

- #LAVALIER MICROPHONE FOR MACBOOK AIR HOW TO#
- #LAVALIER MICROPHONE FOR MACBOOK AIR PRO#
- #LAVALIER MICROPHONE FOR MACBOOK AIR PC#
Plus, they didn't even document how it works (I would be happy to eat those words if someone posts a spec explaining how to use an external mic with my macbook that actually tells you how to get the external mic recognized). BUT it would have been really easy for them to make this simple. True, the spec says that an iphone headset will work as an external mic and that does indeed work, so they are OK by the "letter of the law", as it were. The real problem though, in my opinion anyway, is that Apple screwed up.

I am convinced that the problem is that my splitter is somehow wired differently than hypotechguy's splitter. I forget what brand of splitter I have, but it is definitely not an Apple product. I read in some other thread that splitters are not all wired the same way. I plugged the iphone headset into both the mic and the headphones jack of the splitter and the sound setup window did not change to external mic. In hypotechguy's video, the external mic was recognized and one could plug record using the mic jack of the splitter.

Then I plugged in my splitter to the mic/phones jack and plugged the headset into the earphones jack of the splitter. I could talk into it and record the sound. Sure enough, after a few seconds it switched to "external mic" and the mic on the headset was working - i.e. I finally got an iphone headset today so I could try what was suggested by hypotechguy.Īs he did in the video (see his post for the link) I plugged the iphone headset into the mic/phones jack while I had the sound settings window up. Thank you for any pointers you can give us.įollow up on the splitter method.
#LAVALIER MICROPHONE FOR MACBOOK AIR PRO#
So our question is: has anyone successfully used an external 3.5mm microphone with the 3.5mm combination port on the MacBook Pro Retina 15"? If so, what kind of microphone did you use? Or, did you have to use any kind of adaptor or amplifier to make it work? The Apple senior advisor was not familiar with that claim, nor could he shed any light on it. The senior advisor also suggested a USB microphone instead, but that means a) having a wired microphone, which is not possible in our space, b) buying more equipment, when we already have our equipment, and c) adapting all our setup to the MacBook Pro, instead of the machine being easily integrated into our existing setup (more likely, we will ship the MacBook Pro back instead).Ī few discussions on the web (for example, ) mention that this specific laptop expects a "line level" microphone signal, one that would come from a pre-amplifier, so that regular microphones would not be detected. Apple does not have any recommendation, solution, or adapter for using a regular 3.5mm microphone with the 3.5mm combination jack, so that an external microphone can be easily used. We spent about 45 minutes with Apple customer support, including a senior advisor, and we were told that as the Apple headphone/mic combination, the one you use with an iPhone (seen on the video above), works in the combination jack, both as a microphone and as a headphone, then there's no issue. On the video they explain the plug of a regular microphone has 3 rings or pins, while the plug needed for the 3.5mm combination has four rings or pins. This YouTube video explains exactly our situation: (we did not create the video, but the video shows this is a common issue). However, after spending over $2,000 on the MacBook Pro, we found out that the 3.5mm combination port will not take input from any of the microphones we have.
#LAVALIER MICROPHONE FOR MACBOOK AIR PC#
This is a scenario and a set up where several PC units have worked perfectly well in the past.

The idea is to videotape an event, getting good quality audio from the presenter via the wireless microphone (our space has big limitations in terms of using wired devices), and monitoring the audio through the headphones. We wanted to use it the same way as our current PC laptop: hook up an external camera via BlackMagic Shuttle Express Thunderbolt (through the Thunderbolt port), hook up an external Sennheiser Freeport wireless microphone (through the 3.5mm combination headphone/microphone jack), and hook up a set of regular headphones (through the USB port). We bought a MacBook Pro 15" Retina a couple of weeks ago.
