AWESOME PowerPC trick, thought I might share

[PowerPCFan]

Hi! I have a PowerBook G4 with Audacity 2 (I think) and it has the Digital Audio In port. Really, its pretty simple, but all you have to do is grab a mobile devoce, laptop, compiter, Nintendo, Xbox, anything with YouTube and a headphone jack. Open a good song in YouTube on that device. Then pause the video when it loads and plug a 3.5mm AUX cable in the headphone jack. Turn the volume to 100% on your YouTube device. Plug the other end of that AUX cable into the Digital.Audio In port and open Audacity. Click record in Audacity and click play on the YouTube.Now you can get your favorite songs for free. I Can easily do this because I am a retro computer fan and I have dozens of old Macs but what if I want to tell other people how to do this but they don't have a retro apple computer? Does it work on Modern macOS or Modern Win11/Win10? Just wondering.

 

[Boyd01]

I have a PowerBook G4 but it died a couple years ago, also PowerMac G4 tower but it's also dead now. They were just great back in the day, but I don't really share your enthusiasm for these old Macs today.

Anyway, I use Piezo for this kind of thing, it's really simple. It can record any audio you hear on the Mac, no 3.5 mm jack needed.

Piezo - Charmingly simple audio recording for Mac

In seconds, you can record from any audio device or app on your Mac.

rogueamoeba.com

Looks like they have legacy versions that work all the way back to MacOSX 10.6

Legacy Software

Rogue Amoeba is home to fantastic MacOS audio products for consumers and professionals alike. Rogue Amoeba - Strange Name. Great Software.

rogueamoeba.com

 

[Juicy Box]

Back when DRM music was a thing, I discovered that I could use my PPC Macs, import the DRM protected songs into iMovie and export the music to a DRM-free MP3.

Digital Audio In port

I think the audio port is only digital if you use the mini Toslink optical cable. If you use a normal 3.5mm phono cable, it will be analog.

 

[PowerPCFan]

Back when DRM music was a thing, I discovered that I could use my PPC Macs, import the DRM protected songs into iMovie and export the music to a DRM-free MP3.


I think the audio port is only digital if you use the mini Toslink optical cable. If you use a normal 3.5mm phono cable, it will be analog.

Maybe that is the case. I just know its a port that's not a headphone port.

 

[PowerPCFan]

I have a PowerBook G4 but it died a couple years ago, also PowerMac G4 tower but it's also dead now. They were just great back in the day, but I don't really share your enthusiasm for these old Macs today.

Anyway, I use Piezo for this kind of thing, it's really simple. It can record any audio you hear on the Mac, no 3.5 mm jack needed.

Piezo - Charmingly simple audio recording for Mac

In seconds, you can record from any audio device or app on your Mac.

rogueamoeba.com

Looks like they have legacy versions that work all the way back to MacOSX 10.6

Legacy Software

Rogue Amoeba is home to fantastic MacOS audio products for consumers and professionals alike. Rogue Amoeba - Strange Name. Great Software.

rogueamoeba.com

I'll have to try this soon, sounds cool. This summer I will be getting a new old Mac that runs Mac OS X 10.8 so this will run on that.

 

[MajorFubar]

>>Does it work on Modern macOS or Modern Win11/Win10? Just wondering.

Modern Macs can use one of the audio pass-through apps, so they don't need to use cables connected to an external device. The one I used to use was called Line In. There are probably loads of others. I used it for recording my computer's audio to QuickTime when I was screen-recording my own Logic projects for my YT channel, as opposed to what you're doing, which I guess is the modern equivalent of taping a song off the radio.