External Mic & MBP??

[thebrain74]

I am trying to get an external mic to work with my MBP but it just isnt working.
It is just a little gooseneck mec from the XtremeMac Micro memo. I shaved off a little plastic to make sure it is being fully inserted into the jack but it doesnt pick up anything. I have gone to sys prefs to enable it but no dice. Any suggestions??

 

[RichL]

Not really sure of any advice to give ya but is there a problem with the internal mic? Just curious because I'm getting a MBP in a week (Hopefully).

 

[kolax]

Have you selected the Input as Line In as opposed to the built-in mic?

 

[LMO]

There is no mic input, so if selecting Line In as suggested above doesn't get it working, you will need to plug the mic into a preamp.

The M-Audio Transit USB has a line/mic input that accepts mic levels as well as providing plug-in power (5v phantom power).

 

[kolax]

Or you could buy a USB microphone - they range from $30-60.

Depends on what quality of sound you are after.

 

[anti-microsoft]

Not really sure of any advice to give ya but is there a problem with the internal mic? Just curious because I'm getting a MBP in a week (Hopefully).

There is no problem at all. You might think of buying a better quality external mic for professional stuff, like: radio broadcasting, music...(you can get away with podcasts the mic is quite impressive for speech).

 

[thebrain74]

Ya I did that sys prefs thing and no dice, so I just that means it just won't work without a preamp then, right?

thanks for the help

P.S. if I got a USB mic how would I utilize it, as it wouldn't show up as a line-in device, would it?

 

[Arkanok]

Actually i have a followup question to this. If i want to record a movie in iMovie with the iSight cam thats built in, can i plug in my usb mic and use that for the sound input rather than the internal one by going into the sound settings? (Sorry, i'm at work so i cant try it right now)

 

[kolax]

Ya I did that sys prefs thing and no dice, so I just that means it just won't work without a preamp then, right?

thanks for the help

P.S. if I got a USB mic how would I utilize it, as it wouldn't show up as a line-in device, would it?

Yes it will - it will be classified as an audio input device and you can select that in Sys Prefs.

 

[aliquis-]

Actually i have a followup question to this. If i want to record a movie in iMovie with the iSight cam thats built in, can i plug in my usb mic and use that for the sound input rather than the internal one by going into the sound settings? (Sorry, i'm at work so i cant try it right now)

If you change recording device in system preferences to the USB mic I'm very confident that whatever program trying to record sound will use that one instead of the built in one.

There is also the "iMic" or something, I have no idea how good it is. To bad there are no real microphone input aswell. Thought I've always had issues with those on regular PCs aswell so maybe just getting a preamp will give better sound and so on anyway. (Or is it just that mics sucks in general because I guess the soundcard will do the amping anyway?)

If one really have to pay 99 dollar for that m-audio micstuff why not pay a little more and get a "real" soundcard from them? =P, like the audiophile firewire or something?

 

[cleanup]

This is a major problem I have with Macs... while random stereo headsets (the crappy kind people buy for voice chatting, etc.) with the headphone and mic plugs work fine on PCs, the mic never works on Macs. You always need either a USB audio adapter or other some sort of interface. Why is this? Some people don't require sound quality that high. They just want to talk to their cousin in Ireland on Skype. But their Mac forces them to buy either a higher quality mic or an interface. Dumb.