Your version of Skype might be doing a couple things with your audio that you don’t want it to. Here’s how to fix it.
To disable Skype’s auto gain control (AGC) for both Mac (5.6.0.143 and later) and PC versions, simply go into your Preferrences > Audio/Video and deselect the Automatic Microphone Control checkbox.
Disabling Skype’s echo cancellation mode is not as simple but also not that hard. You’ll need to find Skype’s system file on your computer and insert a simple piece of HTML code.
On a Mac browse to ~/Library/Application Support/Skype/shared.xml.
You’ll need to open this file in an HTML editor that can read the xml format, I recommend Komodo Edit (for Windows, Mac, Linux) as a free, open source solution.
Once you’ve opened the file in your HTML editor, scroll towards the bottom and simply insert the following code
<EC>0</EC>
This will disable Skype’s Echo Cancellation controls.
If you are running a version of Skype that doesn’t have the checkbox to disable the AGC you can also insert the following code to disable that:
<AGC>0</AGC>
Here’s what the code should look like if you have both of these lines inserted
Listen to Jason’s (the Creepercast podcast) feedback about how disabling these controls helped his podcast.