New microphone really quiet and distorted

[Kapsaanus]

I bought a new mic, it works fine, has a pre-amp. I have tested this with recording software and Skype, those work without any problems.

But Mumble barely picks sound up.

If I open Audio Wizard and go to "Volume tuning" I can barely see the bar move from the left (maximum I can get is about 5-10% of the maximum by tapping on the mic).

Voice activity detection is also really low, seems to be limited to a maximum of about 60% of that bar (just doesn't want to go higher, goes more distorted then). And the sound I get through there is either really quiet or any sort of louder sounds are distorted.

Are there any ideas on how to fix this? This isn't a hardware issue, because it works most of the time. I have reinstalled sound card drivers and such, but nothing has changed. I reinstalled Mumble also, nothing helps. I have tried with boost or off, different default formats, exclusive control settings. No luck, even with several restarts.

I googled the problem and there seem to be some people with similar problems, but I didn't find any solutions that would fix it for me.

[kissaki]

How loud does your OS indicate the volume to be?

I guess also 5-10%?

[Kapsaanus]

Windows Sound Recording tab shows the Microphone to go from 0 to max ofc depending on the amount of noise I make.

The sounds I get through Mumble loop are reaaaaaaallyy quiet compared to the sound I get from "Listen to this device."

[kissaki]

I would expect the input levels of OS and in Mumbles audio wizard to match.

Are you sure that's not another mic you use in Mumble?

[Kapsaanus]

I have tried disabling all other possible input devices, I always make sure the correct device is selected in the wizard (Microphone from the my Xonar Essence STX) and I can reliably manipulate the input (by tapping on the mic for example), so I can be sure, the input (at least somehow) comes from the correct physical source.

OKAY right now I started trying to change out WASAPI there, and found that it doesn't allow me to try ASIO (the only other option). So I started googling and arrived at an idea of starting Mumble in winXP compatibility. I opened it and it still doesn't allow ASIO (no devices problem) but DirectSound exists and that allows me to use my mic and the result, the loop I get back is what I would get from "Listen to this device" so the correct volume and no distorted sounds.

So for now I can say that this has a fix for me, but can anyone say why this happens or how can I make it work without xp compatibility mode?

Thanks for the help, I wouldn't have probably tried to mess with that.