Constant mic usage (orange dot in Monterey)

[wpbdry]

Background Music seems to be constantly using my mic? Why is this necessary?

Apart from any privacy concerns this is annoying as MacOS Monterey now displays an orange dot whenever an application is using the mic. This is visible constantly, even when watching a video in full-screen.

I am aware that Background Music creates a virtual audio input device which can be used to record computer audio. But I was not aware that this amounts to "using the mic" (my headphones do not create the dot when they are connected). Background Music should not need to use the built in mic or any other audio input device for any reason, as this software is primarily concerned with monitoring and tweaking audio output..

Please fix or help me understand! Thanks!

[kyleneideck]

Background Music doesn't use any of your real input devices. macOS is showing the orange dot because Background Music uses the "Background Music" virtual input device.

I guess maybe their logic is that a virtual input device might still produce audio that should be private. @q-p reported it to Apple as a bug, but they said it was intentional: https://github.com/q-p/SoundPusher/issues/20

The best way to fix it would be for BGMDriver to send the audio to BGMApp through shared memory instead of a virtual input device. That would probably use less CPU and reduce the latency a bit, too.

But it's not a small amount of work and it's not likely I'll have time to work on it any time soon. If anyone else is interested in working on it, I'd be happy to help.

[q-p]

Here's a work-around for hiding the dot (but personally speaking I would not include such a hack in SoundPusher as it might also hide "real" microphone dots) https://github.com/s4y/undot

[anglee0323]

feel sorry to see that, beacause of this issue, I diecide choose another application though

[lowking]

feel sorry to see that, beacause of this issue, I diecide choose another application though

Which one? Give me a link, thanks

[anglee0323]

feel sorry to see that, beacause of this issue, I diecide choose another application though

Which one? Give me a link, thanks

sorry bro,haven’t found a good one perfectly fit my need.