Useing a Microphone

hi, this is a dumb question, but im new to macs and couldnt find an answer when i searched. okay, heres my question

Can any Microphone be used on a mac?

i have a microphone but i cant get it to work, i plug it into the audio in port and i cant get anything, i Know the microphone works becasue it works when i plug it into a keyboard i have and it works fine.. any ideas?

Could the input be muted in the sound preferences?

no, its not muted, and if it is, were would the muting button be, there is none, there is a mute for the output, but thats not muted

anyone else have any solutions neye:

Is it a 1/8" Plug or USB?

1/8" Ports on Apple computers are line level, meaning that it requires some sort of power before it goes into the computer.

This appears to be the issue. The input on your Mac is an Audio In port, not a Microphone port. There is a significant signal level difference between an Audio jack and a Microphone jack. Hence, while you CAN use the microphone, in practise, the level is so low it is not really effective. I found that if I screamed into the microphone, I could get the audio meter to move ever so slightly in the preferences panel for sound.

What is the answer? You will need something like iMic (available at Amazon or other places) to amplify the microphone signal for you, or a powered mic, or do something radical and buy an iSight camera, which has an EXCELLENT mic built into it. Any of these will resolve your issue.

The iMic one is probably best if you have some old mics around that you REALLY want to re use. By the way, iMic is just one member of a class of products like this. You might want to search around and buy the one you like best.

so would any powered mic would work?

Since I went the iSight route, I can't answer the question. My bet would be on iMic or a compatible product, since it claims to be able to work with any mic. This is likely the safer and less expensive route.