TF2: I have a great mic; why does voice chat sound terrible?

[J-Dude]

Alright, I like doing voice recordings from time to time, and so I have a great Logitech desktop mic. Cost about 30 dollars, uses USB feed, and recordings sound almost studio quality with no background interference.

However, I was hoping to use my microphone in Team Fortress 2, and when testing the mic in the voice options, it just sounded TERRIBLE. My voice, even when right in the mic's face, sounded quiet and echoing, with loud droning in the background dominating everything, even the sound of a neighbor's dog (which was barely audible to ME) being heard in the mic's playback.

Now, I know that live-stream and recording must have a reduction in quality, but nothing THIS extreme, especially not when background noise is pretty much eliminated in recordings.

One thing I'm wondering about it, is the fact that this microphone has it's own built-in driver for recording, no installation necessary. It COULD be that TF2 isn't trying to use this driver. This is also made apparent by the fact that the microphone has an on/off button, and yet I can still hear input from the mic in TF2 when the mic has been shut off.

Does anyone have any ideas on what I should do? I can hardly stand what I'm hearing, so I can only imagine what an annoyance it would be to others.

 

[Pieter Paul Rubens]

Probably because the codec of the Steam voicecom is pure ****e.

 

[Kaination]

Do you have anythign doubled as a mic?

I had an eyetoy pluigged in I didn't know what a mic, so you might have a monitor for a microphone. Try going into settings and setting your main mic as a logitech USB headset or whatever.

 

[J-Dude]

Do you have anythign doubled as a mic?

I had an eyetoy pluigged in I didn't know what a mic, so you might have a monitor for a microphone. Try going into settings and setting your main mic as a logitech USB headset or whatever.

Mayor of Burbank, you got it!

I have a cheap webcam as well which has it's own microphone. I looked into the audio settings, and my microphone was the default recording device, but the WEBCAM was somehow set as the default voice recording device! I just tested in TF2; drone was gone, background was gone, my voice came in as clear as any of the better mics I hear over TF2 voice chats!

Thank you, sometimes I take too many things for granted. This is much, MUCH more tolerable.

EDIT:

As a sidenote, I'm more of a desktop mic fan; Headsets are a bit to clattery to me...