Select the Output tab and choose Soundflower (2ch).

To begin using Soundflower, open the Sound panel in System Preferences and you'll see Soundflower listed in the Output and Input tabs. Users with more simple needs will have to look up instructions to configure Soundflower with more commonly used sound-capture apps. These are, however, heavily focused on using Soundflower with Max/MSP, a visual programming language for music and multimedia. To help users get started there are instructions in the Readme file found in the DMG download folder. The 64-channel device is provided for more complex routing situations and can be used with more than two applications simultaneously if the applications support audio routing to any channel.

For most people and purposes, the 2-channel device is sufficient. Soundflower opens as one of two core audio devices (2ch/64ch). Soundflower also allows users to record sound produced by their Macs such as audio channeled from outside sources like devices plugged into the USB and sound input ports.Īlternatives to Soundflower include iShowU, Audacity although neither work in exactly the same way. Or perhaps you'd like to record sounds from a frequency generation tool that's only available on the web?Īlternatively, you might need to do some creative re-sampling of a piece of audio by routing audio from apps such as iTunes and Spotify. Maybe you want to record the audio from a Skype or FaceTime interview, picking up both voices equally for more professional production. There are many instances in which you might want to use Soundflower to channel audio between applications. This means it won't negatively impact your computer's performance. Once installed successfully, the Soundflower extension runs with very low latency and CPU usage, allowing each client application to use its usual buffer size. We had to rely on researching the problem online and discovering the solution by ourselves. Installing Soundflower successfully was quite a challenging process, especially as there is no user instructions or tutorial to guide you through. Rerun the installer and, this time, the installation should be successful. Once there, there should be an Allow button that you can click to permit Soundflower (developer: MATT INGALLS) to open. The Soundflower installer will produce an error on macOS High Sierra, Mojave, and Catalina.Ī security alert will appear and you will need to go to the Security and Privacy - General pane in System Preferences. This is because kernel extensions on modern macOS versions now need to be given permissions before being loaded for the first time. The first time you run the installer (Soundflower.pkg), it will ask for your admin password and, depending on which Mac operating system you are using, this password might fail. Users need to download and run the Soundflower Installer.pkg. Note that this download is for Mac OS X versions 10.5.8+.

How to record audio output on mac