Following up on the other day’s post— 

The reason I wanted to connect that mic to my MacBook is that I want to be able to record the electric piano for the videos that I may or may not be making in the near future. The lavalier mic is fine for my voice, but I wanted a higher quality mic for the piano, even though I’ll only be recording a few notes here and there.

Well, as it turned out, I wasn’t particularly satisfied with the sound I was getting from that mic after all. Now the piano has the ability to connect directly to a computer, but it uses a dumb-ass old-fashioned connector.

It’s a USB cable, but the port on the piano is not the standard USB port. It’s something, well, odd. And yet, with all the old cables I have lying around I was sure I had one that would work. I could still use the adapter that I had just bought from Apple to convert the standard end of the cable to plug into my MacBook; I simply needed a cable with that odd other end. I was certain I had one somewhere.

So I began rummaging around.

But to no avail.

The documentation called the cable a USB A-B type. So I did a web search on that.

Lo and behold, not only did I find matches but I discovered it was also called a printer cable. Well, I had a printer. Would its cable work?

The trouble is I now use the printer in its wireless mode, so I don’t use its cable, but I looked at the back of the printer where the cable would ordinarily plug in, and it was the same kind of port as the piano! So I knew I had that printer cable somewhere. All I had to do was find it. As I couldn’t locate it in the mass of cables that I had stuffed into the various nook and crannies around here, it was probably still in the printer’s box.

So down to the basement I went. I eventually found the printer box, but here was no joy. The cable wasn’t there.

Back upstairs, I started going through the cabinets and found an old microphone that I hadn’t used in years. There was a USB cable attached to it. Could it possibly have the correct kind of plug at the other end?

Nope.

So I decided I’d have to order one. The cheapest place seemed to be eBay. WalMart had them as well, and I could have gone to the local branch, but it was farther than I felt like going. The vendors on eBay that carried the cable at prices ranging from four bucks to about twelve were in Utah, California, and Florida. Nothing nearby.

I hated like hell to spend the money for yet another cable, modest as the outlay would be, when I was certain that I had to have that kind of cable around here somewhere.

And then mine eyes alighted upon the mic that had started this whole brouhaha.

Hmmm. It has a USB cable. Why didn’t I think to check it?

Sure enough, it had the correct connection.

Problem solved!