audio line in external microphone

Question

audio line in external microphone

I wish to record from my stereo system to my mac. It seems that the audio line in jack would be used to connect to my stereo line out. I have a y-splitter cable. The System Preferences -> Sound -> Input shows only an internal microphone Built-In Audio. How do I use the external audio line in port?

Powerbook G4, Mac OS X (10.5.8)

Posted on Aug 14, 2009 5:07 PM

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Answer 1

immo

Level 4

2,381 points

Aug 14, 2009 6:47 PM in response to Richard Carpenter

Hi there,

if you click at the Input tab in the Sound pane of the System preferences...
below the Internal Microphone > Built in,
you should be able to see a Line-In >Audio Line- In port.
You connect the stereo mini jack to the line-in port and you can control the input level with the Input volume fader in the same window pane.

A

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Answer 2

Aug 15, 2009 8:45 AM in response to immo

Thank you for the reply. The problem was that there was only the one sound input device listed, Internal Microphone; there was no second device. I used the utility application, Audio MIDI Setup.app to change the Audio Devices -> Audio Input -> Source to Line In. Line In was one of two items on the Source menu. Now the sound input device list in System Preferences->Sound->Input shows one device with the Name Line In and Type Built-in Audio. And when I play a record the Input level bar shows there is a signal.

The problem now is that signal is not available to GarageBand. How do I set GarageBand to use the Line In device?

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Answer 3

immo

Level 4

2,381 points

Aug 15, 2009 9:20 AM in response to Richard Carpenter

yes the AMS would be my second suggestion... glad you found it 😉

Click on the GarageBand menu and select preferences then click on Audio/MIDI,
under Audio Input either leave it to System Setting if you have selected the default input to be the Audio Line-In port in the AMS (input setting) or click hold and select from the drop down menu Build in Input.

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Answer 4

Aug 15, 2009 1:24 PM in response to immo

Appreciate your help. It seems that GarageBand now gets the Line In but ... it is not clear what I did to make that happen because I had already taken the steps you suggested, it did not work, now it does. Maybe it was necessary to power off/on to get the changes to take effect? ... and the GB recording is really poor, scratchy, low volume.

Meanwhile I downloaded Audacity ( http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ ) and had much better results including exporting to a WAV file which does not appear to be available in GB.

Thanks again.

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Answer 5

alfreeek

Level 1

0 points

Oct 13, 2009 5:44 PM in response to Richard Carpenter

It seems this is an issue with 10.5.8 as my "Line In" has disappeared after upgrading from 10.5.7. Notify the authorities, there's a bug in the house!

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Answer 6

Nov 23, 2009 5:32 PM in response to alfreeek

I'm having the same exact issue. Line in is no where to be found on my powerbook g4 with 10.5.8
I would not have put this update in at all except I Life 09 required it.
Has anyone found a solution?

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