MacBook Air microphone picking up background noise and not my voice?

macbook Air condenser mic assy. is easy to remove and replace. (see pic below of Air mic assembly).

Mics are delicate instruments as is their nature, however the damage you experienced is either damage, or defect, nobody can know.

However I can accurately say without doubt its very rare what you experienced.

the little condenser unit could have been defective, and gave out, or myriad other possible's. I cannot pinpoint it over the web, even if I had it in my hands, still couldnt because youd have to dissect the tiny little mics to find out, and nobody will do that, just yank the old, and install the new ones.

a 'painless' repair however to be certain, quick and easy to do.

AustinJGibson wrote:

For example, it picks up every little bump on the computer and every click and press of the key, but it won't pick up my voice at full volume!

The little condenser mics inside are damaged. Hardware fault.

contact Apple for appt. for service. 😊

Look at the microphone - it's location and size. If you want good audio with no feed back problems get the headset/mic. You paid a lot of money for a laptop - not so much for the built-in microphone - serious audiophiles all use peripheral microphones, or other devices for capturing audio. This problem (poor built-n audio) is not restricted to Apple products.

This could be a Mavericks phenomena if you've recently switched and upgraded.

If you have moved or added external speakers the OS could be trying to automagaically reduce squelch. Of course you know about audio controls in System Preferences->Sound (input).

Are you experiencing this in doing voiceover's in iMovie, or using Facetime, Messages, Skype? other?

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The best solution to this is use a Voice Quality Headset/microphone combination. There are many available in USB... don't know if there are any Thunderbolt models.