Microphone quality is much worse on skype than when i do a voice recording

LukeIves

So I bought a blue snowball about 9 months back and I have only noticed now that when I do a mic test on skype it sounds like a really cheap $2 mic, but when I use voice recording which is implemented with windows, it sounds like my high-quality blue snowball.I am using the blue snowball for skype and I checked, but I'm not sure what the problem is. If anyone could help I would really appreciate it!

Dmitry

LukeIves This is a very weird problem, @LukeIves! All I could think of is maybe when you do a test on Skype it doesn't recognize your expensive mic and uses a built-in mic instead?

Or perhaps it's a bug that appears only during tests. Have you tried any other software similar to Skype to see if it works in there? Maybe it's something related to the Internet connection and the Skype somehow messes up the quality of audio because it can't handle it.

I'm just taking wild guesses here, to be honest. I think the easiest route would be to contact the mic manufacturer and Skype. ?

fabiomcaldas

LukeIves I think that it is probably the compression that all voice/video call services make in order to function properly. For more on Skype audio codec refer to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SILK

FMC

PerezMongardRichard

I have tested Skype with both a quality headset/mike and an ordinary Webcam mike (maybe not to ordinary - Logitech HD 1080p), and quality was quite acceptable. Both my counterpart and I found no very noticeable difference, and I didn't notice any noticeable difference with Skype when recording with Windows' Voice Recorder or Camera. Maybe you should try to uninstall and reinstall your mike, check the settings, verify if there is any setting below Skype's requirements (there should be a minimum setup somewhere required by Skype). Is your mike compatible with your Windows OS (if you are still using XP, you might find some strange things happening, specially not being able to update things like Java). I adhere to Dmitry's suggestion, ask Skype for help, they might be able to pinpoint the problem on-the-run.