Audio recording: I must be doing something wrong

[Frogacuda]

I've been trying to record some voiceover. At first I was using a crappy desktop mic, and the results were really really quiet.

So I went out and got a proper handheld mic, more than decent for what I need it for... but it's still quiet as hell. I have all the volume settings maxed, I have the mic selected as the primary and only recording device in Windows... What gives? I'm sure there's something I'm just not getting.

[Frogacuda]

Yay. My fucking soundcard has a distinct setting for "mic in" and for "Rear pink jack" and the latter is only found in the output settings even though it's an input jack... brilliantly intuitive.

I think I got it now.