MacOS – Mac OSX microphone input volume level auto-adjusts – can it be disabled

audiomacosmicrophonesound-volume

I've found this issue and various discussions online about this, but no obvious "just do this", so I'm wandering over here from ServerFault to ask this.

Is there a way to disable or hard-set the input level on a mic? In the Sound preferences on the Input tab if I click on the device and set a level and then start talking it picks up the sound and then start to auto-adjust the mic input level.

This causes issues when talking with someone on Lync/Skype/etc because one minute the sound is fine and then if you raise your voice for a second and then lower it back down (or shift around in your chair) the auto-adjust causes the other party to think your whispering or yelling.

I'd like to be able to disable the auto-adjust if possible. Yes/No?

NOTE: The issue is similar this one: iMac OSX 10.8.4 Volume adjusts by itself but rather on the input side and not the output side for me.

Best Answer

You can set it via the command line:

osascript -e "set volume input volume 100"

I have found that OSX Polycom RealPresence Desktop has a similar annoying "feature" that adjusts the mic input volume down, but never back up. My workaround is to have this line in my crontab:

# Check every minute for mic input < 100%; if it is, dial it up elegantly
* * * * * while (( `osascript -e "input volume of (get volume settings)"` < 100 )); do osascript -e "set volume input volume (input volume of (get volume settings) + 3)"; sleep 0.1; done;

The loops just makes the slider "slide" up over a second or so, rather then a hard volume jump.

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