Adjusting gain on USB mics in Windows 10

[ayryq]

I'm relatively new to Voicemeeter and this is my first post on the forum, so apologies if this is obvious or has been covered. Every search term I tried was rejected as "too common."

I'm looking for a better way to manage the gain for USB microphones. As far as I can tell, the faders on inputs in Voicemeeter have no relation to the gain controls available through the windows settings. I have three USB microphones (four if you count a webcam) which I use for different purposes. A dynamic mic is set up for recording the very high SPL at the end of a trumpet bell, whereas a condenser mic is for recording conversational voice at two feet.

The dynamic mic overdrives if the windows gain is set too high, but the gain in voicemeeter has no effect on this—it just overdrives at a lower volume. Turning down the windows input volume actually reduces the sensitivity of the mic, so I don't have the red light blinking all the time. None of my mics has a physical gain control.

My question is, is there a way to make the faders in Voicemeeter control the "actual" sensitivity of an input, i.e. the same as the windows control panel does?
And a follow-up question if the answer is "no," has anyone uncovered an easier way to access the controls in windows? My procedure now is: Right click on speaker system tray icon, Open Sound Settings, choose the input device I need, click Device properties, adjust Volume slider, click the back button, put the input device back to Voicemeeter. A cumbersome process! Alternatively and not much better is to use the old Sound control panel window's Recording tab, which at least lets me access a device's gain without changing the default Windows input.

Thanks in advance for any help, advice, or commiseration.

Best,
Eric

[Andres]

Hi. Welcome to the forums.

My question is, is there a way to make the faders in Voicemeeter control the "actual" sensitivity of an input, i.e. the same as the windows control panel does?

No; the fader function is limited to set the gain of the signal after it is captured by Voicemeeter from the selected input device.

And a follow-up question if the answer is "no," has anyone uncovered an easier way to access the controls in windows?

Some people use NirSoft SoundVolumeView https://www.nirsoft.net/utils/sound_volume_view.html

Hope this helps.

[ayryq]

Yes, that's helpful. Wow, that's quite a program. I'd have some feature requests for them! My system shows 72 "items" right now and no way to filter or sort by multiple columns. Still, it's one click and scroll to adjust any given input. Plus I bet I could get them to respond to VM's macros with the ability to control via command line.

Thanks for pointing me that direction,
Eric