Recently bought an Apple Mini Pro for a video project. Finished project. Then the other day I wanted to use the mini to record audio from a tape deck. I have been using Audacity on my Windows 11 PC for years and am very proficient in using it to create audio files.
However when I downloaded Audacity for MacOS and tried to imitate a recording, I get an error message telling me there isn’t any recording device. This puzzles me as my Windows PC incorporates recording internally without having to connect anything else to record audio using Audacity.
Doesn’t the Mini Pro have this same internal recording ability? Or is there some hardware switch that’s not working correctly with Audacity?
You need to grant to Audacity (or any other recording application) the right to access “Microphone” in your system settings.
You need to have a device which “translates” analog audio to something the computer understands (digital audio, which you can send to the computer via USB).
According to Apple support, the Mac mini does not have capability to record any audio being played from online sources like YouTube. The only thing I can do is purchase a USB interface to record analog audio form my tape decks or cd players. The Windows desktop fortunately doesn’t need all this extra fluff to record any audio either internally or from an outboard device. I’m disappointed in Apple right now as I thought they were the go-to platform for recording audio and video.
You nowhere mentioned recording from internet sources. This requires additional software, Blackhole for more recent macOS versions or Soundflower (discontinued, you might still be able to download it anyway) for earlier versions.
Not true, see above. For recording tapes / vinyls, this is a necessary equipment. For CDs you can just attach a CD drive to the Mac and let the Music.app import the songs.