Audacity Forum

It seems that I am only allowed to use the internal mic for a sound source. How can I add another sound source like safari (iplayer)?

See here: http://wiki.audacityteam.org/index.php? ... mputer#Mac

I used to recommend WireTap, but they grew up. It used to be WireTap, then WireTap Pro, then WireTap Studio, and the latest version is WireTap Awkward To Use, Slow, and Prone To Mistakes.

They are trying really hard to be the One-Stop Shop for audio production and in the process seriously damaged the product. Then they delivered the final stroke by closing all the older versions.

SoundFlower gives you some of the tools that Windows Mix-Out or What U Hear used to before Windows took it out.

Koz

kozikowski wrote:SoundFlower gives you some of the tools that Windows Mix-Out or What U Hear used to before Windows took it out.

"Stereo Mix" is still available for many Windows users (up to and including Vista and possibly also Windows 7 but I've not used Windows 7). The reason that it is sometimes not available in some new Windows computers is not due to it being unsupported by Windows, but because it is either unsupported in the audio device drivers (provided by the hardware manufacturer) and/or it has been disabled in the hardware. On quite a few laptops Stereo Mix is available, but needs to be enabled in the Windows Control Panel.

In all cases that I have seen to date where Stereo Mix is not available, it has been because the audio device drivers do not support that option.

Boys, take that windoze talk somewhere else, the man needs JackOSX.

<<<take that windoze talk somewhere else>>>

Yessir.

<<<man needs JackOSX.>>>

Possibly. Two problems I can see: It's version 0.83 and people who hate Beta software will need to pay attention. Tiny packages like this tend to have limited testing. What happens if I load JackOSX on a machine running WireTap? Do I get a little mushroom cloud?

I'm prone to saying that these packages make a Mac sound system as unstable as Windows is all the time.

Oops. That slipped out.

Koz

Josh24 wrote:Boys, take that windoze talk somewhere else,

Just correcting an erroneous myth.

kozikowski wrote:I'm prone to saying that these packages make a Mac sound system as unstable as Windows is all the time.

Oops there's another one - there is nothing inherently unstable about the Windows sound system. Windows is used in many professional recording studios. There are also probably more stable home studios based on Windows than there are Mac users (all Mac users put together).

I have no reason to advocate Windows (I choose Linux - which is probably the most tested platform for Jack).

Meanwhile, rc would like to connect another input source to Audacity. That is exactly what Jack will do for him, easily and reliably. The current binary release package is as stable as one could desire for his purposes. There's nothing Beta about it; that would be building the latest svn source yourself. Jack's core functionality as an audio router has been working on OSX since Panther. A simple connection between Safari-out and Audacity-in is trivial. The included documentation and tutorial guides the user through that set-up in about 3 steps. (On the Audacity side all you need to understand is what monitoring is)

kozmo says:
'Tiny packages like this tend to have limited testing'.

Tiny packages? Do you mean efficient compact code? Small package download size? Number of installations? A lot of happy Linux users don't seem to worry much about that, several of their most popular audio apps are built Jack enabled. Mac OSX versions of Ardour, Hydrogen, and xjadeo are all Jack-aware and work fine together, including midi in and out and transport sync.

'What happens if I load JackOSX on a machine running WireTap? Do I get a little mushroom cloud'?

At the same time? With or without Jack as the default device? Why would you? What happens if you plug your line level guitar output into the mic in jack, or hotwire your audio-out directly to your audio-in, or some other brain dead connection idea. Now that might smoke, but whose fault is that? Piping Safari to Audacity is not a software or hardware risk if one can read and click a mouse.

'I'm prone to saying' ....

Dubious assertions that muddle the issue? Rc could be exporting his favorite you-tube audio clip from Audacity in the time it's taken to compose this. You should try it out if you haven't, it's quite robust. Stable enough to handle 2 external devices as an aggregate, as many channels as you have hardware for, and as many applications clients as you can load. If you trip over the virtual wires, that's not Jacks fault. As a matter of fact, 'stable' Audacity' was one client that use to misbehave because it wasn't refined enough to weather user induced errors in device management while loaded.

I agree with Steve, (except the stable studios bit is a pointless statistic, there're more MS installations than Mac) and add that there is nothing inherently unstable about a properly configured sound system on all 3 platforms, OS vendor and (most) 3rd party software alike. It's the users and installers who induce instability.

I think we should urge Rc to be bold and give Jack a whirl. It works. If he's timid it's got a clean uninstaller. I can break not-so-tiny well tested QuickTime without even trying, ever try to uninstall or revert versions with that proud and 'stable' flagship? ; Jack and Audacity would take an effort to break.

Yer faithfull reader, JK

<<< <<< 'What happens if I load JackOSX on a machine running WireTap? Do I get a little mushroom cloud'? >>> >>>

<<<At the same time? With or without Jack as the default device? Why would you?>>>

Several reasons. I need features from both at separate times, or the much more popular "I forgot." It's much less likely, but it's also happened that other software packages load stuff and not tell you. Audacity itself has run into problems with that.

Our favorite badly behaving puppy; what happens with Skype, the original Does Not Play Well With Others tool?

<<<There's nothing Beta about it>>>

Other than the 0.83 version number. We have posters whose corporate structure will not let them use pre-1.0 software.

<<<Linux users don't seem to worry much about that>>>

Linux users in general don't tend to worry too much about software and hardware not matching. There was a funny XKCD cartoon recently about that.

<<<I can break not-so-tiny well tested QuickTime without even trying>>>

So can we. Apple made some unfortunate choices in the QuickTime panoply.

<<<I think we should urge Rc to be bold and give Jack a whirl. >>>

I agree. Possibly many of us agree. I'm looking for something to replace the WireTap License. It's no longer useful.

Koz