Anyone for a Quickie?

[OldManJimbo]

I believe there's a built-in mic on my PowerBook (12" Rev2). Can someone direct me to the setting that will allow me to use the PB+Garageband as a dictation device while I'm traveling?

Added - 50+ people have opened and read this and NO ONE can tell me how to activate the built-in mic on my PowerBook? What gives?

 

[kanker]

It should be the default, but just to be sure, go to Applications/Utilities/Audio MIDI Setup, open it, and see if the mic is the default source. If not, make it so. If that doesn't work for GB, try Audacity, a free sound editor/recorder. That should do the trick.

 

[t300]

Yeah, I can't possibly see why you would use Garageband for dictation. There are way better apps you could use for this...Unless you have a motive?

 

[Music_Producer]

Well the reason you probably didn't get an answer rightaway is

1. The title of your post has nothing to do with your question so many probably just skipped it..and..

You gotta be more patient!

So this is how you do it:

1. Open your system preferences and click on 'sound'. Make sure internal mic is selected for 'input'

2. In GB, click on "Track" and "New Track"..
3. Select "Real Instruments" instead of the virtual instruments you are offered by default
4. click on "Vocals" and "no effects" or whatever effect you want..and there you go. Make sure the 'monitor' option is set to 'on' so you can hear what you are saying..live.

Hope this helps.

 

[t300]

Still, I have to know...Why Garageband?

 

[AmigoMac]

Shouldn't the moderators take care of the titles too?

 

[BornAgainMac]

Nothing else

Still, I have to know...Why Garageband?

Perhaps there isn't anything else to use that is installed. I needed to get a 30 second voice clip and I didn't have anything except iMovie. I wish there was a sound input mini app installed in Applications. If I was online when I needed it, I probably would have searched versiontracker for something.

There is a commerical product that fills that role with the consumer Macs. I believe it's called Sound Studio. It was expensive for what it does to buy.

 

[OldManJimbo]

Why G'Band?

Thank you for the help notes - much appeciated.

The recurring question of "why Garageband?" can be answered simply - I use it when I'm home to record some voice over assignments for a client (through a Roland USB pre-amp) and as I'm familiar with the program I just thought it would be easy to record some lengthy dictation while on the road. I'm an old dog and learning new tricks is not out of the question but when I find something that works, I generally stick with it.

As for my apparent lack of patience, I was just surprized that 50+ people had opened my post but none had an answer. The MacForum posts are usually full of good advice - I guess the GarageBand "group" is more thoughtful and wish to ponder their answers before offering replies.

On the title - that's just my provocative way of getting people to open my post. Usually works for me to have some humor or ambiguity - not this time.

Anyway - cheers and thanks to all.