Windows mixer settings

You can access your windows mixer by going into the windows control panel and then choose Sounds and audio devices. The window above will open up, click on the advanced button to open up the windows mixer.

Open your windows mixer and then choose Options and then Properties. The properties window on the right will open up. At the top of the window, you can choose your mixer device. If you have two soundcards installed, each sound card will have it's own mixer settings. The pull down menu will let you select which soundcard you want to change the properties for.
You can then check the Playback or Recording boxes to be able to set the properties for Playback or Recording. Playback and Recording each have their own settings. All of the volume controls that are available for your sound card are listed at the bottom of this window. You have to check the boxes to get each volume control to display in the mixer. In the example above, I have Playcontrol and Wave checked but MIDI and S/PDIF-In are not checked.

I checked the Playback button in the Properties window and then hit OK. The window above opens up and displays my playback settings. The only thing you need to Mute is the Microphone. You will get feedback through your audio system if you do not mute Microphone. You can mute any of the devices that you know for sure you do not use.

I then checked the Recording button in the Properties window and then hit OK. The window above opens up and displays my Recording settings. If you are recording using a Microphone check the microphone box. Whatever your recording source is, check that box.

If you have a SoundBlaster card installed, you can access the windows mixer through your Creative software links. I like to go directly to the windows mixer but just for the heck of it, you can check and see what the Creative mixer window says after making the settings in the windows mixer. The creative mixer shows the same thing as the windows mixer but I prefer to use the windows mixer.
Note that the Playback Microphone has a red X at the bottom of the slider which means that it is muted. On the right side of the window is the Recording slider. What you hear has been selected. This makes it easy, what you hear is what will be recorded.

Click on the image above for a larger image

Here's another shot of the windows mixer. If you need to boost your microphone level, there's a +20 boost available in many soundcard mixers.