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I want to record sound on my MacBook Pro Late 2011 for screencasts, and I need a lavalier microphone for this. I have been looking at the JK MIC-J 044 Lavalier microphone, and from what I can tell, this should work out of the box. Since I have a very limited knowledge of audio in general, I would appreciate if anyone could confirm if this microphone would work directly with my laptop?

Or do I need a USB audio device such as the Griffin iMic? Even if this device is not strictly needed, would it improve the audio quality of my recordings? Because in that case, I want to go ahead and use it.

Thanks a lot for any advice.

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Your MacBook only has Line In and Line Out ports. The Line In port does not contain a microphone preamplifier (You may be able to boost the microphone signal enough to make it useable, but it will most likely still be low in volume and sound weak).

However the Line Out (yes - the line out port!) actually contains a real microphone input also (for use with combined mic/headphone headsets, see this discussion for additional details and this page for specs on your MacBook):

enter image description here

This will work with that microphone - all you need is an adapter cable that splits the input from the output in the Line Out port - like the one below:

Headphone and microphone combination adapter cable[1]

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  • Thank you very much! I took your advice and purchased a Plugable USB Audio Adapter to amplify the signal, together with an Indigo Banana adapter to convert the signal from mono to stereo. I tested this and it works. It's good that I took note of what you wrote about the preamplifier, because it didn't work without the USB audio adapter. I have linked to the items in case anyone else is looking for an answer to this or anything similar. Thanks again!
    – ba0708
    Oct 14, 2015 at 17:09

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