The line-in jack on macs, not just minis, is not a mic jack. It expects a much 'hotter' signal like the line out on a CD player or tape deck. In audio there are generally three level of signals. Mic leves are usually the tiny signals generated by the diaphram in a mic vibrating a coil of wire near a magnet or the like. Line level is usually used for short-run interconnects such as syths, decks and other media players/recorders. Speaker level is a very strong signal used to drive a loudspeaker or at least a set of headphones. Mismatching these connections can cause any number of problems. Running a line or speaker level signal into a mic input can fry things while running a mic level output into a line input will give what you experience - silence. The mic signal is so weak that the line level input doesn't even notice it. Normally on a real mixer you'll have pre-amps which bump up the mic signal to a usable level. Higher-end mics might even come with a dedicated pre-amp tailored to that mic.
Anyway, that's a long way of saying it won't work because that mac input is for a line level signal, not a mic. To get that all to work you would need a pre-amp or a mic that has a pre-amp built in. For nice sound like interviews via Skype I just use an old Shure SM58 to a little Mackie mixer. sounds far better than any 'computer' mic I've tried. CB John G. Heim wrote: > I believe that you need a special microphone for a Mac mini. I tried > several headsets and none of them worked either. You get output but no > input. I also tried a microphone from an old cassette deck and it did work. > The microphone jack is a little longer than that on a headset. > > Instead of buying a headset with the longer microphone jack, I just bought a > USB headset. > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Marc Grossman" <mgrossma...@gmail.com> > To: <macvisionaries@googlegroups.com> > Sent: Wednesday, December 09, 2009 5:34 PM > Subject: Microphone > > > >> I have a headphone/microphone combination headset with two male jacks. One >> is for the headphone and one is for the microphone. On the back of my Mac >> Mini, I can only feel two female jacks and they are located right next to >> each other. >> >> When I plug in the headphone jack, I can hear the audio with no problems. >> >> When I launch Skype and connect to another user, I can hear that person >> talking to me but the microphone does not appear to work and the person >> cannot hear me. I tried a second headset with similar results. >> >> Is there anything in Skype or the Mac system preferences that I need to >> adjust in order to use this microphone? >> >> Thanks >> >> -- >> >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "MacVisionaries" group. >> To post to this group, send email to macvisionar...@googlegroups.com. >> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to >> macvisionaries+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. >> For more options, visit this group at >> http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries?hl=en. >> >> >> >> > > -- > > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "MacVisionaries" group. > To post to this group, send email to macvisionar...@googlegroups.com. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > macvisionaries+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries?hl=en. > > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MacVisionaries" group. To post to this group, send email to macvisionar...@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to macvisionaries+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries?hl=en.
