mac: how to record "what you hear"

toasterman

Hi everyone,
I recently bought a mac and about the only thing I missed from my windows pc was the ability to pick "what you hear" and record in Audacity. I used it for recording interesting radio interviews from "listen again", or for recording my own purchased music from iTunes, to Audacity, to remove swear words from songs before I played them on radio.

I couldn't find this option anywhere on a mac. There are a couple of bits of software that do it for around $30 but I had read it was possible for free, using a bit of software called "Jack" (which I tried on Linux and could never get it working right on there either).

Several hours later, I'd managed to get it working a couple of different ways, without spending any money. One including Jack (got about 80% of it working) and a much much simpler way. Here's the simple way for anyone who might be interested.

You will need:
- A mac (mine is leopard..don't know if this works the same on tiger/other previous versions)
- Audacity (I tried it with some alternative sound recording software and it didn't work anything like as easily)
- The trial version of Audio Hijack Pro (I should add that this software is very good, easy to use, etc, and if you're planning on recording frequently, I think it's worth the money). I only do this once in a blue moon and don't mind a bit of configuration each time, so I'll make do.

5 easy steps
1. Install Audacity, and AudioHijack Pro trial.

2. Open AudioHijack and ignore nag messages. Go to "audio hijack pro" main menu, and select "install extras". Select "soundflower", and install. When it's done, you can close AudioHijack.
You're not stealing anything by doing this - soundflower is freeware anyway. There's probably another way to install it - I just haven't investigated how to.

3. Go to applications, utilities, "audio midi setup", and change the default output from "built-in output", to "soundflower (2ch)".

4. Open Audacity, go to "audacity" main menu, "preferences", and change the recording device to "soundflower (2ch)", and tick the box that says "software playthrough".

5. Hit record in Audacity and play whatever you want to record.
It records anything that you can hear that runs through the default output, which includes iTunes, Realplayer (bbc stations), the bbc radio player widget, etc. You can see sound levels, and if it's too loud or quiet, adjusting the volume you hear adjusts the recording volume - just like windows.

Note: You can only hear what's playing while Audacity is recording. When you stop recording, it all goes quiet.
After you've recorded whatever you wanted, go back to applications, utilities, "audio midi setup", and change the default output back to "built-in output" again.

Moneymaker

I like WireTap Pro and WireTap Studio.

toasterman

Yeah pretty much everywhere I looked was advising me to use either Wiretap or Audiohijack - they both had their supporters.
The price difference between them is $2, and like I say - if I was doing anything complicated, or frequently recording things, I might well shell out on that for the small amount of money that it is.

One thing I am pleasantly surprised at, is how cheap some pay-for software is on a mac. I was looking for a mac equivalent of Audition/Cool Edit, and I decided upon Amadeus - which does about 90% of what Audition does, and a few things Audition doesn't do. It seems harder to pick specific numbers of seconds, but the zooming-while-playing feature is very useful - and multitrack editing is better than Audition.
I'd say they're comparative for the majority of features I use.

But Adobe Audition isn't available for mac, but it's $300 on windows, and like all big corporations, Adobe screw you over if you're not buying in dollars. It's $300, but when I tell it I'm in the UK, its now £287. That sounds extremely unfair to me.
Amadeus Pro is $40 USD, and when I tell it I'm in the uk, I can have a digital download for the current exchange of $40. At the time of purchase, £23.85. You can't say fairer than that really.

footboy

Thanks for the above info - it's all really useful!

Download Soundflower (freeware) from here http://cycling74.com/products/soundflower/
No need to download any trial software anymore.

You can capture audio through a Garageband live instrument project now.

Open Soundflower (icon appears in your menu bar)
Set Garageband and general audio preferences as per first post above
To hear or mute audio switch between Built-in output / none respectively under the Soundflower menu icon.
Export as mp3.

Fabulous - cheers!