What Is Mic Monitoring and How To Use It on Windows, MAC or Xbox

If you’re a hardcore gamer, you might face an issue of people shouting in the mic or talking too loudly into a microphone. This is very irritating during gaming that’s why you should try mic monitoring. Now, you might be thinking about what is mic monitoring? Well, we’ve written this article to guide you about mic monitoring.

You might feel this jarring noise uncomfortable and irritating. Most of us don’t even know how loud we’re speaking during gameplay until someone points us out to stay calm. Especially in tough gameplays like combat modes our voice automatically goes louder. Some gamers shout when excited or speak louder than usual because their ears are covered by headphones, making it difficult to hear themselves.

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Listeners might experience discomfort or even damage their eardrums as a result. But mic monitoring can quickly fix the problem.

What is mic monitoring, how does it work, and how it can improve your gaming?

Many types of wireless headphones are introduced yet. Some wireless gaming headphones come with an attached mic that enables you to do voice chats with your teammates during gameplay. Mic monitoring is instrumental in gaming or any situation where a headset is used for communication.

That is when mic monitoring is significant. Mic monitoring allows anyone to hear their voice through headphones while speaking into their microphone. This feature is available on many modern headphones.

Additionally, it is generally more comfortable for both speaker and listener.

It’s great for the speaker, primarily when used with noise-isolating or noise-canceling headphones.

But how exactly does mic monitoring help?

The introduction of mic monitoring created a collective sigh of relief among gamers. The feature allowed users to hear their voices, making the entire experience more enjoyable.

Mic monitoring is really useful If you want to know how your voice is delivered to other players and the voice pitch, how loud you’re speaking etc. If everyone uses mic monitoring then this will not be an issue anymore because you can control your voice.

We’ve done our research on this topic what is mic monitoring and we found it really beneficial so we decided to share this most underrated feature with everyone.

No matter what platform you’re using right now, you can take full advantage of the mic monitoring feature. This feature is available on almost all platforms including Windows, Xbox One, or PS4.

Let’s have a look at all the great benefits of mic monitoring to prevent chaotic communication always. Scroll down to learn more!

What Is Mic Monitoring?

Basically, If we sum up the overall mic monitoring in one sentence then we can say It allows you to hear yourself.

Gaming users who frequently communicate in chaotic channels may benefit from this feature. Additionally, it is excellent for people who have to deal with frequent conference calls at work.

But mic monitoring isn’t just for people like these. Moreover, it is helpful to those who are calling their friends and family and their loved ones.

Using Mic Monitoring is as simple as hearing your voice when you speak - yes, it’s that simple.

When you speak, the microphone transmits your voice to the speakers so that you can hear your voice. In this way, you can catch your mistakes and correct them immediately. Most gaming headsets come with mic monitoring, which is standard on PCs.

Benefits of Mic Monitoring

Mic monitoring provides a variety of benefits. It’s one thing to know if the microphone is working or not, and it’s another to know if the other person can hear you. The benefit of listening to yourself is to control your voice tone. If you’re speaking too loudly, you can reduce it for your listeners.

Mic monitoring enhances the gaming experience and helps headphone wearers know how loud they speak. Due to this, they talk less loudly than those without microphones. Microphones can’t control your voice volume because they don’t have such adjustment controllers that make your sound better.

Using a microphone while wearing headphones makes communication much more effective and helps users be aware of mistakes, tone, and volume. People who prefer not to use it can turn it off.

Latest wireless headphones and especially gaming headphones come with built-in microphones that are really helpful for gamers. For example, you can use your mobile phone’s microphone to talk to and hear someone on the other end of the line with wireless headphones.

These headsets, or devices compatible with them, may or may not include microphone monitoring by default. We hope that now you have a basic idea about what is mic monitoring and how it works. Now, we’ll talk about how to enable it on various platforms such as Windows, Xbox, and PlayStation. Let’s take a look at why mic monitoring is becoming popular among gamers and what’s the importance of a mic monitoring.

What’s The Importance of Mic Monitoring?

Mic monitoring has been around for many years. Nevertheless, many people aren’t familiar with how to use it. Most of us don’t even know what is mic monitoring? What’s that and how It is useful for gaming?

Gamers mainly use this feature, and many gaming brands have developed products that use this feature. As mentioned earlier, it can also be helpful for others if appropriately applied.

Whether gaming or working, producing clear audio is essential, when it comes to balancing out sounds and voices, mic monitoring is also beneficial.

Mic Monitoring excels in this situation, as it balances out the sounds, whether the background sound or when a voice is raised, so as not to overly peak, distort, and annoy most people. The same applies if you are too quiet. Mic Monitoring will balance your voice out. As a result, it sounds as if you’re speaking in a normal tone of voice without having to raise your voice or shout.

When you’re using a headset, you want to make sure that the communication you’re making is clear, and you also don’t want to make your voice too loud for others.

