"Mac" is and abbreviation for "Macintosh", so no need for all caps. wink

You can find the instructions for installing Audacity on a Mac here:

https://manual.audacityteam.org/man/installing_and_updating_audacity_on_mac_os_x.html

Older versions of Audacity required installation of the LAME library to handle MP3 compression. I see in the notes that the software patent has expired, so this is no longer necessary, but I'm not sure what older versions might need it. If you're planning to work with .wav files, it's not an issue.

The download page has a link to FossHub, which has versions of Audacity that go back to 2.0.0.

"Best" is a relative term. You'll generally want something that sounds good, rejects background noise, doesn't pick up tabletop noise, and is easy to set up.

Here's a link to some popular podcasting microphones. The author recommends the Q2U, as it's easy to set up, supports USB and XLR, and sounds good.

-- David Cuny
My virtual singer development blog

Vocal control, you say. Never heard of it. Is that some kind of ProTools thing?