Old iMic shows only one channel

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IrlSmith
Posts: 28
Joined: Tue Oct 14, 2008 1:45 am

Old iMic shows only one channel

Post by IrlSmith »

I am using an early iMic (the round one, no flat on the front) with a MacBook Pro (retina) in 10.9.5. The Sound selector, Advanced, only shows one channel, and no matter what I do the sound in the left and right stereo channels in Amadeus is identical. Did I break the iMic while poking around with a paper clip into the input jack to see which channels were live?
To be specific: is it normal that when I select the iMic as an input ("iMic audio system/USB") I see only a single channel (channel 1) on the Advanced Settings pane on the Source selector, for the left, right, etc, Input?
Irl

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Jim Edgar
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Old iMic shows only one channel

Post by Jim Edgar »

Wow.  An iMic?  That's a little bit of history, there.  Of course, I still have my old serial port MacRecorder...

What are you running into the iMic?  You need to be sending a stereo signal into it through an 1/8" trs connector -  I _thought_ even gen1 was a stereo unit. If you are sending a mono signal into the input, that would be consistent with your results.  


Though not advisable, it would be hard to break the stereo by sticking metal into the input. 


Jim Edgar

jimedgarvoices@gmail.com (jimedgarvoices@gmail.com) - @jimedgarvoices
http://www.jimedgarvoices.com  -  http://about.me/jimedgar

IrlSmith
Posts: 28
Joined: Tue Oct 14, 2008 1:45 am

Post by IrlSmith »

The old iMic is indeed stereo; I used it years ago a lot for stereo recordings on a G4 tower Mac.
I think the problem is that somehow the system (iMic plus Macbook plus Amadeus) doesn't recognize that there are two channels coming in over the USB. For example, if I unlock the two recording-gain sliders and move one to a different level, both of the VU meter displays remain at identical amplitudes.
The odd thing is that I believe it was working as two independent channels for a couple minutes but then something changed (I was thrashing with the controls) and it got into the current single-channel state.
My real question is: if the system recognizes a stereo USB input, should it show channel 1 and channel 2 as choices for the right and left stereo channels? Right now only channel 1 is shown on any of the channels in the Advanced settings pane on the Source panel.
Irl

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Martin Hairer
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Old iMic shows only one channel

Post by Martin Hairer »

Strange... I do have an old iMic lying around and tried to reproduce what you see without any luck. It shows up as "iMic USB audio system" in my sound prefs panel and when I click on "Advanced Settings..." it does correctly show two available channels. This is with Amadeus Pro 2.1.7 on a retina MBP running OS X 10.10, but I would be *really* surprised if 10.9.5 did behave differently in that respect. What does it show if you open "Audio MIDI Setup" located in your Applications/Utilities folder? It should show something like this:

Regards,

Martin
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HairerSoft
http://www.hairersoft.com/

IrlSmith
Posts: 28
Joined: Tue Oct 14, 2008 1:45 am

Post by IrlSmith »

The Audio Devices window of Audio Midi Setup showed the iMic with 2 output channels and only 1 input channel. Aha! I changed it to 2-ch 16-bit integer. Amadeus now shows two channels. Thank you! The two VU meters now are independent. (Still only a single gain control, i.e., if I unlock them and make them different the two channels still have identical gain.)
Is the standard arrangement for Channel 1 to be Left?
Irl

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Martin Hairer
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Old iMic shows only one channel

Post by Martin Hairer »

Is the standard arrangement for Channel 1 to be Left?
Yes, that’s correct. Regards,

Martin

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HairerSoft
http://www.hairersoft.com/



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