using OS X 10.7 its recording from the system mike

new to audacity; how do i shut off whatever recording source that is recording apparently from my Mac Book Pro internal microphone, so my recordings all have background noise, including me cussing and shouting at the machine to stop it:)
thanks in advance

You don’t “shut it off.”

What are you trying to do?

Koz

i am recording music using the internal mike and when i play it back, i can hear my own voice and the background noise in my room. So it’s not just recording the music internally, it’s recording “live” as well.

So you want to record sounds that are playing on your computer?
Mac’s can’t do that on their own - they require additional software such as “SoundFlower”. See: Audacity Manual

it records the music fine; but unlike Wiretap i am hearing background noise on the recordings, as though there’s a second sound source it’s picking up, and the twin red recording levels keep moving when i press the stop-record button, so it’s still recording.

On an unadorned Macintosh, Audacity only has one selectable recording audio source:

Internal Mic.

(Well, the analog input may show up too, but that’s not germane here)

It may be recording the audio that you’re playing out the analog output from some other program, but it’s going out the speakers and back in the microphone.

Unless you are dealing with some program which cannot, your best bet is to have whatever program is generating the audio save it to a file, and then import it to Audacity to edit – if that was your goal.

That’s should be impossible on Audacity supplied by us - monitoring is turned off when you stop recording.

I suggest you download Audacity 2.0.6 from Audacity ® | Download for Mac OS.

If you are using Soundflower to record, set Audacity to record like this:




Gale

it records the music fine;

That woulds be the on-line music, right? Like YouTube or other service?

Koz