Laptop won't detect condenser microphone

Question

I have recently purchased a condenser microphone and a mixer which supports phantom power. I connected the microphone to the mixer and then connected the mixer with my laptop by using RCA.

The green circle shows where I connected the microphone, red ones are the RCA connectors with a 6.3mm adapter and I also connected my headphones. Once I did all that, I can hear the sound coming from my laptop and also hear my voice when I talk into the microphone, but I am not able to record my voice on the laptop.

Answer 1

Not only are you using the input of the mixer, you are most probably plugging the cable into another output. Laptops generally don't have an input jack socket - the jack socket in most cases is a headphone output. Your connection path should be output of the mixer to input on the laptop, but I am fairly certain you won't find an input socket.

Your best solution is to get a cheap audio interface with a usb connection and plug the usb connector into the laptop, thus creating a separate audio interface. You can then connect this desk to your interface, or you can simply find a cheap desk that has a usb output interface.

Answer 2

You appear to be trying to OUTput from a pair of Line IN sockets! Try feeding the computer from the Main Out sockets, or the Tape Out phonos.

It may be that the Mic In on your computer will auto-adjust to a line level signal. Today's equipment is very forgiving in this way! Try, anyway.