays seem to be mono. However, if you try to record to a stereo track, it should produce an equal recording on left and right.

The socket often is a TRS stereo type, but the ring connection is a low voltage (about 2.5volt) power feed for telephony headset mics with electret capsules. It does no harm to plug a mono mini jack in as the power supply should be designed to tolerate a short circuit, but if you use a stereo adapter cable, I suppose you could get strange results.

Besides all that, if you can't get the line-in to work, you probably have failed to setup the Windows record properties. You might even actually be recording off the stereo playback mix, which just happens to have mic in enabled in the playback mixer.
To find out how to get at this, just look it up in Windows help.

 

[Confusitron]

Yes. Mic inputs nowadays seem to be mono. However, if you try to record to a stereo track, it should produce an equal recording on left and right.

The socket often is a TRS stereo type, but the ring connection is a low voltage (about 2.5volt) power feed for telephony headset mics with electret capsules. It does no harm to plug a mono mini jack in as the power supply should be designed to tolerate a short circuit, but if you use a stereo adapter cable, I suppose you could get strange results.

Besides all that, if you can't get the line-in to work, you probably have failed to setup the Windows record properties. You might even actually be recording off the stereo playback mix, which just happens to have mic in enabled in the playback mixer.
To find out how to get at this, just look it up in Windows help.

Eureka! A-ha! It works! The Line-in works!

Thank you, fine sir!