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I have a little synthesiser that has a 3.5mm out. On my PC I can plug this into the Line In Port and use it in sound recording software such as Audacity.

Today I tried connecting it to my MacBook Air 2020 (2xThunderbolt and 1x3.5mm I/O) to realise that macOS recognised it as a set of external headphones rather than a recording device.

Blow is a picture of the Synth. I'm by no means a music expert - I would just like to have a little play around with it and record sounds onto my MacBook. Could somebody point me in the right direction for what USB-C Device I should get to properly connect it to my Mac? Many thanks in advance.

Synth Showing MIDI In, In-Sync-Out and a headphone plug

helblingjoel
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  • I think the MBA has only a headphone (sound out) port. To get sound in you need a different Mac or a USB audio-in device that will take your line level output and feed it into a USB-C port. – Steve Chambers Mar 08 '21 at 19:42
  • https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/55446/macbook-air-audio-input-output-mic-headset?rq=1 old but most likely still applicable. I don't think ist a headphone only port. – X_841 Mar 08 '21 at 20:21
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    Old MacBook Airs use a TRRS microphone socket, which accept a mic input; see here. For example, the 2013 MBA's spec page says "Headphone port. Support for Apple iPhone headset with remote and microphone." However, the new 2020 MacBook Air spec page says: "3.5 mm headphone jack." Thus, it's more likely that the newer MBA does not accept a microphone input. – DavidRecallsMonica Mar 08 '21 at 21:23
  • Good point! Sometimes you really have to look at the details... – X_841 Mar 08 '21 at 21:26
  • Thanks @SteveChambers just as I suspected. Would you happen to know of any USB Audio-In device? I looked through Amazon and all I could find was headphone/mic combo ones, but afaik the Line-In port which I would need for this is different from a standard mic port? – helblingjoel Mar 09 '21 at 23:34
  • Griffin had/has one, but beyond that, from several years ago, I have had no call for an analog audio adapter. But if you have a "mic" adapter those will often work, especially if you can adjust the "volume" of the device that is outputting the audio. A mic has a different impedance than line level so one should take care doing such things... – Steve Chambers Mar 10 '21 at 00:11

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