Low Microphone Input Level: Shure Microphone/Griffin iMic Incompatability?
I am trying to do home recording of voice and acoustic guitar through a microphone. The volume levels coming into the computer are extremely low, so I suspect I have the wrong hardware, but I not sure what I can do to correct it.
I am trying to record on Garage Band 1.1.0. I have a Shure "100WD Pro Microphone System" with a "8900W Dynamic Cadioid Microphone". The microphone has a dynamic range of 50-15000 Hz and an impedance of 600 ohms. I have this plugged into a Griffin "iMic External USB Sound card". The Griffin adaptor is plugged into one of my Mac's USB ports.
I have made sure that the Griffin adaptor switch is set to "Mic" rather than "Line" input. In the system sound control panel I have the "iMic USB audio system" selected as the input device and the input volume turned all the way up. In Garage Band I have to crank the track input volume up to the point of distortion to record any sound at all. At this point, Garage Band is unusable for me.
I've read Hang Time's Garage Band FAQ and suspect that the problem lies with some incorrect configuration of microphone and USB adaptor, but I'm not sure where to go from here.
I'm also getting the "Disk Too Slow" error. I gather that the fix for this problem is to buy an external FireWire harddrive, and assume the error is unrelated to my low input line level.
Questions
...Any idea what's wrong?
...Is my specific Shure/iMic setup known to be problematic?
...What microphone/adaptor hardware should I buy to do home recording? I don't need anything fancy. A bare minimum that works would be great.
Thanks.
PowerBook G4 12" Mac OS X (10.3.9) Shure Microphe (600 ohm), Griffin USB iMic
I am trying to record on Garage Band 1.1.0. I have a Shure "100WD Pro Microphone System" with a "8900W Dynamic Cadioid Microphone". The microphone has a dynamic range of 50-15000 Hz and an impedance of 600 ohms. I have this plugged into a Griffin "iMic External USB Sound card". The Griffin adaptor is plugged into one of my Mac's USB ports.
I have made sure that the Griffin adaptor switch is set to "Mic" rather than "Line" input. In the system sound control panel I have the "iMic USB audio system" selected as the input device and the input volume turned all the way up. In Garage Band I have to crank the track input volume up to the point of distortion to record any sound at all. At this point, Garage Band is unusable for me.
I've read Hang Time's Garage Band FAQ and suspect that the problem lies with some incorrect configuration of microphone and USB adaptor, but I'm not sure where to go from here.
I'm also getting the "Disk Too Slow" error. I gather that the fix for this problem is to buy an external FireWire harddrive, and assume the error is unrelated to my low input line level.
Questions
...Any idea what's wrong?
...Is my specific Shure/iMic setup known to be problematic?
...What microphone/adaptor hardware should I buy to do home recording? I don't need anything fancy. A bare minimum that works would be great.
Thanks.
PowerBook G4 12" Mac OS X (10.3.9) Shure Microphe (600 ohm), Griffin USB iMic
