Audio and Recording - linux

Record microphone

arecord -f cd recording.mp3

And if that doesn't work you might need to change your device with the -D tag
        

Play Audio from Crontab (reliably)

You need to add this line to the top of your crontab in order to play audio (while other audio is playing):
XDG_RUNTIME_DIR="/run/user/1000"
# edit the "1000" to be whatever user ID you are (find user id with id -u $(whoami))