Hello,
I am trying to use a microphone on a mac mini that has no microphone input, so I am using a USB input for the mic.
When I run an experiment (this computer has the non-editing version of SL just for running subjects) using voice key activation as the input, it doesn’t work, and when I close the file, it tells me “superlab was unable to open this audio device”.
What might I need to do? Any suggestions if my particular USB input (a VXI Translator) won’t work?
Thank you,
Ben
On your Mac, under System Preferences, check the sound. Test this and see if it’s recognizable by the Mac. If it’s not, then it won’t be compatible with SuperLab.
It does register the sound–on the sound control panel it shows that the mic is picking up sound.
I spoke to a colleague regarding your situation. He remembers there being an issue with a USB based microphone, but it was a timing problem that the built in ones don’t have. Unfortunately, in your situation I don’t have an answer.
SuperLab stores the name of the audio input device, so the device needs to be available when you’re editing your experiment.
Connect the USB Microphone to the machine you are using to edit your experiment. Select the USB mic as the input source there, and save the experiment. Then move both the microphone and the new copy of the experiment to the Mac mini.
There are no timing issues here with USB microphones that don’t already apply to the built-in audio. With a fundamental frequency of the human male being between 85Hz and 155Hz, it could easily take 6-12ms for a single cycle of the audio waveform, so it would make sense if it takes a while to register a definitive change in volume.