Ever been using TeamSpeak, and someone stops talking for a bit, then the next thing you know, their microphone gets so sensitive you can practically hear their cat walking around upstairs?
That's due to something called Automatic Gain Control, or AGC. It's a feature most chat software, such as Skype, Viber and even TeamSpeak use. What's more, they always seem to have it enabled by default.
The idea is that it can automatically adjust for when someone is talking quietly, for instance, if they don't want to disturb others in the house. So that you don't need to constantly fiddle with your volume control, it will boost the level of quiet sounds.
Which is all well and good, until someone stops talking altogether. After a few seconds, the program assumes the person is whispering or something, and keeps ramping up the microphone sensitivity until it can pick up what it considers acceptable levels of sound.
The result is that you can hear the person breathing, scratching their posterior, making a cuppa out in the kitchen, people talking at the far end of the house, and their next-door neighbour farting! Once they actually start talking again, everything goes back to normal.
It IS possible to fix this, by getting the person to turn their AGC off.
Even more to the point, you can avoid being this person, by turning the AGC off on
your copy of TeamSpeak
To do so, launch TeamSpeak, then click on <Tools> in the menu and select <Options>.
Select <Capture> on the left-hand menu, then check the box marked <Advanced Options>.
Un-check the box marked <Automatic voice gain control> and then click on <Apply> and then <OK>.
And, you're done. Simple, huh? No more worrying that everyone else in the chat can hear what your partner is whispering into your ear!
Note that you may have to manually adjust your microphone level (using the <Begin Test> button) to set it correctly for your natural speaking volume, once you're done.
