I cannot get Audacity to work in Mavericks. I am trying to record phone calls, as I have for years on an older iMac. I have tried a USB microphone adapter. I have tried two KV Connection audio devices connected through the headphone jack. The most recent shows in the preferences sound settings as an external microphone but audacity does not recognize it.
What devices work with Mavericks? USB or into the headphone jack.
That doesn’t tell us very much. Connecting to a telephone is scary and there are a number of ways of doing it. How are you trying to do it? Details, part numbers and descriptions are good. We can’t see what you’re doing.
Details like do you have a landline phone? How are you connecting to it?
Apparently, that’s a discontinued unit. It doesn’t appear on the Radio Shack web page. I found the use instructions on-line.
I suspect you are a victim of the iMac wanting to “see” the right things on its connections before it will work. I can’t prove that, but a number of other Mac services work this way.
I would expect a device like my little USB Startech would work with the phone adapter’s sound connection plugged into the Mic-In. It appears in Apple (upper left) > System Preferences > Sound > Input (Attach 1). Once you get it that far, start Audacity and look for it in Preferences > Devices > Recording (Attach 2).
Please note while you’re still in Apple Preferences, you should be able to get the blue ball sound meter to jump when you make a call. Audacity depends on the computer. If the computer can’t see it, then Audacity will never see it.
I think I have one of those phone adapters and if I can find it, I’ll see if I can make mine work. I was never able to get it to be well behaved before, so I put it in a box.
What I find interesting is that the computer “sees” the “iPhone 1/8 inch microphone adapter - 3.5mm 4 conductor TRRS Male to 3.5mm Microphone Input Jack” that KV Connections sold me, but Audacity does not see it, even after I quit audacity and reopen it. It continues to give as the only option “built-in microph”
With this adapter, the blue ball in the Sound Preference sound meter jumps around like crazy when I make a call.
With this adapter, the blue ball in the Sound Preference sound meter jumps around like crazy when I make a call.
So the machine knows what’s going on, but not Audacity. That usually happens on Windows machines with certain multi-channel soundcards that require special software.
First I heard of it happening on a Mac.
Just to cover the bases, try the Audacity Long Form. Audacity > Preferences > Devices > Recording. Sometimes Audacity will ignore devices if the Stereo/Mono is set wrong.
No, it still does not recognize the microphone going through preferences. I tried changing from mono to stereo and back. No response. I will order one of those Startech USB adapters. Thanks for your help. Deb
I am writing again to report the Startech USB external stereo adaptor is still not allowing me to record using Audacity. The sound preference panel recognizes the device, saying “USB PnP Sound Device.” Audacity also allows this device as an option. But when I go to record, nothing happens. I get a flat line and nothing is recorded or will play back. I have turned the microphone volume all the way up.
I am using the same radio shack telephone recording device, 43-228A. It works fine on my older mac.
Here’s my Startech working with a plain electret microphone. The Mac System panel with the blue ball sound meter and the Audacity red Record and Green Playthrough meters all working. Do you see anything in that picture that’s different enough to cause problems?
Koz
One quick note. That’s Monitor Mode in the picture. You can go into full record to do a sound test, or you can Control-Click on the red recording meters > Start Monitoring. The meters will wake up and start measuring the sound coming into Audacity. It’s not obvious it’s going to do that and it’s really handy when you have a recording problem.
Your iMac has a built-in microphone, right? Can you record from that?