Is There A Way To Put Headphones In And Still Make Sound Come Out Of The Mac?

MathcoreRomeo · Jan 23, 2009

I'm trying to put my headphones in so I can play along with a song, but I still want the sound to come out of the Mac so the mic picks it up and I can do covers. I've looked in the Sound options in System Preferences, but nothing was there to help it do that.

Thanks for any help.

scathe · Jan 23, 2009

you have to get a 3,5mm jack splitter, which lets you plug in two devices into one jack ... same as splitting a power cord

MathcoreRomeo · Feb 3, 2009

scathe said:
you have to get a 3,5mm jack splitter, which lets you plug in two devices into one jack ... same as splitting a power cord

Can you link me exactly what you mean by chance?

Aptmunich · Feb 3, 2009

It sounds as though you're trying to record the sound being output by your Mac whilst you play over it.

Bad idea. You'll either get audio feedback, or just a weird, terrible recording.

Better idea: Just play along to what you hear in the headphones and then use garageband to place that track over the track you were playing along to.

MathcoreRomeo · Feb 3, 2009

Aptmunich said:
It sounds as though you're trying to record the sound being output by your Mac whilst you play over it.

Bad idea. You'll either get audio feedback, or just a weird, terrible recording.

Better idea: Just play along to what you hear in the headphones and then use garageband to place that track over the track you were playing along to.

But I am trying to make a video. How would I get the music to play and record on the video? I don't know how to line it up so the song lines up with when I play it. If I press play on the iMovie capture video thing, then it would take about 2 seconds to switch to itunes to press play. If i were to do it that way, then just put the track on the video with iMovie, it wouldn't line up. Every possibility I thought of makes it so both won't line up.

andypham · Feb 3, 2009

iMovie allows you to add music to your video (not only recording the music)

Aptmunich · Feb 3, 2009

Ah, video... now I see!

Well, try it your way... as long as the volume from your Mac isn't too loud, it might work.

But to get speaker and headphone output, you'll either need to use a splitter and external speakers (you can't prevent the internal speakers from being disabled as far as I'm aware) or headphones and an external USB soundcard.

I'd try recording your part on video and then just dropping in the track later though. You can move the audio track around quite precisely in iMovie 2006,
so then you could line it up with your video.

MathcoreRomeo · Feb 3, 2009

Aptmunich said:
Ah, video... now I see!

Well, try it your way... as long as the volume from your Mac isn't too loud, it might work.

But to get speaker and headphone output, you'll either need to use a splitter and external speakers (you can't prevent the internal speakers from being disabled as far as I'm aware) or headphones and an external USB soundcard.

I'd try recording your part on video and then just dropping in the track later though. You can move the audio track around quite precisely in iMovie 2006,
so then you could line it up with your video.

Alright, I'll try some more stuff with iMovie. Thank you.