You may also need to adjust your mic's input gain. Participants should open their sound preferences window, look at their input level, sing or perform their loudest musical event (for sopranos we also recommend singing your highest note), and see if the meter exceeds the limitations of the scale. Continue to adjust the gain down until the meter is not approaching the red line.

This is often the case since default settings are based around speaking, not playing. Most singers will agree that they sing louder than they speak. Setting an appropriate input gain is critical to sending high quality sound to the director.

For those with external audio interfaces, make sure that the signal is not clipping on the input meter. Usually there is a red light that flashes or other way of indicating this warning.

Microphone placement is also critical. The location and distance will depend on the type of microphone and the type of instrument or voice.

Now, you are setup to have a clean vocal performance.

Windows Users:

It has been brought to our attention that most Windows laptops have settings in place for their internal microphone that make it impossible to get a smooth musical performance. Here is a video going over the following steps.

1. Close out any currently running RMS software

2. In the right-bottom toolbar, right-click on the volume icon

3. Click Open Sound Settings

4. Under Input, click Device Properties

5. Click Additional device properties

6. Click the Enhancements tab

7. Click the box for Disable all sound effects

8. Click Apply (if Apply isn't available, simply click OK)

9. Exit the settings menu

10. Launch the RMS program you're using