My ibook G4 is unable to record with an external mic, ....

[igmolinav]

Hi,

My post is a bit similar to the post of the man who wrote a post below.

The difference is, that opposed to him, I am in fact using Garage Band to create a podcast. I am also using an external mic. And even though the external mic gets recognized by my ibook G4, it is for some reason not allowed to record. (Yes, my ibook recognizes it, however, the ibook won't pick up any minor sound with the external microphone. A person at a small recording studio here in my city made me realize this, as I thought the problem was other).

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/669902/

In advance, thank you very much and kind regards,

igmolinav.

 

[ChrisA]

... even though the external mic gets recognized by my ibook G4, it is for some reason not allowed to record. (Yes, my ibook recognizes it, however, the ibook won't pick up any minor sound with the external microphone....

Is the jack on the iBook a "line-in" or a "mic-in"? I'd bet it's a "line-in". Mics to not produce a large enough signal. What they produce is call "mic level" and is 100x lower than line level.

Assuming I'm guessing corectly, that the port in the iBook is line level, then you need either a preamp or an external (usb or FW) audio interface with a built-in preamp.

 

[igmolinav]

Hi,

Thank you for your post : ) !!!

Yes, I should have written that I had already tried two options and neither one worked out. For option number one, I used as preamp a product called iMic, in addition to the external microphone and the ibook G4. For option number two, I used the same products mentioned in option number one, plus an additional pre amp. The "success" was the same as before: recognition by the ibook G4, but unable to record in it !!!!

Thank you very much again, kind regards,

igmolinav.

 

[ChrisA]

Hi,

I used as preamp a product called iMic...

The Griffen "iMic" is not a preamp. It is a low-cost USB audio interface. It might have a preamp inside but there are no knobs or adjustment possable. It is the lowest cost product of it's kind on the market -- get what you pay for.

You need something that has some lights on it to show levels and a gain adjustment so you ca set the level and headphone monitoring is almost a requirement too. You can't work blind. You need a way to measure, adjust and monitor the audio signal.

 

[California]

i gave a friend an iMic and she had no problem recording on an iBook directly to disc or itunes or whatever it was.

There may be something going on with garageband that you need to figure out.

If you have a current retail copy of leopard that you are working on, perhaps Apple will walk you through it.

 

[igmolinav]

Hi,
For option number two, I used the same products mentioned in option number one, plus an additional pre amp. The "success" was the same as before: recognition by the ibook G4, but unable to record in it !!!!
igmolinav.

Hi guys,

Thank you for your help. I'll retry everything. As I mentioned before, I also tried it with the preamp besides using iMic. I just wonder if the problem is with the OS X, the last update was about a month ago to 10.5.6

Thank you again, kind regards,

igmolinav