Voice
Just a few random hints on how to make voice work for you in SL.
- Make sure your microphone is plugged in properly.
- Use a headset. Separate microphone and desktop speakers will cause audible feedback.
- Turn off your main desktop speakers. if you don’t, your microphone will pick that up and cause feedback. That can be very unpleasant for anyone near you. This can’t be repeated enough. Especially since it will sound like you are repeating everythng you, and everyone else, says.
- Make sure you have no background noise in your room when doing voice. No one wants to hear your TV, your favourite radio station, your screaming kids, your mother telling you to wash the dishes, or those police cars rushing outside.
- In your windows control panel, open the “Sound & Audio Devices” window, look at the “Volume” tab. Click on the “Advanced” button that is in the Device Volume box.
- Make sure the master volume is at or below 50% of maximum. If it is too high, feedback will often result.
- Within the audio input controls, make sure the master volume is at 100%, and the microphone volume at about 75%.
- Obviously, linux and mac users don’t have control panels that work in the exact way described above, if at all. Alas and alack, I lack both of those, and can not offer specific advice there.
- After you have checked all the sound settings above, run the voice setup wizard that is inside SL. It can be found in edit/preferences, and then clicking on the “Voice Chat” tab.
- Inside the “Device Settings” button, make sure both input and output are set to your main sound device. If you use a voice changer program, make sure the input is set to that program.
- It is highly recommended that you use the push-to-talk settings. Without that, SL will constantly broadcast every cough, wheeze, and nose-scratch to the world at large. This can be a little bit obnoxious to some. Make sure the “Use Push-to-Talk in toggle mode” box is ticked, then press the “Set key” button to choose a key. I normally have the F12 key set for this purpose, as it never gets used for anything else.
Oh, there are a bunch of other settings, but it is mostly common sense, I think. If something isn’t clear here, feel free to leave a comment highlighting the issue, and I’ll try my best to improve this article.