Recording software for mac

Hello,

I have a G5 power mac (not intel) and wished I could use wavelab to record stuff from the web along with recording my records, cds and mini discs into mp3 format. My question is are there a decent (pref. free), alternative for the mac? Nothing fancy, just striaght up quality recording...

Cheers
Stag

Sound Studio...

I have also found this - http://www.ambrosiasw.com/utilities/wiretap/

Any comments for these 3; which ones would you rate? One is free, the above is $20 and sound studio $80. Be good to get your opinions...

Thx

I vote for Audio Hijack Pro, which records what each individual app is playing, and ONLY what the individual app is playing. I use it to record quicktime streams, and you can record just about any app to .aiff for future editing with Audacity or GarageBand. It's $32, but money well spent.

We use WireTapPro for recording Skype calls for our podcast as well as capturing web audio.

For outright recording (with a mic) we start with Amadeus II, but Audacity is a free alternative (your original posting requested "free").

All three of these apps are wonderful, and are good for their intended purposes.

caribiner23 said:

We use WireTapPro for recording Skype calls for our podcast as well as capturing web audio.

For outright recording (with a mic) we start with Amadeus II, but Audacity is a free alternative (your original posting requested "free").

All three of these apps are wonderful, and are good for their intended purposes.

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Unfortunately Audacity won't record on a Mac from the sound card, and their FAQ says as such. They recommend one of the aforementioned either Wiretap, or Audio Hijack.

It's fine for editing, and I use it for that all the time.

From the original poster:

and wished I could use wavelab to record stuff from the web along with recording my records, cds and mini discs into mp3 format.

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To restate what I wrote above, I would suggest he use WireTapPro for capturing audio from the web, and Audacity to record his records, CDs, and mini discs to MP3 format.

I seem to recall Audacity worked fine with a Griffin iMic on my iBook. Does the G5 PowerMac not have an audio input/mic port? I am unaware of any limitations on audio inputs for Audacity, but I know Amadeus II works fine.

Ok, so Audacity wont work on the mac? So will the other 2 record from online and my external record collection or should i get this Amadeus II?

All the applications we're talking about are specifically for the Mac.

WireTapPro will record audio from the internet. You can use this for capturing streaming audio, etc.

I've had success with Audacity recording from an audio input. I don't follow what WalkerJ is saying.

My suggestion is to download both WireTapPro and Audacity and try them out.

caribiner23 said:

I've had success with Audacity recording from an audio input. I don't follow what WalkerJ is saying.

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If you have, I'd like to know how you did it even though I've given up and gone with Audio Hijack Pro. I've tried on my Mac Mini with a Griffin iMic, a 'lampshade' iMac and my new Macbook. Even though I have Audacity set to 'Default audio source' (with no other drop down options even available) and when playing something like a Quicktime stream or from iTunes Audacity records a flat line. Maybe another Mac (or PC) patched from phones out to line in, perhaps, but I have not been able to get Audacity to record audio from the same Mac on which it is running. Check Audacity's FAQ on Mac OS X stream recording. If you hook up something like a turntable or cassette player to audio in, yes Audacity should be able to record that fine (though you'll have to play with the levels.

It can record what's playing on a PC, and I did for quite some time before I switched to Macs. Now it's relagated to editing streams recorded with AHP.

Okay, that cleared it up. My confusion came from your use of the phrase "sound card."

Audacity records from an audio input-- e.g. a microphone, or an adapter such as an iMic. It does not capture the audio that's played through the Mac's sound system, such as a QuickTime movie or iTunes. If you want to transfer material from a turntable, tape deck, Minidisk player, etc., my suggestion is to connect these devices directly to your Mac's audio input (or through a device like an iMic) and use Audacity or Amadeus II to make the recordings.

Applications like WireTapPro and Audio Hijack will capture the audio that's played through QuickTime, iTunes, web sites, etc. If you want to record what's playing through your Mac's internal sound system, these are the apps that will do it. This is a very different requirement from making MP3s from a MiniDisk.

It should be noted that the audio-capture applications (described in the previous paragraph) generally produce recordings with lower quality than if you connect a tape deck or other source directly to your Mac and use Audacity or similar apps.

Hope this clears this up.

an option to consider is what I was going to do in my pc days.

I got a cheap creative labs zen nano mp3 player which has a line in record to mp3 function. Idea was to plug it into my dj mixer and press record and play records until it was full then chop up the resulting mp3 into named mp3's.

I will have another go at this now I've got my imac but I am also looking into transferring a pile of old VHS videos onto DVD.

I've been looking for some sort of firewire based thing with a scart lead socket and some phono sockets - I suppose you could just send audio in to that.

I was looking into the miglia directors cut but that got canned for some reason.