Skype Sidetone

Ever use a headset with Skype, and were frustrated that it was too quiet? This tool fixes that.  The problem is inadequate side tones -- there is not enough feedback from the microphone into your headset to allow you to modulate your voice appropriately.

The Skype Sidetone application was designed to be a small tool that adds the sound of your own voice to your headset, so you don't exhaust yourself shouting to be heard.

Side tone controls The “Side Tones” check box enables or disables the side tone. If you have headphones, you'll want this on; if you have loud speakers, you'll want it off.

The slider controls the volume of the microphone in the headset. You can change it while talking. The volume will vary with microphone and headset.

You can do a “sound check” to see if the feedback is working by clicking on the Sound Check button, and adjusting the volume. I found that the volume setting that works best in a conversation is much, much lower than what works in a sound check. Next, let’s look at the AGC (“Automatic Gain Control”) section. When making a call, the software can automatically adjust how loud you sound to the other party:

When “Low Pass” is checked, the headphone feedback is at 44100 samples/sec. The microphone sound is filtered to keep only the sounds below 8 Khz, converted to 16000/samples per second and sent to Skype. When it is not checked, headphone feedback is at 16000 samples/sec, and sent to Skype without the low pass filter.

When "Skype AutoGain" is checked, it signals to Skype that Skype can use its own algorithm. When clear, Skype is told not to apply any adjustments.

When "AutoGain" is checked, the custom Automatic Gain Control algorithm is used.

The Automatic Gain Control has three sliders: The “Cutoff” slider controls the distinction between background noise and conversation. Sound below this level is cutoff and silence is sent to Skype. This will vary with microphone – more sensitive (expensive) microphones will pick more noise and be better with a higher setting. The “Normal” slider controls the volume when you are talking normally. The Gain Control tries to raise the volume to this level. The “Loud” slider controls the volume when you talk exceptionally loud. This rarely happens, but when you do talk louder than the Normal level, the Gain Control tries to adjust the volume to this level.