I'm trying to get a microphone I bought to work on my G5 but it
doesn't seem to register in the system preferences. It works fine
on my friends PC computer. I've looked around on the net and heard
that Apple provide poor quality audio input ports that won't provide
enough power to support non-powered microphones.
If this is the case I'd appreciate some guidance. I'm more after
economy rather than quality.
Thankyou
(?troll?)
by register in system preferences I guess you mean it's signal meter
doesn't show in the Audio system preference panel ?
well yep that will happen.....
Your average run of the mill 99% of every mic on the market below
$400 is a dynamic mic and as such doesn't need "power"
You only need "power" if you are using a condenser mic.
Most non studio condenser mics are self powered with a AAA or AA
battery in the grip/handle
Microphones produce incredibly small amounts of signal current in
the millivolts range rather than audio line in which produces and
average voltage of around 1volt.
and... guess what... even those "powered" microphones produce.....
millivolts instead of volts they just produce it a different way
Most PC audio cards have a built in "microphone" jack which provides
a a "pre amp" that will boost the level up to line level before
adding it to the other audio sources.
Most (all?) Macs now days do not have a microphone level input.
Rather than "Apple provide poor quality audio input ports that won't
provide enough power" basically Apple have decided "why even bother
putting in a microphone jack it it's just going to be the same bad
microphone preamp that comes with most PCsound cards?"
An alternative to looking for a microphone jack on your mac try
using a external microphone preamp (from $70+) and feed its boosted
signal in to the line in jack.
Alternatively use a USB audio input device that has a mic preamp
built in (like an iMic) again from around $70
The 3rd - and possibly the easiest/cheapest solution is a USB microphone.
Then again If you have a USB web cam or an Apple iSight you already
have a pretty good usb/firewire microphone built in to those (and the
iSights microphone is absolutely brilliant).
Note that on your average PC ( ie any PC not purpose built to be used
in a recording studio) the mic pre amp on the audio cards installed
are what we musicians call, if we are being polite, "absolute *&%$ing
rubbish" and instead we use a maybe a $800 digidesign Mbox ADC or
$2000+ external ADC solution such as a digidesign 001 or 002 which
is what we use on macs as well.
Also the 3 pin "powered" microphones sometimes supplied with PC are
a non standardised proprietary designs meant only to work with
specific type/range of pc audio cards and the voltage/ampage
requirements are completely outside of the microphone industry
standards and are completely incompatible with ALL unpowered audio
buses, as well as being incompatible standard bias and 48v phantom
powered buses (and possibly damaging to the microphone and/or preamp)
Why no microphone in on macs now?
Most laptop and integrated macs have built-in microphones for use
with speech recognition/skype etc and Tower systems tend to be used
in pro setup were the users expectations of quality would exceed
these cheaper solutions ability to deliver. Also higher investment
in external peripherals is usual in professional workstation (tower)
setups so one usually sees external semi-pro/pro audio ADC's like
roland/digidesgn/MotU etc
Note also:
-- The WA Macintosh User Group Mailing List --
Archives - <http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/archives.shtml>
Guidelines - <http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/guidelines.shtml>
Unsubscribe - <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
WAMUG is powered by Stalker CommuniGatePro
