Windows 10: Windows 10 USB Microphone quietness + low quality (AT2020 USB)

As I mentioned there was been a change in audio codecs and how Windows handles some audio functions starting with Win 8.1.
There are many audio devices and software that work perfectly in Win 7 or Win 8 that do not work at all or partially in Win 8.1 and Win 10.

I had a Roland Edirol PCR500 MIDI Keyboard. I "had" as I had to dump it as it is not supported by Roland for Win 10. It worked fine in Win 7 and Win 8 but no Win 10 support. It is now being used by a person that remained on Win 7 due to his old hardware not being fully Win 10 compatible.

I missed the "+" in your original post. All I saw was reference to "AT2020".

Sadly, you have two options (1) replace the mic with something that is 100% Win 10 compatible or (2) Return to Win 7.
If you were to consider replacement I would suggest a "standard" microphone with XLR connection and a USB interface unit such as the Focusrite Scarlett units (Focusrite is a UK company and has superior support).

 

That's such a pity. I'm a student and I really cannot afford to replace the microphone in my current financial situation, and I'm unsure if I can roll back to Windows 7 as I bought this laptop with Windows 10 already installed onto it, and I'd feel uncomfortable rolling back and not being able to roll forward again.

 

One other comment on digitally boosting the volume. That is very common with recording studio software. I record at 24 bit 44.1Khz and usually record around -12db. -12 is a general level many use. When I get ready to finalize the tracks and mixdown I then raise the individual tracks if needed. This does not introduce any noise, distortion, etc.

My recording studio program is Cakewalk Sonar Platinum but I also have Presonus Studio One 3 and a lite version of Ableton Live 9 and they all work perfectly with the recording level and increasing levels as needed.

 

The best result I had was recording at roughly the same db. I guess I'm just going to have to deal with this until I can afford another microphone, though ideally I'd like to have another USB one - I was looking at the Rode NT-USB.

 

See if a Worship Arts minister at a local church is willing to barter or buy for trade with one that will work. Even someone that is a music major may buy it off of you.

The other thing I was thinking was if it can work with say the Raspberry Pi 3 or another Small Board Computer running Linux Mate or Raspbian, it may work okay for that if you are just doing audio recordings.

 

So some information surfaced about a very possible fix for this problem, but I'm really not that experienced in the way to do it. The fix is disabling Cortana in its entirety on Windows 10. Now this has been made much harder in Windows 10 anniversary update, though it can still be done through the Group Policy Editor and the Registry.

Now I am aware that the Group Policy Editor is only available for Windows 10 Pro, and the irritating thing is, the person who has fixed the exact problem I have uses Windows 10 pro. I have Windows 10 home. Now as I said before, there are 2 ways of doing it that I am aware of. I have attempted the registry edit for disabling it - which successfully disabled Cortana - but didn't fix my problem in the slightest.

Any help on a way I could do this in Windows 10 Home?

 

I have Pro so I can't help you with that (if it really is a fix). This would be best handled as a new thread since its about a system tweak and not directly about the microphone.

 

This is mostly incorrect. The correct way to adjust the gain of these USB microphones is to adjust the slider in the Microphone Properties → Levels tab. In most mics, this adjusts the PGA inside the mic to get best signal-to-noise ratio (which is like a real zoom motor, not a digital zoom) increasing the signal with minimal increase in noise. You always want to adjust the first stage in the signal chain for best SNR, and this slider controls it. If there's a "boost" slider, then you should increase that first, as it's probably earlier in the signal chain.

The only exception is mics that don't expose input gain controls (typically because there's a hardware knob for it). In that case, Windows 7 and later adds a "digital zoom" volume control that goes from -192 dB to +30 dB, which does increase the noise along with the signal, as you said. Unfortunately, this control is visibly indistinguishable from a real gain control.

If your slider goes from -192 dB to +30 dB, then it's probably the noisy digital gain and you should set it to 0 dB (= "do nothing") to get best dynamic range (and use the physical knob on the product to set the gain instead). In Windows 7 this defaults to +30 dB and creates lots of noise. In Windows 8 and 10 it defaults to 0 dB and has a different range.

If your slider has a different range than this, then it's probably controlling the mic's PGA, and adjusting that slider until you have a good level will give you the best dynamic range.

You should always view the level in dB, since this will function the same way from Windows 7 to Windows 10 to OS X to Android to Ubuntu to whatever. The dB level is what the USB protocol actually uses. The percentage Windows shows by default is meaningless, which has caused a lot of confusion since Windows 8 changed the relationship between percent and dB.

 

In what way do you think that the Windows 7 version is better? The Windows 7 version has obviously worse background noise than the Windows 10 version, but otherwise it sounds identical. Are you hearing another obvious difference between these?

The Windows 7 mp3 is stereo while the Windows 10 is mono, though it looks like both channels carry the same signal, so that shouldn't make any difference.

The Windows 7 version is cut off above 16.5 kHz while the Windows 10 version goes up to 20 kHz, but that could just be from mp3 encoding. WAV or FLAC files recorded at the same bit depth and sample rate (make sure they're the same in both Windows preferences and the audio recording app) would allow for a fair comparison.