How to Adjust Microphone Sensitivity on Android, iOS, Mac and Windows

If your microphone is not cooperating, it may be because the sensitivity of the microphone or the noise cancellation needs to be adjusted.

In this article, TipsMake will show you how to adjust microphone sensitivity and enable noise cancellation on your Android, iOS, Mac or Windows device.

What is microphone sensitivity? Why change it?

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Noise cancellation filters out unwanted sounds. This includes noise around you, like a dog barking in the next room or moving traffic outside your office. Finally, noise cancellation also tries to eliminate the noise of the computer's inner workings.

External mics can improve filtering even further. They also often provide higher quality recordings than internal microphones. You should use a high-quality external microphone whenever possible.

Microphone sensitivity refers to how a microphone amplifies gentle sounds into loud sounds. When the microphone is too sensitive, the microphone will pick up very small sounds like your breathing or the hum of your computer and put them into an audio file. It also over-amplifies louder sounds, such as your voice, making them too loud for the speakers to play clearly.

When the microphone is not sensitive enough, the microphone will not catch small sounds. Unless you have a very weak voice or need to record very small sounds, chances are your sensitivity is usually too high instead of too low.

Microphone sensitivity is determined by many factors, including Audio Gain , which is the conversion of sound into an electronic signal that the speaker can understand. Pre-amplification , which protects and enhances these signals, also plays an important role.

Adjust microphone settings on Android

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Android devices don't have a built-in option to adjust microphone sensitivity or cancel noise. Bixby, the virtual assistant that handles dictation on Samsung phones, doesn't have these options either. But you can still use an app.

Many microphone and microphone booster apps are available on the app store. Some of them can even connect to an external microphone, allowing you to improve your sound quality even further.

However, for the internal microphone, the article recommends using Microphone Amplifier. This app adjusts your phone's microphone settings using a slider control.

Step 1. Download Microphone Amplifier here.

Step 2. Open Microphone Amplifier , grant access to microphone and memory.

Step 3. Skip the Presets menu and continue to the main screen.

Step 4. Move the Audio Gain slider from 2-10 points to the right to make the microphone more sensitive.

Step 5. Move the Input Filter slider from 2-10 points to the right to improve noise reduction.

Step 6. Press the power button in the bottom center to activate the amplifier.

Step 7. Click the bottom right REC button to create a test recording.

Step 8. Access Records from the homepage. Adjust the settings until your voice is clear.

Adjust microphone settings on iPhone

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To adjust the sensitivity of the microphone inside your iPhone, simply use the volume buttons. Microphone sensitivity is adjusted along with speaker volume, so increasing the phone's volume will also increase microphone sensitivity.

For noise cancellation, you need to find your iPhone's Accessibility menu.

1. Go to Settings > Accessibility > Audio/Visual > Phone Noise Cancellation and change the slider to the "On" position.

Adjusting the sensitivity of the AirPods microphone is a bit different because they also have an internal microphone.

1. Go to Settings > Bluetooth and tap the blue "i" next to AirPods on "My Devices".
2. Under Press and Hold AirPods , make sure that Noise Control is selected.

If you set the microphone to Always Left or Always Right , AirPods will record sound from the selected side, even when it's removed from your ears. That way, you can keep the microphone in your hand, avoiding noise from things like hair or earrings.

Of course, if you don't have AirPods, the regular EarPods also have an internal mic.

Adjust microphone settings in Windows

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To change the sensitivity of the microphone in Windows, you will have to go into the device settings for your microphone.

1. Go to Settings > System > Sound .
2. In the Input section, make sure you have the microphone selected, then click Device Properties.
3. Select Additional device properties.
4. In the Levels tab , increase or decrease the Microphone (sensitivity) section.

Close the device properties window and say try something. Check your voice playback microphone results. Increase or decrease the microphone level as needed until the microphone can play back your voice clearly.

Adjusting Microphone Boost makes it harder for the microphone to filter out background sounds, so avoid turning it on unless the microphone volume is already at 100 and still won't pick up your sound.

As always, you can improve the sound quality even further by switching to an external microphone. Even an inexpensive external mic is often better than the built-in mic on a laptop. But if you don't have an external mic available, you can also try using your smartphone as a microphone for your Windows computer.

Adjust microphone settings on Mac

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You can increase microphone sensitivity by adjusting your Mac's audio settings.

Go to System Preferences > Sound > Input and use the slider to adjust the gain (sensitivity) of the microphone.

You can also enable noise cancellation using the Ambient Noise Reduction switch in the same menu. With these settings adjusted, it's easier to use your Mac's great dictation feature.

Lesley Montoya

Update 15 June 2022