Your guess is correct. The Macs have a line-in without a mic preamp. As posted by this person some time ago:
http://www.mac-forums.com/forums/215780-post5.html most of the PC sound cards have a mic input with a preamp but the sound quality is poor. I guess Apple figured that anybody who wanted to do stuff with external mics would want to have good sound quality and would pick a preamp that they like. Condenser mics also need 48 v power (sometimes called phantom power) so just doing a line input removed a who lot of complexity that many users just wouldn't care about. That also means a bunch of junky PC mics just won't work with the Mac without some external gear. Most $30 and up preamps will sound pretty decent and have lots of nice features. Here's one example just googling around: http://www.zzounds.com/item--BEHMIC100 CB Dane Trethowan wrote: > Hi! > > Okay, just because the microphone worked with the Windows PC doesn't > mean its going to work with the Mac I'm afraid and if my hunch is > correct - that you're using a microphone which plugs into the > microphone jack of a PC and you're expecting it to work plugged into > the Line in jack of your Mac - then you're going to be a little > disappointed I think <smile>. > > I can't answer your garage Band question I'm afraid so let's deal with > Skype then. The first thing you need to do is set the audio > preferences in Skype, these are independent o the System Preferences > for the Mac and are found by pressing command-, in Skype, go to the > Toolbar, interact with it and press vo-space on the "Audio" button. > From here you select your input and output, make sure the input > reflects the microphone or whatever you're using. > > I bypassed a lot of this trouble by using a simple USB microphone, > Logitech sell one for about $40.00 which does an excellent job, its > the same as the one I use. You may also like to consider a USB > headset though be a little careful here, some microphones on some > sound as though you have your finger stuck up your nose <smile>. > > One final thing, to determine what you sound like on Skype, make a > call to "Skype Test Call" which should be in your contacts table > somewhere, if you can't find it then go into the "View" menu and > select "Show offline contacts" > > > On 22/08/2009, at 12:46 PM, John G. Heim wrote: > >> >> I am trying to use skype on my mac mini. But the microphone doesn't >> work. I >> know the microphone I am using works because I just made a skype call >> with >> it on my Windows machine on Monday. I also tried connecting a stereo >> imput >> line to the jack and recording something with Garage Band and that >> didn't >> work either. >> >> I went into system preferences and found the imput tab. I turned the >> lin-in >> volume up to 100%. Still no luck. >> >> Any ideas? >> >> >> >> > > > ****************************** > > Dane Trethowan > From Melton Victoria Australia > mailto:"grtd...@internode.on.net <mailto:grtd...@internode.on.net> > Twitter: http://twitter.com/grtdane > blog: http://www.grtdane.wordpress.com > Phone United Kingdom > 02032874641 > Phone Australia > 0390058589 > Phone United States > 8159261869 > Fax: > +61 3 9743 7954x > MSN grtd...@dane-trethowan.net <mailto:grtd...@dane-trethowan.net> > skype:grtdane12 > > ****************************** > > > > > > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MacVisionaries" group. To post to this group, send email to macvisionaries@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to macvisionaries+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
