u/Creative-Resident527

I use cakewalk sonar and usually record vocals with a jack headphone and microphone that cakewalk has no problem using. When i plug in my usb microphone (a bigben mic) cakewalk detects that, asks me if i want to start using that mic, but actually doesn't use it. If i go into settings and audio devices, i find my realtek audio (i.e. the jack mic) checked and in that same list i also find the big ben mic but grayed out so that i can't check it. What can i do?

I am an hobbyist music producer and I record vocals from my headphones mic which is not the best but works for me.

If I go in control panel, sound, recording, select my mic, hit properties, hit levels, I get two sliders. Microphone and Microphone preamp. The first is a volume slider from 0 to 100, the second is a slider from 0 to 30 db. What is the difference between them? How can I get the maximum signal noise ratio?