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It's easy to record stuff on a modern Mac. All you need is an audio controller that plugs into one of the computer's USB ports.
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Al Fasoldt's reviews and commentaries, continuously available online since 1983

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Audio recording on a modern Mac: Griffin's amazing little iMic


June 11, 2003


By Al Fasoldt
Copyright © 2003, Al Fasoldt
Copyright © 2003, The Post-Standard

   I've been making audio recordings on Windows PCs for years. Imagine my surprise, then, when I discovered that my new Macintosh had no audio inputs -- none at all.
   At first, of course, I was appalled. Why would Apple sell a modern personal computer without a sound card or an integrated chip that handled incoming audio signals?
   I never got a satisfactory answer. The more I learned about my new Mac, the more puzzled I became. I found out that some modern Macintosh computers have built-in audio inputs and some don't.
   Without a pair of audio inputs, one for the left stereo channel and one for the right, you can't record stereo sound on a computer. Before you assume the worst -- that this means you can't do any audio recording on your Mac -- let me explain what else I found out.
   It's easy to record stuff on a modern Mac. All you need is an audio controller that plugs into one of the computer's USB ports. The one I use is the iMic from Griffin Technology (www.griffintechnology.com), which costs $40 normally but was selling for $35 when I checked the price this week.
   The iMic is cute, looking like an elf-size hockey puck, and it gets all its power from the computer via the USB connection. It has two connecting jacks, both for stereo mini plugs. One is a switchable input connector, with one setting for normal, or "line," signals and the other for low-level microphone and phono-cartridge signals. The other is an output connector so you can pipe the sound to your stereo system.
   (Read last Sunday's Technofile column for instructions on hooking up your computer to your stereo receiver. It's on my Web site, at http://aroundcny.com/technofile/texts/tec060803.html.)
   The iMic is deceptively simple-looking. It has only one switch -- a slider that chooses between microphone (or phono cartridge) input levels and line-level signals. (The signals from microphones and most phono cartridges need a big boost to bring them up to normal volume levels.)
   The iMic needs no software on Mac OS X computers -- the Mac knows how to work with it without any help -- but I downloaded two extra programs that Griffin offers free to iMic owners. One is iMic Control, which provides bass and treble tone controls, an input-level slider and a few other niceties, and the other is Griffin's recording software, Final Vinyl.
   The "vinyl" in the name refers, of course, to the 12-inch vinyl records of previous decades, but Final Vinyl does a good job recording from other music sources, too. It also has an advanced, 10-band equalizer and an adjustable phono-cartridge boost that has built-in RIAA equalization. (That simply means you can hook up your old turntable's output cables to the iMic directly, without needing a receiver or preamplifier.)
   Griffin's little iMic isn't a professional audio device, but I found the sound quality surprisingly clean and free from noise and distortion. Other iMic users might need to take the same precautions I did, however; I made sure all the cables connected to the iMic were routed away from sources of hum such as the backs of TVs and computer monitors, and I tossed out some old cables I'd used in the past that weren't shielded properly.
   A brief note on recording software: You're not limited to Final Vinyl. I tried nearly a dozen audio recording and editing programs with the iMic. I'll tell you which ones I liked best next week.