09-20-2006, 06:25 AM

hi!
is there a free audio recording app for mac osx out there for recording just simple things like for example a stream running in itunes or real player?

i only need it every once in a while and just for the sole purpose of plain stream recording, so i dont see why i should pay to get e.g. wiretap...

thx!

chris

09-20-2006, 06:56 AM

You could try Audacity, which is a nice, free audio recording and mixing application. The website wasn't responding when I just tried to go to it, but that could just be my dodgy connection ... It's a really nice app, though. I use it quite a bit for recording analogue audio to MP3 thanks to it's nice tagging and splitting functionality.

09-20-2006, 06:58 AM

It's been a while, but I think Wire Tap Pro is really good for that. I had a friend who used it for what you want and loved it.

09-20-2006, 07:08 AM

@cazabam: thx i'll give it a shot!

@dtravis7:

"i only need it every once in a while and just for the sole purpose of plain stream recording, so i dont see why i should pay to get e.g. wiretap..."

09-20-2006, 07:19 AM

a little question:

how do i get the app to actually ONLY record whats playing on my computer atm?
i had the same prob with other apps that i either recorded the sounds coming in over the mic as well or only the mic...i tried changing it in the preferences but i couldnt select anything else than built-in-audio

any ideas? O_o

09-20-2006, 08:26 AM

Originally Posted by cazabam

You could try Audacity, which is a nice, free audio recording and mixing application. The website wasn't responding when I just tried to go to it, but that could just be my dodgy connection ... It's a really nice app, though. I use it quite a bit for recording analogue audio to MP3 thanks to it's nice tagging and splitting functionality.

yeah, it's a great app. Powerful editing tools. Some stability issues though.

I've noticed it's nowhere near as smooth on intel macs though. Playback is fine, but scrolling is a bit jittery. Also, I wasn't able to get the mp3 export plugin to work on my macbook - even though I had no troubles on my iBook. I don't think intel macs recognise that plugin, despite the fact that I downloaded the intel version of Audacity (the 'stable' version - there was also another beta version, which I haven't tried yet)

a little question:

how do i get the app to actually ONLY record whats playing on my computer atm?
i had the same prob with other apps that i either recorded the sounds coming in over the mic as well or only the mic...i tried changing it in the preferences but i couldnt select anything else than built-in-audio

any ideas? O_o

heh, there may be a roundabout way of getting that done. To do some recording recently, I purchased a cord which goes from audio in (on the mac) to the headphone port of something else - and it allows you to record audio from the source like that. If you like, you could get a cable like that, plug one end into the headphone port of your mac, and the other to the audio in. I think it would loop the audio round through that and straight into the audio in

I got an app though, which supposedly records audio from pretty much any app - I'm not sure how it works as I haven't tested it yet. It's called Audio Hijack Pro - should be a free demo download from versiontracker.com. Might be worth checking out if you just want to record audio from your mac without cables.

09-20-2006, 08:27 AM

Audacity has a little dropdown box to select input source. You should select the 'Wave out' or similar (I'm not 100% sure how it's labelled on OS X) and it basically just listens for sounds to be played through the default sound device and records those.

09-20-2006, 10:36 AM

Originally Posted by cazabam

Audacity has a little dropdown box to select input source. You should select the 'Wave out' or similar (I'm not 100% sure how it's labelled on OS X) and it basically just listens for sounds to be played through the default sound device and records those.

do you mean in the prefs window? In v1.2.5 (intel) it only has built in mic and built in audio for recording options. Built in audio (I'm fairly sure) will only work if you have a source coming in through the audio in port.

09-20-2006, 10:39 AM

No, on the main toolbar near where the little microphone is, and the preview of the input waveform. You can select recording source there. I will have a play later on and let you know.

09-20-2006, 10:49 AM

ah, I think I see where you mean. The dropdown window? I just assumed it was an alternative method of changing the preference.

Though, for me, it only contains one option, 'default input source'. What other options have you got for that? Also, which version are you running? (Your profile says the same macbook as mine, so I'm guessing you're running the same intel version of Audacity)

09-20-2006, 12:53 PM

I'd also look into iFill from griffin technology for stream recording.

09-20-2006, 02:02 PM

The reason I did not and don't recommend Audacity any longer for OSX is on EVERY Mac here (and I have many), once I use it and quit it, some system sounds are gone. Nothing works, not even a reboot except the going into Garage Band and playing something, then the sound comes back. When it first happened to me, I did a google search and people all over the place were complaining about the problem. So for editing audio I have been using Amadeus. The demo works for a long time and after that the cost is not much and it's a SOLID app.

My 3 different G4 towers, my iMac G5 iSight, my G4 Mini, my Intel Core Duo Mini and my iBook G4 all cease some system sounds and sounds on videos from the web after running Audacity. I have used Audacity for years on Windows and Linux and never a problem. But the OSX version does that every time I use it.

09-20-2006, 11:11 PM

thx for all the suggestions guys! i'll check them out...really helpfull

09-21-2006, 08:05 AM

Originally Posted by dtravis7

The reason I did not and don't recommend Audacity any longer for OSX is on EVERY Mac here (and I have many), once I use it and quit it, some system sounds are gone. Nothing works, not even a reboot except the going into Garage Band and playing something, then the sound comes back. When it first happened to me, I did a google search and people all over the place were complaining about the problem. So for editing audio I have been using Amadeus. The demo works for a long time and after that the cost is not much and it's a SOLID app.

My 3 different G4 towers, my iMac G5 iSight, my G4 Mini, my Intel Core Duo Mini and my iBook G4 all cease some system sounds and sounds on videos from the web after running Audacity. I have used Audacity for years on Windows and Linux and never a problem. But the OSX version does that every time I use it.

yeah, I think there's a way of fixing that with Audacity in your preferences. I was made aware of it through the Audacity site, which mentions something about Audacity programming messing with system sounds. Something along those lines. When you go into preferences, there's a check box at the bottom of the first tab I think, which should be 'do not modify audio device settings' - I think it's that one. Checking that should leave all sound settings and files outside Audacity intact.

Personally, I've never had that problem on my macbook, and didn't notice such problems on my G4 iBook. Odd.

09-21-2006, 08:50 AM

Hmm ... now I look it appears that OS X doesn't let you pick the PCM output device as an input source. That's quite irritating - both the Windows and Linux versions let you do that.