I was about to suggest microphone preamp, but I guess it's cheaper to buy DAC with good recording capability, like Behringer UCA-202 or 222.

DracoNihil wrote:

I cannot afford those fancy USB microphones nor do I know of their proper support under Linux. Is there any way I can amplify\power these 3.5mm microphones so it actually picks up audio without amplifying the noise on the line itself?

What distro are you running? I've had mixed results with various linux distros and their audio mixers. Maybe a trip to your distro's support forum will pay bigger dividends.

Have you tried using noise removal in audacity. Was pretty good in cleaning up some of my noisy recordings. Not the same noise problem, but it might help.

could you upload a sample?

Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman wrote:

I was about to suggest microphone preamp, but I guess it's cheaper to buy DAC with good recording capability, like Behringer UCA-202 or 222.

I looked those up, they need RCA connectors? I don't have a splitter cable...

clueless1 wrote:

What distro are you running? I've had mixed results with various linux distros and their audio mixers. Maybe a trip to your distro's support forum will pay bigger dividends.

Linux Mint, but it's no different than any distro with a ALSA+PulseAudio mixture. I honestly think it's a flaw with my integrated audio as I had this same problem under Windows 7. Last time I asked for help about something there I got zero responses despite bumping multiple times, THEN their webserver got hacked.

So... yeah.

ratfink wrote:

Have you tried using noise removal in audacity. Was pretty good in cleaning up some of my noisy recordings. Not the same noise problem, but it might help.

It ends up butchering the actual audio, the noise is too great. I sound very muffled over Skype, Teamspeak, Mumble, anything with a "noise cancellation" filter built in.

mrau wrote:

could you upload a sample?

Here's what it sounds like at base level: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/45822870/ … thoutBoost.flac
Here's what it sounds like at maximum gain + maximum "Microphone Boost": https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/45822870/WithBoosts.flac

Note how the noise is amplified and overpowers most of the audio, and how the audio itself is more high frequencies than low.

this sounds wrong, how did you record this? and btw whats the soundtrack? it kicks ass
does you mic fit the specifications of your microphone input? did you follow the manufacturers instruction on how to record? (sometimes you have to trigger/disable other functions of the sound system to record with good quality; you do use the mic input, not the line in, right?

Yeah I use the pink jack, which according to standard (plus the obvious pictogram next to the jack itself) is the microphone jack. I want to keep the jack itself to base level gain (as in 0.0db as reported by alsamixer). This is the usual cheap 3.5mm microphones you find everyday, I used to have one way back when I had a PC with a Sound Blaster Pro 2.0 and Windows 3.11 prior to it getting updated to Windows 95. It pretty much always been the case that the microphone is just not powerful enough to pickup anything so I need to somehow boost it's gain without boosting the gain of the audio controller itself.

The music is from Unreal: Return to Na Pali, filename K-DIRT.XM, Dirt by Khyron. It's used for when the UMS Space Marines come to kill you after activating the systems on the UMS Bodega Bay. It's played out of a speaker put right into the microphone itself on high volume.

if you have accessto windows i'd try there, the driver tools let you see if that jack indeed is set to mic (they are almost always configurable); if youre on linux - the jacks almost ceratinly did get messed up (i have this with every computer), just try another to see if it gets better, also just reinserting the jack could trigger sth with HDA (happened to me);

Is there a verbose reason behind why my jacks would get messed up? Do I need to mess with HDARejack? Is there anything I can do to probe what is what to see how things are operating? Because in alsamixer it says the recording input is set to "Mic" and the pink jack is connected just fine, it's just incredibly underpowered.

i cant answer that, but i had my problems with HDA as well until i started trying all of them; - this is true for linux, not for windows;

Well replugging didn't do anything and putting this into Line-In (the pale blue connector) was a bad idea.

So I'm left with no choice but I need some way of powering this microphone.

If you want to record without any background noise (hum/hiss/pops/electronic interference), using an internal audio input (line-in/mic on the motherboard/sound card) is fruitless. You'll need an external audio interface device to record a signal as cleanly as possible.

Yeah, I know I need a external device of some sort but there doesn't seem to be a cheap amp\pre amp whatever I can get to boost the microphones power to something audible. When I keep my jack's line level at 0.00 dB the noise isn't noticeable. I just need some way of increasing the microphones gain going TO the jack and everything will work out.

Unless I'm really stupid and that's not physically possible.

http://www.thomann.de/gb/superlux_e205u.htm 43 euro for a USB condenser mic with good ratings is too much?

I found that the mic input quality of PC sound cards can vary greatly. If you have an Audigy 2 or something like that, they are much better.

A Sound Blaster Play! also works great, but then you might as well buy a new microphone.

You could turn on the noise removal of the on-board sound card, most realtek chips have this option. It will sound a bit muffled, but reduce the noise.

If you go with a condenser mic, you also need a stand, shock mount and pop filter, so it will cost more than just the mic.

Realtek implements noise cancellation in software on Windows drivers I'm afraid, so I have no such option to turn to other than what's built into Teamspeak, Skype and such.

Also I have hardly any income, I'm trying to get myself on welfare of some sort since I struggle trying to maintain even a part time job due to my mental conditions I'm currently getting therapy and medications for. I'm not in a really great situation so I try whatever I can to stay positive. Since I want to get back into talking with friends via VoIP and also streaming on Twitch.tv I need someway to make this microphone I was given as a gift work well, and honestly the only thing that comes to mind is somehow amplifying it's signal going to the integrated card. It's starting to look like this is impossible.

Can you use Windows? Setup a dual boot system if you like. That should get the noise removal going on the realtek.

I cannot, I don't have a windows ISO, I don't have a key, I don't even want to go back to windows ontop of that. The reason I moved to linux was to avoid having to resort to shady hacks to continue using Windows 7. My SSD is partitioned weirdly because I wasn't paying attention to Mint's installer and I rather not mess with trying to resize this strange setup to fit a Windows 7 system just to do one single thing on it.

I guess I'm screwed until I manage to save enough money to get a microphone from Blue or some such.

Windows 10 evaluation is free and legit for 60 days.