How to Boost Your Microphone Volume Beyond 100% on Ubuntu

Sometimes you’ll find that your microphone’s input level isn’t high enough, but the usual system sliders won’t let you increase it any further. When you’ve exhausted all other options, you can use PulseAudio’s command-line tools to forcefully amplify your microphone beyond the 100 % mark. Below, we’ll walk through the steps to do just that.

Identify Your Microphone’s Source Name

PulseAudio’s pactl utility typically comes from the pulseaudio-utils package. On most standard Ubuntu desktop editions (which install PulseAudio by default), you’ll already have pactl available. You can verify this by running:
which pactl
If it prints something like /usr/bin/pactl, then it is already installed. If it returns nothing, you’re on a minimal or server-style install that didn’t pull in PulseAudio utilities. In that case:
sudo apt update
sudo apt install pulseaudio-utils

PulseAudio refers to every input (microphones, virtual devices, Bluetooth mics, etc.) as a “source.” To see a list of all capture sources, open a terminal and run:

pactl list sources

This command produces output that looks roughly like this (abbreviated for clarity):

Source #0
    Name: alsa_input.pci-0000_00_1b.0.analog-stereo
    Description: Built-in Audio Analog Stereo
    Sample Specification: s16le 2ch 48000Hz
    Volume: front-left: 32768 /  50% / -12.00 dB,   front-right: 32768 /  50% / -12.00 dB
    Mute: no
    ...

Source #1
    Name: bluez_source.00_1A_7D_DA_71_13.headset_head_unit
    Description: Bluetooth Headset Microphone
    Sample Specification: s16le 1ch 8000Hz
    Volume: mono: 65536 / 100% / 0.00 dB
    Mute: no
    ...

Each Source #N block contains:

Name: The exact identifier you’ll use in scripting (e.g., alsa_input.pci-0000_00_1b.0.analog-stereo).
Description: A human-readable label (e.g., “Built-in Audio Analog Stereo”).
Sample Specification: The format (bit depth, channels, sample rate).
Volume: The current gain per channel (can already exceed 100% if boosted before).
Mute: Whether the source is currently muted.

Tip: If you’re not sure which entry corresponds to your mic, look at the Description field. For built-in laptops, it’s often something like “Built-in Audio Analog Stereo.” For USB mics, it might say the brand/model name

Once you’ve found the Name of your microphone source (for example, alsa_input.pci-0000_00_1b.0.analog-stereo), copy it for use in the next step.

Increase the Mic Volume Beyond 100 %

With the source name in hand, you can ask PulseAudio to set the input volume to any higher value:

pactl set-source-volume <YOUR_SOURCE_NAME> <NEW_VOLUME_PERCENTAGE>

For example, if your source is 'alsa_input.pci-0000_00_1b.0.analog-stereo' and you need to set it to 300 %, you would type:

pactl set-source-volume alsa_input.pci-0000_00_1b.0.analog-stereo 300%

Just replace <YOUR_SOURCE_NAME> with the exact “Name” from pactl list sources, and <NEW_VOLUME_PERCENTAGE> with whatever boost you need (e.g., 300%).

Note: If audio quality degrades, dial it back (e.g., 200 % or 150 %) until it sounds acceptable.

Verify the New Volume

After running the pactl set-source-volume command, double-check that the mic volume is indeed higher:

pactl list sources

To confirm the change, run pactl list sources again, locate the same “Source #N” block for your microphone, and verify that the Volume line now shows the percentage you set.

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