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Aggregation, soundflower and all that jazz
Posted: Fri Feb 25, 2011 9:21 pm
by Lanny
Hello from a new member.
Could someone please point me to good reading material explaining how aggregation works and what is the difference between an Aggregate device and Soundflower?
Specifically, I have a Mac Air, a USB soundcard from Apogee called ONE (one input one output) and a Silent Guitar from Yamaha. I'd like to record (while monitoring) the guitar (plugged in ONE) and voice from the Mac Internal mic.
Re: Aggregation, soundflower and all that jazz
Posted: Fri Feb 25, 2011 9:51 pm
by kozikowski
Aggregation works by allowing a recording from two different bitstreams -- I'm want to say two (for example) of the same USB microphones. Don't fall in love with that idea. The two bitstreams are unsynchronized and the two shows on playback will gradually drift out of sync. It's a technique that sounds terrific on paper.
Soundflower allows you to record the computer speaker or headphone signal -- effectively running the record and play services at the same time. This tends to be incompatible with Skype and conference services.
That's the software you need to record YouTube or other on-line performance. Macs do not have "Mix-Out" or any of those other Windows services.
Audacity will only record from one "thing" or device. There is also a limitation of your Mac sound panels. It will let you select the built-in microphone or the external or USB services. Not and.
I know how to do this with a completely analog system, I do this with a small external mixer in what passes for my "music," but I don't know what you would need if all your services are digital.
I do know to check if it's possible before I bought any of it.
You should be able to record one segment of the performance and then go back (rewind) and overlay additional performances -- although that can be problematic in Macs, too because of their internal delays.
This only really works well with a sound card designed to do it or a fully external production mixer.
I think it's still true that nobody wrote a wiki or instruction sheet for overdubbing because it changes so much depending on your computer and equipment.
Koz
Re: Aggregation, soundflower and all that jazz
Posted: Fri Feb 25, 2011 9:56 pm
by kozikowski
Oh, if I didn't mention this, Modern Macs do not support Audacity 1.2. Get Audacity 1.3.12 from here:
http://audacityteam.org/download/
If you use MP3 or other compressed formats, you should get "lame" and "FFMpeg" from the same place. Do not use older versions of those plugins.
You can install both versions, but only use one at a time. Audacity 1.3 projects will not open in 1.2. Audacity 1.3.12 has a limited ability to cancel out some of the production sound delays. Audacity 1.2 doesn't.
Koz