In the image below you see two TRRS plugs, one for the CTIA standard and one for the OMTP standard. You didn't think it was going to be that easy did you? CTIA vs OMTPįor maximum confusion, there are two standards for TRRS jacks. The audio input on your Mac has a TRRS connection so you just need to get a TRS to TRRS converter cable right? So cameras and microphones that are meant for a camera have a TRS connection. A TRS connection makes perfect sense here. Stereo sound is always transmitted in one direction, from the microphone to the camera.

Now the external microphone is most likely designed for a camera. This is the type of audio headset with a microphone and therefore the type of audio jack on the Mac and other computers. Type TRRS adds an extra ring for microphone input.

The plug on your microphone is of this type. Again the sleeve is for the ground, the tip is for the left channel, and the ring in between is for the right channel. Type TRS allows for stereo sound to be transmitted. The tip is for the audio signal and the sleeve is the ground. Type TS allows for mono sound to be transmitted. What does that mean? In the figure below you see three plugs of type TS (tip sleeve), TRS (tip ring sleeve), and type TRRS (tip ring ring sleeve). The audio input on your Mac is of type TRRS and the plug from the microphone is of type TRS. In this post, I will explain the different standards and what is needed to make the external microphone work with your Mac. The problem is that there are different standards for audio jacks. This happened to me when I tried to connect my Rode VideoMicro to my Mac. When you try to connect an external microphone you may run into the problem that your Mac does not recognize the microphone.

Mac not recognizing external microphone