Internal microphone not picking up sound

[hackintoshhelp2020]

Fair warning: I'm completely lost on this one. Tried Google, and can't even find a thread within the past 5 years, so must be using the wrong terminology when searching.

Running 10.14.5, never needed a microphone before. Sound output has always been fine. Got new AirPods Pro's and started playing with them and all is mostly well. Default Input device under sound settings was set to the AirPods and worked in Google Meets however sound on calls was terrible compared to watching YouTube or listening to Spotify. Searching around said to switch input to internal microphone and try again. That's where my issue is: switched to internal microphone and it registered nothing when I speak.

I've got the AppleALC kext and my config.plist has the following entry.

<key>Audio</key>
<dict>
<key>Inject</key>
<integer>7</integer>
<key>ResetHDA</key>
<true/>
</dict>

Any help, or at least the right words to use to figure out the root cause would be appreciated

 

[P1LGRIM]

That's where my issue is: switched to internal microphone and it registered nothing when I speak.

Does your motherboard actually include a microphone?
That would be unusual in my experience.
Have you plugged a microphone into the 'internal' socket ?

 

[hackintoshhelp2020]

Does your motherboard actually include a microphone?

Nope. I'm guessing that's why I can't find anything

Have you plugged a microphone into the 'internal' socket ?

No, because I don't actually have any microphone other than my wired EarPods which I don't have a splitter for.

Looking at this further, stumbled onto this article https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208896 which says

Learn how Bluetooth headphones connect​

If you listen to music or other audio via Bluetooth headphones, and then you open an app that uses the Bluetooth headphones' built-in microphone, the audio quality and volume are reduced. You might also hear static or popping sounds.
This happens because Bluetooth has two modes: one for listening to higher-quality audio, and another for both listening and speaking through the microphone. When Bluetooth switches to the second mode, the quality of the audio that you're playing is reduced until the microphone is no longer in use.

Based on that, Google searches returned plenty of others having BT "issues" with quality during calls, even on non-Hackintosh MacOS systems, which is apparently to be expected with Apple. Since we can't switch to "internal" microphone, not sure there's a workaround for Hackintosh's