Microphone Privacy feature is crippling my ability to record and produce music on my Macbook Pro M4 Pro.

Yes, I’ve done many a Google search on this. Many producers are experiencing this same issue.

My mic is not crackling - the noise happens when I play a keyboard, guitar, and even a midi instrument. As long as a DAW is open, as soon as playback or recording begins, the problem does too.

Thanks for your response. It doesn’t matter what the sound source is. The problem occurs when I play my keyboard, a midi instrument, a guitar. Whether or not I actually use my mic doesn’t matter. I can be recording, playing an instrument, or simply playing back audio.

The only common element between my problem and many others experiencing the same thing is the orange privacy indicator clearly responding to audio input from any source - The Mac even treats any incoming sound as a mic (even if it’s audio from my keyboard).

For example I’ll “arm” the keyboard input for audio recording (no microphones in use or plugged in at all). I hit record. Audio plays through my headphones (or speakers), and I start to play along with it, as the DAW records my audio from the keyboard. At any random moment, the crackle occurs. When it does, the orange mic privacy indicator visibility reacts at the exact same time. When the crackling stops, the orange dot settles down.

I appreciate your interest and help.

It’s ok if you aren’t a MIDI pro - this problem happens with audio and midi, mics and instruments.

I’m in Sequoia. I heard Tahoe is a nightmare, so I haven’t tried it. I believe the mic privacy feature still exists in Tahoe, but I don’t actually no. I do know it is something I can’t bypass without being a Mac wiz. I understand and value mic privacy, but I don’t think this feature was designed with music producers in mind.

The orange dot is not omnipresent. An orange mic icon is, and if I click it it shows Ableton, ‘Standalone,’ and ‘Isolation.’

The orange dot is solid when the mic is in use. For whatever reason, “mic” ≠ microphone. “Mic” = any source of audio input. So even if I ripped the microphone out of my Mac, it would still treat any instrument I plug in as a “mic.”

When the interruption occurs, the orange dot flickers - for lack of better description. It is really hard to pinpoint, as I’m the producer and the artist. So I’ll be playing or singing - not trying to focus on the orange dot. But as an experiment I did stare straight at it while I sang and sure enough, when the crackle occurs, the orange dot simultaneously acts up.

From what I’ve read online, my Mac is correctly receiving audio from my keyboard+interface, but it still has an ever-present mic of its own. Basically means if I scratch my chin hairs the Mac mic picks it up and this causes some sort of disconnect from the incoming keyboard audio. Something like that…I am relatively experienced in audio production, but I am not mac/pc-saavy.

I wish I could blame the problem on Ableton. It happens in many DAWs, I’m reading users are experiencing it across the board.

It does not occur when I am on zoom with someone. That’s sort of where I believe this mic privacy thing came from - everyone zooms now, and many people need those meetings to be completely private, so I appreciate what Apple is doing in that regard, but it seems like this feature has a negative overlap into music production.

I wish i could conclude it’s just an Ableton thing, and to be fair I should try Logic and Garage Band. But, a quick search of the issue and you’ll find I’m not alone, and it seems all DAW users are experiencing the same issue.

I am thankful that I can use a Time Machine to backup my Mac as-is now (everything else works perfectly) and revert to an old OS where this wasn’t an issue.

Thank you, I can’t believe I didn’t think of that. I will disable everything besides Ableton and I’ll get back to you! I try my best to only be running my DAW but this time I will make a conscious effort to pay more attention to the open/enabled apps.

Thanks again, I appreciate your input.