Not at all happy with my new Macbook Pro. Seeking (hopefully) some tips to fix...

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I had one of those little black 13" Macbook's. I was very surprised and very pleased with the quality of the microphone in that laptop. I would use iMovie to capture myself playing acoustic guitar. The original sounded wonderful, but then I'd use Share -> GarageBand to apply the Live Performance filter and I got excellent sounding audio in my video clips. Then the Macbook had to go and die on me.

So, I bought a brand new Macbook Pro thinking everything will be the same except faster hardware and a bigger display. Well of course then I find out iLive was updated and iMovie now kinda sucks (doesn't even give me the option to share with garage band anymore and all of the good editing features are gone...are they trying to get me to buy Final Cut???). I was able to download the iMove HD 06 from Apple's web site, though, so I at least have what I'm comfortable with there.

The problem is the mic quality is horrible! The vocals aren't all that bad, however, the acoustic guitar sounds really bad. It sounds like the guitar's plugged into an amp but the battery in the guitar is almost dead. You strum a chord and it might sound half way ok for just a second and then goes into this nasty electronic sounding fade in and out. Nothing at all like the crystal clear recording I got from my old Macbook. Very upsetting. Anybody have any idea or can you confirm that the mic in the new Macbook's is lesser quality than the old ones?

I've got a Labtec Stereo Mic that I was using on my desktop and I plugged it into the input on the Macbook but I can't get anything to work with it. I select Input (instead of Built-In Microphone) from the audio settings in iMovie, GarageBand, and Adobe Soundbooth but it won't pick up any sound from the mic. The mic works great on the desktop (windows).

On another note, my bluetooth isn't functioning like the old one would for me. I've got a cell phone that I can tether to my laptop and share the internet. On my old Macbook (and on this Dell I have here) I can simply connect the phone to the laptop via bluetooth, fire up the internet sharing on the phone and then select connect to network from the device options on the computer and I was up and running. Worked beautifully every time (and still does on the Dell).

With this new Macbook when I try and pair the phone FROM the Macbook it will not work. It finds the phone, the phone then asks me if I want to pair and the Macbook displays a pass code for me to type into the phone as usual. I do so but then the phone tells me the pass code was incorrect (I tried this very carefully about 10 times) but the Macbook tells me it was successfully paired. The phone, though, doesn't display the Macbook in its device list because it failed so it won't work. So, I remove the device from the Macbook and try again.

When I do it FROM the phone it works a little better. The phone finds the Macbook, then I set my own pass code which I then type into the Macbook and both the phone and Macbook then say successful and each display the other in the bluetooth devices list. However, I cannot get the Macbook to connect to the phone. It just sits there with a red light icon showing it's not connected. When I select connect to network, nothing happens. No error messages, nothing. The bluebooth menu goes away but then it's just like I didn't even do anything.

Any information, feedback, thoughts on any of the above would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
 
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Ok, I used my brain for a minute and I see that I can just export out of iMovie 08 and then add that into GarageBand. Kinda stupid they took the one-click option away, but oh well.

Doesn't help the Mic situation and I'm curious if anybody can confirm this or if maybe this thing has a bad Mic in it..?? I was thinking of a nice USB mic anyway, but it still bugs me that buying a new machine isn't as good as the old one.

Also, no luck on the BT still. It's driving me crazy.
 
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Ok, another update.

I can confirm for sure (unless the Mic in my new MBP is broken) that the recording quality of the mic in the old MB is much better. Again, though, I'm getting a separate I/O device for that anyway, so I guess no worries.

I have been able to get the phone connected after much trial and error. What I've noticed is that the pass code the new MBP gives me for connecting the bluetooth device is longer than what the old one would give me. Also, given the fact that when I connect FROM the phone and type in my own code it does connect I'd assume that maybe this phone has some sort of length limitation on the pass codes or something.

The problem is that when I connect FROM the phone the MBP claims that the phone has no features that the MBP can use and won't even allow me to connect to it at all.

The way I eventually got around this was to go ahead and connect FROM the MBP. When it gave me the long pass code for pairing I typed it into the phone and the same problem happened where the MBP told me it worked successfully but the phone told me the pass code was incorrect, so I told the phone to cancel. At this point the MBP showed the phone in the device list but the phone did not show the MBP.

I went ahead and selected Connect to Network on the phone within the device list on the MBP. With that the phone asked me again if I would like to pair with the MBP. I said yes and then it let me specify the pass code on the phone. Then I typed it into the MBP and both showed successful and now I can indeed connect to my cell phone and use the internet. In fact I'm doing it now.

Now, though, it's MUCH slower than it used to be. It seems like the bluetooth connection between the phone and MBP is slow. When I browse web sites on the phone itself it's still very fast. When I connect the phone to the old MB it's still nice and quick. When I connect it to this MBP it works, but is much slower. :(

What would possibly cause that?
 

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