Disable Microphone Auto Adjustment

[beizs]

My microphone is a USB Blue Spark. The mic itself has gain controls, and in Windows (10), it needs to be set to 50% or less, otherwise it starts to clip like crazy (50% is essentially baseline, below reduces volume artificially, above artificially increases it).

Teams 'helpfully' automatically adjusts my volume. To 100%. Blowing my mic out, and making it utterly unusable. As far as I can tell, there is no way to disable this in the UI. Again, I'm on Windows 10 Pro, and I've disabled applications taking exclusive control in the microphone settings. This setting honestly does not seem to do anything at all in Windows 10, but that's a different story.

First, Teams absolutely needs the ability to disable auto-adjustment. It's utterly basic functionality which is necessary for anybody with a real mic.

But, in the meantime, is there any way I can disable auto-adjustment via a registry change?

Thanks.

[#2]

@beizs 

I found a fix for my system

under sound settings > Microphone Properties > Advanced Tab uncheck the "Allow Application to take exclusive control of this device"

mbaker-wv

[#3]

@mbaker-wv 

Incorrect. Exclusive access setting is *ignored*.

Let me explain the problematic behavior and how it happens.

Mic volume stays as it is, but as soon as you open the menu Device Settings to select Mic and Speaker, then it is active and stays active, the Mic volume auto adjust.

So if you plan to never touch Mic and Speaker selection, *never open* device settings menu, and you are good, however, if you need to check or switch, then it will happen.

Only workaround that prevents Teams from auto adjust volume (if I need to change device settings)  is to install vb cable (but then there is a delay because of listen to device) or to install voicemeeter (virtual mixer, currently using this as solution)

[#4]

@NilsReichert  Thank you! This is the exact issue I have been seeing for one of our users.  I thought I had fixed it, but just received an email stating it is doing the same thing.  If anyone has a real fix for this problem that would be ideal.

[#5]

@beizs 

I also have this issue.  Hoping for a patch soon.

I'll try the v. audio cable software in the meantime.

[#6]

This worked for me, thanks!

[#7]

This is a ridiculous and infuriating feature that is badly broken.  My mic gets louder and louder until you can hear my finger moving over my trackpad.  

[#8]

@mbaker-wv Settings in the app?  Settings in Windows?  Settings in macOS?  

There is no "Microphone Properties" in either Windows 10 Settings or in the Teams application. I don't have my Macbook with me at the moment.  

[#9]

@chornsec 

This solved my issue on the new Mac Mini M1 and a USB mic.  You're a life saver!

[#10]

There is a simple fix to this. Nircmd will allow you to set the volume every 0.5 s.

nircmd setsysvolume 65535 default_record
nircmd loop 172800 500 setsysvolume 62000 default_record

[#11]

@Michael Troelsen That's a dirty hack at best, definitely not a fix

[#12]

@Richard Hauer I agree it's a hack. The only fix is for Microsoft to create a flag so you can disable AGC from teams. Until they do this will enable you to use a microphone like blue yeti X without AGC messing up the sound.

[#13]

@beizs I have had the same issue and found the 'virtual audio cable' is a solution. I did not like however that my Mic was 'hot' (on) all the time with 'virtual audio cable' and the need to configure additional driver settings.

I have since switched to 'NVIDIA Broadcast' instead of virtual audio cable. With NVIDIA Broadcast there is no audio configuration mapping to do, just select your (Rhode) Mic in NVIDIA Broadcast and in MS Teams choose 'Microphone (NVIDIA Broadcast)'.

You will need a supported NVIDIA card to use the software. There are also some great audio and camera features in this application for streaming and conferencing too. 

[#14]

@beizs 

Another option I found in the comment section somewhere was using NirSoft's nircmd (NirCmd - Windows command line tool (nirsoft.net)) and having it adjust the default recording device volume frequently.  Here's my script example:

nircmd.exe setsysvolume 36000 default_record
nircmd.exe loop 172800 250 setsysvolume 36000 default_record

[#15]

I struggled with this for years. The mac work-around was flawless. The one on PC with virtual cable never worked for me. Today, I noticed on PC that there is actually a setting to disable the mic auto adjust in Teams! It's about time and I wonder why this isn't more public info.

Settings -> Devices -> Automatically adjust mic sensitivity (disable)

[#16]

This should be fixed in the latest version of teams 1.4.00.16575 with the introduction of automatically adjust mic sensitivity.

[#17]

This is really annoying

[#18]

Agreed. And it should not auto-adjust through system properties for sound either, it should process + adjust within the program itself.

I've set up my studio microphone to have an exact range just below the 0dB mark (carefully set up with Audacity and the replay gain plugins), which Teams interprets as "let's turn that way down on a system-wide level". Which also affects the mic being used in other meeting software (yes, Teams is not the only one..) and in the streams I host. So I'm glad that the option is finally in the UI, not so glad that if actually would want to use it, it affects volume system-wide instead of only the Teams-application.

@Seonglae 

[#19]

Up vote this thread please https://feedbackportal.microsoft.com/feedback/idea/b608d802-272e-ec11-b6e6-00224827bbc2#comments

[#20]

It looks like this has been solved.
Going to Settings->Devices
there's a slider: "Automatically adjust mic sensitivity"

This can be turned off and this seems to have fixed my issue with my Yeti Nano. No more vb-audio needed!

[#21]

@chornsec, thanks for the workaround! I was tempted to name my aggregate device something like "MicrosoftSucks". Such rude behavior by MS apps to raise the user's volume automatically, and actually could cause hearing loss! Skype and Teams were automatically doubling my system volume every time I started a call. Microsoft's far-too-common blatant disregard for user needs makes me avoid MS apps whenever possible.