Provide a supported callback or method for setting/ensuring microphone volume/gain

[nriley]

On Windows particularly, there seem to be lots of apps/system services that try to "intelligently" reset the microphone volume despite my best efforts to disable such features. This causes Talon recognition quality to substantially drop and sometimes I don't notice.

Here's what I've written to work around it.

from talon import actions, app, Context

import subprocess

ctx = Context()
ctx.matches = """
os: windows
"""

def fix_volume():
    subprocess.run([r"C:\Users\nriley\Apps\nircmdc.exe", "setsysvolume", "65535", "default_record"])

@ctx.action_class("speech")
class SpeechActions:
    def enable():
        actions.next()
        fix_volume()

app.register("ready", fix_volume)

# XXX this is deprecated, but I'm not sure of a replacement
from talon import microphone
microphone.manager.register("mic_change", lambda mic: fix_volume())

This seems to catch all the common places where I see microphone volume change - when switching speech on/off, when launching Talon and when turning my microphone on. The mic_change callback is deprecated so one option would be to provide a supported version, but if Talon could also give me an option to say "I never want the volume on this microphone to change from X" that'd be fine too.

Thanks!

[nriley]

talon.microphone was removed entirely in Talon 0.4, so the above code no longer works. The recommendation was to switch to polling instead; see below (change the interval to whatever works for you, and of course change the path to nircmdc.exe).

import subprocess

from talon import Context, actions, app, cron

ctx = Context()
ctx.matches = """
os: windows
"""

# Fluency Direct often adjusts the microphone volume (gain); Talon doesn't like that.
def fix_volume():
    subprocess.run(
        [r"C:\Users\nriley\Apps\nircmdc.exe", "setsysvolume", "65535", "default_record"]
    )

@ctx.action_class("speech")
class SpeechActions:
    def enable():
        actions.next()
        fix_volume()

def fix_volume_if_mic_changes():
    previous_microphone = actions.sound.active_microphone()

    def fix_volume_if_mic_changed():
        nonlocal previous_microphone

        if (microphone := actions.sound.active_microphone()) != previous_microphone:
            if microphone != 'None':
                fix_volume()

            previous_microphone = microphone

    fix_volume()
    cron.interval("2s", fix_volume_if_mic_changed)

if app.platform == "windows":
    app.register("ready", fix_volume_if_mic_changes)

[mrob95]

I've used the pycaw python library to do the same thing:

from talon import cron

try:
    from comtypes import CLSCTX_ALL
    from pycaw.pycaw import AudioUtilities, IAudioEndpointVolume
    ENABLED = True
except ImportError:
    ENABLED = False

def main():
    devices = AudioUtilities.GetMicrophone()
    interface = devices.Activate(IAudioEndpointVolume._iid_, CLSCTX_ALL, None)
    volume = interface.QueryInterface(IAudioEndpointVolume)
    current_level = volume.GetMasterVolumeLevel()
    _, hi, _ = volume.GetVolumeRange()
    if current_level < hi:
        print("Setting mic volume to max: was %s, now %s" % (current_level, hi))
        volume.SetMasterVolumeLevel(hi, None)
        print("Done setting mic volume to max: was %s, now %s" % (current_level, hi))

if ENABLED:
    cron.interval("1m", main)

[phillco]

Can I use this issue as a standin for a microphone.manager.register("mic_change", ... replacement, for places where we have to poll instead, or should I file a new one?