# Setting your microphone level in Windows

Where the input volume and Microphone Boost sliders live, what to set them to, and why boost can make things worse

Your microphone level is a Windows setting, not a Blabb one. Blabb records whatever Windows hands
it, so if you are coming through too quietly this is where you fix it — and Blabb cannot change it
for you.

## The Volume slider in Settings

This is the one most people need, and it is the easier of the two places.

1. Open **Settings → System → Sound**.
2. Under **Input**, click your microphone.
3. On the **Device properties** page, find **Volume** and drag it.

Set it near 100 to start with. This is not a speaker volume, so there is nothing to be gained by
leaving yourself headroom: a signal that arrives too faint costs you accuracy far more often than
one that is a little hot.

While you are on that page, speak and watch the level meter move. If it barely twitches with the
slider at 100, the microphone is either too far away or the wrong device is selected. Go back to
[choosing and placing your microphone](/docs/accuracy/microphone-setup/) before touching anything
else.

## The Levels tab, and Microphone Boost

Some devices have a second, separate gain control that the Settings app does not show. It lives in
the classic Sound control panel:

1. Press `Windows` + `R`.
2. Type `mmsys.cpl` and press Enter.
3. Go to the **Recording** tab.
4. Right-click your microphone, choose **Properties**, then the **Levels** tab.

You get two sliders there: **Microphone**, which is the same gain as the Volume slider in Settings,
and **Microphone Boost**, which is extra amplification applied in the driver.

Start with **Microphone** near 100 and **Microphone Boost** at 0. Only if you are still too quiet,
raise boost by +10 dB, try a dictation, and stop as soon as you are loud enough. Boost is a blunt
instrument: it amplifies the room along with your voice, so +30 dB on a laptop turns the fan and
the air conditioning into something the speech model has to listen through.

> [!NOTE]
> **Microphone Boost** comes from the sound driver, not from Windows itself, so plenty of devices
> do not have it at all. If the Levels tab shows only one slider, there is nothing wrong — your
> device does not offer boost, and the Volume slider is your only gain control.

## Windows boost and Blabb's own gain control

Blabb has **Automatic gain control** in **Settings → Voice input**, on by default. The app
describes it as "Evens out loud and quiet speech. Turn off if you notice stray words." It works
differently from boost: it reads your voice at the start of a stretch of speech, works out one gain
from that, and holds it for the rest of that stretch. Anything too quiet to be speech cannot set
the gain at all.

That matters for how the two stack. Driver boost chases whatever it is given, so it lifts the room
noise in your silences towards your speaking level. Blabb's gain does not chase the noise floor —
but a gain chosen for a quiet voice is still applied to everything in that stretch, room noise
included. Pile heavy boost underneath and you can end up with a stray word appearing in a gap where
you said nothing.

If that is happening to you, turn one of them down. Which one depends on where you are:

| What you notice | What to change |
| --- | --- |
| Stray words in the gaps, and Microphone Boost is above 0 | Lower the boost first — it amplifies the room hardest |
| Stray words, and there is no boost to lower | Turn **Automatic gain control** off in Settings → Voice input |
| Still too quiet everywhere, at 100 with no boost | The microphone is too far away, not too quiet — move it closer |

Change one thing at a time, and do a real dictation between changes. Two adjustments at once tells
you nothing about which one helped.

## When it is not the level at all

If Blabb hears nothing whatsoever, the level is a red herring — Windows is more likely blocking
access to the microphone entirely. That has its own symptom and its own fix: see
[Microphone blocked](/docs/common-issues/microphone-blocked/).

For the general Windows-side problems — a device that does not appear, a driver that stopped
working, an app that has been denied access — Microsoft's own walkthrough is more thorough than
anything worth repeating here:
[Fix microphone problems](https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/fix-microphone-problems-5f230348-106d-bfa4-1db5-336f35576011).

## See also

- [Voice input settings](/docs/configuration/voice-input/) — Automatic gain control and device
  selection.
- [Choosing and placing your microphone](/docs/accuracy/microphone-setup/) — worth more than any
  level.
- [Microphone blocked](/docs/common-issues/microphone-blocked/) — when Windows is refusing access.