Am I doing something wrong?

I see people who just unplug their controller mic and the Kinect one will automatically turn on and stay on until they plug normal mic back in.
For me, it'll do that sometimes but it seems like it will only do that if it's been plugged in for a week or two without being unplugged.

I'm gone through my settings and made sure it's not muted and it still doesn't seem to detect my audio except for Kinect games and Xbox commands.

Any assistance would be appreciated!