USB microphone not recognized

yoshimo hit it on the head - thanks man!

I had same trouble.

Replaced the USB cable, and it was recognized immediately!

For future reference of people searching these forums:

Make sure the USB connector on the back of the Snowball (or Yeti) is plugged in correctly. The tolerance is too large on the Snowball plug and it WILL allow you to plug it in upside down. If you do this the red LED comes on but the Mac will not recognize it. Flip the plug over and it works fine.

I wish your suggestions helped my situation. My Blue Yeti Pro is not being detected by Mac Sound, Audio Midi or Adobe Audition. I've changed cables three times, tried three different USB ports, and looked for things inside the ports and cables to straigthen with tweezers... but there is nothing.

The Yeti Pro was detected perfectly fine this morning, then stopped when I unplugged the mic to move it into my new soundproofed hutch. I am so lost and the follks at Adobe Audition couldn't help me either.

Please help!!

Test your mic on another Mac. Take it to the Apple store if you have to. If it works there with your cable then try safe booting your Mac and try plugging it in then. All problems are either hardware or software. You just need to figure out which one it is and go from there. Not all software plays nice together.

Thanks for the advice, ArchonOSX. I will definitely do that, even though I have already bought a digital audio interface so that I can use my old awesome (non-USB) mic. I am a voice-over talent who was trying to build a simpler setup without all the equipment. If I can still get the Mac to recognize the Yeti-Pro, that will be great for my separate mobile studio or as a backup in this studio. Thanks again.

Also, I tried switching to the Apogee Mic, which is a seamless Mac mic, but... it had an atrocious sound that was unacceptable to my clients. So my advice to all VO peeps is to stay away from the Apogee USB mic. The quality isn't good enough. Very tin-canny and hollow.

Thanks again, ArchnOSX. I will take your advice. It's always best to get help from the experts. :-)

HAHAHA pawelmusician I did the SAME THING. Thank you SO MUCH! I sat there for like...WEEKS wondering what was wrong and sad that I couldnt record my music anymore! Thank you thank you thank you. Such a simple problem, but I am SO glad you solved it!!!!!

If everything appears to be working fine (ie it's not the cable), then try this- Where the USB cord plugs into the mic itself, try rotating the cable and plugging it in the other way. There is a huge design flaw (imho) in the the Snowball mic, because it will accept the usb cord both ways. Meaning, it can feel plugged in but could be upside down, and thus won't work. I had this same problem and as soon as I plugged it in the right way, it was detected and everything worked just fine.

Hope that helps!

I should also state that in the upside-down position, the snowball will get power and even light up, so it's doublely deceptive.

My microphone still didn't work with different leads, and the prong trick didn't work either. But what got mine working was the fact that at the back of your microphone, there should be a small plastic divider to separate the four prongs. This had fallen out of mine. I got some forceps and bent the prongs back into a shape where they would fit securely into the white plastic divider. After a bit of trial and error and prong-squashing I finally got it working. I'm going to tape the lead in place to the microphone just to make sure it won't happen again. So if none of the above works, check the floor near your microphone for a white piece of plastic.

I tried a different USB cord (not the one it came with) and now seems to be working fine. Weird!

Also had same problem, microphone not recognised by either iMac or iPad via camera connection kit. New cable and it worked fine, weird as the cable just stopped working having succesfully worked a couple months earlier.

I tried all the different fixes above. After my Blue Yeti Pro refused to work, I tried to plug in again my Snowflake, which now won't work. They are recongized in Sound Preferences, they just won't work. One thing: after disconnecting the mic once, I got a "this device not properly disconnected" message. I wonder if this had anything to do with it?

You just saved my microphone a violent and horrific death. I was about to smash this thing and throw it out the window. I had dropped my microphone yesterday after using it. Read your post, looked on the ground where it fell, and PRESTO! Success! Thank you!