In the same, ensure that people can hear what you are saying without having to raise their voices. Mic monitoring becomes so valuable in these situations because it allows you to listen to what other people will hear from you in detail.

You can adjust the volume of your microphone based on the volume you hear through your headset. You can lower the volume of your voice is too loud and increase it if your voice is too quiet. Everyone will enjoy a better experience if the volume is set at the proper level.

Furthermore, you can also conduct real-time troubleshooting with a mic monitoring headset. In this case, you will be able to hear if the microphone has a problem or if it has picked up too much background noise. Knowing the problem makes finding a solution much more manageable.

Providing Real-Time Troubleshooting

It is imperative to have clear audio when working or gaming. You would not want to request your audio clarity in a client meeting constantly.

Especially for gamers, few single commands can define a life and death moment during gameplay. You wouldn’t have the time to inquire whether your teammates heard it.

Mic Monitoring is an excellent solution in these two scenarios. Due to this, you can quickly tell when you are cutting off or if there is too much noise.

This way, you could identify the problem in real-time. If necessary, you could take action without being prompted. Sounds pretty handy, doesn’t it?

The fastest way to fix intermittent audio is to repeat what you said right away.

Speak Softly and Quietly

Let’s be honest: shouting or raising your voice to be heard is exhausting and frustrating.

There would not be a problem if you only monitored your voice to determine if you were loud enough. You can do this with mic monitoring.

Loud game music and noise-canceling headphones are now more likely to cause us to raise our voices unnecessarily.

FPS (First Person Shooting) games often have a lot of background noise. When this happens, it can seriously drown the team’s voice channel. Consequently, people raise their voices to compensate.

Mic Monitoring makes it easy to determine if you are speaking loudly enough. As a result, constant shouting is eliminated.

Improved communication among team

The Mic Monitoring feature is simply a better way to communicate. Whether deliberate or not, shouting in a game or meeting is not pleasant.

You wouldn’t want to be the guy with loud audio at a client pitch. Shouting can also cause gamers excessive stress. In some cases, it can lead to internal conflict. You wouldn’t want to be that person.

Mic Monitoring allows you to hear the overall quality of your audio. Mic Monitoring will enable you to adjust accordingly immediately.

Is there a good time for mic monitoring?

Game Playing

Mic Monitoring allows you to listen to what’s happening in the game while you’re talking. You’re less likely to be distracted by your competition by doing so. You should use it, primarily if your class relies heavily on communication.

Any game mode can utilize Mic Monitoring, whether casual or competitive. In Team Deathmatches or Squad Deathmatches, it’s probably most useful. It can be easy to forget to call out something or miss a vital callout with all of the action happening and keeping track of your surroundings.

Meetings by Conference Call

Using Mic Monitoring, you can monitor the volume of your microphone and background noise. With this feature, you can listen to yourself more accurately and easily catch mistakes or adjust your volume.

Mic Monitoring is useful in business settings. It would be best if you heard yourself whether you’re talking to a client or having a meeting with colleagues. By doing so, you can ensure that you’re speaking clearly and that the volume of your voice is appropriate.

Real-Time Calling

Mic monitoring is also beneficial when using Discord, Skype, and Team Speak apps. You can hear yourself in real-time when you use these apps so that you can catch mistakes and adjust the volume.

Speaking too loudly is the biggest mistake you can make when using these apps. You and your friends will be able to hear each other, but the person on the other end of the line will not hear anything.

Mic Monitoring On Different Platforms (How to enable/disable it)?

Nowadays, most devices that support using a microphone allow you to adjust its volume, input, and mic monitoring settings.

Many platforms support mic monitoring. Depending on the platform, you can enable this feature in different ways.

Many desktops, laptops, and gaming consoles use it, including the newly launched PlayStation 5.

• On PC
• On Mac
• On Xbox
• On PS4

For some platforms, such as Xbox and PS4, headsets with built-in mic monitoring are required.

Mic monitoring is not typically enabled by default on computers. Many users have been confused about activating it and have wondered how they could.

Furthermore, the steps required to activate mic monitoring differ from platform to platform. A PC guy would probably not know how to enable mic monitoring if an Xbox One user asked him for help.

On PC

When it comes to the gaming experience, PC has always been ahead of every other platform. Whether you’re playing a classic like World of Warcraft or a modern marvel like Valiant, it won’t matter. Mic monitoring is something to consider.

Setting up mic monitoring on a PC with Windows 10 is more complicated, but it is still fairly straightforward.

Connect a microphone and headphones to a computer first to activate mic monitoring.

Enabling Mic Monitoring on PC

The following steps will enable mic monitoring for your PC:

• By pressing the Windows key.
• You can type ‘Sound’ and choose ‘Sound Settings.
• Scroll down to Related Settings, then select ‘Sound Control Panel.
• Select the ‘Recording’ tab from the pop-up window.
• Then choose the microphone device.
• Click on the ‘Listen’ tab.
• Click the box labeled ‘Listen to this device.

