MikeNet / Soundcheck
Echo and feedback during a mic test.
If speakers are on, your next recording can capture the last playback. Fix the loop before chasing gain.
1. Know the difference.
Room noise is steady or intermittent sound already in the space: fans, traffic, refrigerator hum. Echo or spill is your own voice or a previous take coming back through speakers into the microphone. Feedback is a rising howl when a live monitor loop amplifies itself. MikeNet avoids live monitoring, so classic feedback is uncommon here — but speaker playback into a live mic still contaminates the next capture.
Use the background noise guide for steady room sound. Use this page when the problem is speakers, speakerphone mode or hearing yourself bounce around the room.
2. Stop playback before the next take.
Press stop on both takes before starting a new recording. Keep headphone listening as the default. If you must use speakers, lower the volume and point them away from the microphone. Otherwise take B can include take A playing in the background, which makes levels and waveforms misleading.
A: speakers on at a normal desk volume, then start a new take without stopping prior playback (to hear the failure mode once). Clear and restart. B: headphones only, playback stopped, same prompt. Prefer B for every real decision. The A take is only to recognize the contaminated pattern.
3. Speakerphone and conference rooms.
Speakerphone modes often enable aggressive echo cancellation and automatic gain. That can make room-tone meters look quiet while speech sounds gated or distant. Record one take with the browser’s default processing, then one with processing requested off, and listen for chopped word beginnings rather than trusting the quieter noise number alone.
In a shared room, ask others to pause, mute other devices and close doors before the quiet opening. A door slam during “room tone” is not a background-noise measurement.
4. What the meters will not tell you.
A lower room-tone reading after enabling echo cancellation does not prove the room got quieter. It may mean the processor is removing energy that also affects speech. Always listen to the speech segment. Measurement limits are documented in the measurement guide.
Capture and listening workflow are MikeNet’s. Browser media constraints and processing requests vary by vendor; MikeNet reports getSettings() values rather than assuming compliance. For general microphone placement away from noise sources, see Shure, Microphone Techniques for Recording.