A digitally controlled microphone with audio compressor includes a capsule; a compressor circuitry having a compressor engine, a digitally controlled root mean square (RMS) detector and a digitally controlled analog processor; a bypass switch to the compressor circuitry; an analog to digital converter (ADC); a digital processor that sends digital audio to a host and receives a second digital audio signal; a digital to analog converter (DAC) and a summing circuit that combine the audio with the audio from the host and send it to a digitally-controlled headphone amplifier and a headphone jack; a microphone body; a serial host interface connector; and hardware controls on the microphone body.