Audio Setup for Macs

By Filbert Shellbach

One-Time Setup
Download Soundflower and LineIn.

You'll also need to set up a way to easily launch multiple instances of LineIn so that you can reroute audio in all sorts of ways. echo "alias linein='nohup /Applications/LineIn.app/Contents/MacOS/LineIn &'" &gt;&gt; ~/.bash_profile
 * Open up a terminal.
 * Run the following command:
 * Close your terminal before continuing, so the linein alias will show up, so you just need to type linein into a terminal to launch another LineIn.

Every Setup
Now we're ready to set up for an actual recording or stream. Here's what the goal is for how audio will be routed:



The three solid lines indicate LineIn repeaters. The five dotted lines indicate that some program is configured to take that device as input or output. The "Soundflower (16ch)" represents everything but your microphone; this mix will go to your headphones. "Soundflower (2ch)" is "Soundflower (16ch)" + Microphone which goes to the stream and to your recording software. It's possible to rename these virtual devices, but it's not really worth it.

The ovals are real programs. The rectangles are virtual audio devices used for mixing. The diamonds are real audio devices hooked up to your head.

The Skype audio settings look like this. Because this is a program setting, it's a dotted line in the graph.



The LineIn repeater from Soundflower (16ch) to Soundflower (2ch) looks like this. Because it's a repeater, it's a solid line in the graph.



You'll need two other LineIns, one that repeats Microphone to Soundflower (2ch) and one that repeats Soundflower (16ch) to Headphones. Just launch some LineIns by opening a terminal and typing linein three times. You can close the terminal and the LineIns should remain open.

One last example. Your ustream panel should have this audio config, taking input from Soundflower (2ch):



There are a few more programs to select audio devices for, but that's pretty much it. Feel free to respond if you have questions or need advice for more advanced setups.

Finicky Programs
Sometimes you have to deal with a program that doesn't let you select an audio input or output device. This is the case with ZSNES, iTunes, and many other programs.

If you download SoundSource, you can easily select the system-wide input and output devices. Once you install it, you'll have a headphone icon in your menu bar. From there you can change the system wide output to Soundflower (16ch). This way you can capture every program's output. Programs that have builtin audio device selectors won't be affected by this system-wide setting; SoundSource just affects programs that don't offer that setting.