You should now be able to hear your voice when you speak through your headset.

Disabling Mic Monitoring on PC

• The process of disabling the feature is pretty similar to enabling it. There is just one noticeable difference between the steps.
• To uncheck the “Listen to this device” box, follow the steps mentioned in the previous section. It’s that simple!

On Mac

Macs do not have a built-in way to enable Mic Monitoring, unlike Windows PCs. Windows don’t deserve total points just yet, though. Specific apps or programs still allow you to access this feature.

The easiest way to monitor audio is with QuickTime, so that’s what we’ll be doing today.

You can also use applications such as GarageBand or AudioMonitor in addition to QuickTime.

Enabling Mic Monitoring on a Mac

The following steps will enable mic monitoring for your Mac:

• Select File > New Audio Recording from the QuickTime Player bar.
• Turn up the volume slider on the screen.
• You don’t need to click on the record button on the Monitor.

Disable Mic Monitoring on Mac

• As well, this one is a no-brainer. Turning off Mic Monitoring is as simple as lowering the volume or exiting QuickTime.

On Xbox

A gaming console, such as the Xbox usually requires headphones with built-in mic monitoring.

The audio signal coming from your gaming console cannot be redirected or sent to your speakers like it can from your laptop or desktop. Thus, another system is needed to facilitate this process.

If your headphones don’t support Mic Monitoring, you can also use third-party solutions.

The process for mic monitoring on Xbox is quite different from that for a computer.

Enable Mic Monitoring on Xbox

You can enable mic monitoring on your Xbox, all you need to do is just plug in your headphones and the mic monitoring will be automatically activated. If this method doesn’t work then follow these steps:

• Make sure your headphones have a mic monitoring feature. After making sure that connect your headphones with the Xbox console.
• Turn on your Xbox and you’ll see an Xbox button on the home screen. Click on it.
• Go to the left sidebar.
• Select “Audio” from the System menu.
• Adjust the volume by setting the ‘Mic Monitoring’ slider up or down according to your preference.

When you have the slider at the level you want, and your voice is at the level you need, exit the settings menu.

Disable Mic Monitoring on Xbox

• You can disable this feature by following the steps listed on accessing mic monitoring settings on Xbox. To do this, lower the slider, or remove headphones.

On PS4

As with Xbox, you can only enable Mic Monitoring if you have compatible headphones. PS4 and Xbox have some critical differences in terms of the said feature.

While PS4 named the function Sidetone instead of Mic Monitoring, both functions are essentially the same.

In the PlayStation user interface, microphone monitoring is called ‘sidetone.’ You may have to adjust the mic monitoring settings on your actual headset to get it to work.

Enabling Mic Monitoring on PS4

From your PlayStation, you can control the volume for your mic monitoring by following these steps:

• Plugin your headphones and go to Settings > Devices > Audio Devices
• Click Sidetone Volume in the bottom left corner
• Turn it on by increasing the volume
• You can adjust the Sidetone Volume up or down as needed

Disabling Mic Monitoring on PS4

After disconnecting your headphones from the PS4, the Sidetone feature will automatically turn off. Alternatively, you can turn the feature off and continue using your headphones.

• You need to go to Settings > Devices > Audio Devices and turn off Sidetone if you don’t want to hear your mic.

Mic monitoring is best used to check your voice level and make necessary adjustments before starting playing. While you can play with microphone monitoring enabled, you may find that your voice overpowers in-game sounds, including music, dialogue, sound effects, and other players’ voices.

The Drawbacks of Mic Monitoring

Despite all its merits, mic monitoring can still have drawbacks and disadvantages. The following are some of these:

Echoing may occur during the recording

When your mic monitoring is too loud in your ears, your microphone can pick up the sound again; the headset casually might not be a problem.

You’ll still hear a persistent echo in the background if you’re recording.

For me, this isn’t a significant issue. While recording, some headsets cancel the microphone monitoring sound.

You can also lower the volume of your headset a little to resolve the problem. In this way, you will still be able to hear yourself without any background echoes.

Mic monitoring does not seem to bother some people. Other people might have difficulty getting used to hearing each word they say repeated back after them.

Tips when headsets don’t support mic monitoring

Mic Monitoring does not work on gaming platforms without headphones that support the said feature, so it appears that this isn’t going to change for the PS5 or Xbox Series X. However, if your headphones do not support the part, you can look into amplifiers instead.

Final Words

We hope that you might feel this article helpful regarding what is mic monitoring and its importance for gaming. Regardless of the quality of your microphone, mic monitoring is essential. If you speak louder in the mic or If your microphone is too close to your mouth. The other teammates won’t like that.

Your audio signal will suffer a severe blow as a result, and your callers or group members may experience a bad listening experience.

Audio communication problems could disappear with Mic Monitoring. Say goodbye to the gaps that cost you your game or momentum during meetings.

You should enable that mic monitoring option if you have noticed it for months, years, or even decades but never used it!