No Mic and messed up sound

[Rowan Doocey]

New to the VATSIM forums but I've been flying on VATSIM for a long time. I never had a headset to use flying until today and I can't seem to get it to work.

I originally used XSquawkBox but had about a 6 month lull from VATSIM but in November 2021 I came back and got xPilot which is far superior in my opinion - although to each their own. Now before I continue I am by no means an audio, computer, or windows expert. After some trial and error I used Windows-WASAPI as my Audio API because it had the best quality and didn't produce any horrible noises (which I will get to later).

^ This is that setting that I've been using since November 2021 I just select the receive-voice option and readback via text.

But I'm a real pilot and that's no fun so now today I bought a headset from Best Buy and I'm trying to set it up and test it but I've encountered numerous issues. It was a cheap headset but cost shouldn't matter if it works properly or not.

 

^ This setting created a horrible screeching noise and the ATIS sounded like a demented robot I could not understand, which I had previously experienced when I first got xPilot.

^ This setting created a similar issue as mentioned above.

^ My go-to setting had no option available for the microphone and after some online research about what the WASAPI driver is I found you have to set it up in Audacity but I don't have Audacity in the first place nor do I know how to perform this setup.

^ Finally this driver setting also turned to no avail because although I had the microphone and speaker no sound came out at all when I tried to listen to the ATIS.

 

This is a lot of pictures and information but maybe someone more electronically keen and more understanding of computers and drivers can assist me. As one final note, my computer has a separate jack for microphone and headphones but I think that's about standard now for gaming computers so its probably irrelevant information. I thought I would give you guys everything I knew. If you've read this far I appreciate it and look forwards to any answers you might have!

[John Batty]

This is exactly my experience.  Have you been able to resolve this?

 

[Robert Shearman Jr]

Listening to the ATIS is not a reliable means of testing audio, since it often has its own issues working properly.

Instead, tune 122.8 on both COM1 and COM2, set your aircraft panel to ensure you're monitoring both (confirm by seeing RX lit up in both cases on the pilot client), and transnit.  If you hear yourself back, it's working.