So you have a nice shiny new Mac and you want to take Audio from various sources to be mixed for let us say a live stream. Maybe you need a Skype conversation broadcast (both sides), play some music from iTunes and even get some video from youtube with the Audio coming through as well? You may notice a sheer lack of “StereoMix” on OS X but never fear, there is a solution for you.
SoundFlower
The good news is there is a FREE program which gives you a dual channel and a 16 channel virtual audio device for OSX, this goes by the name of SoundFlower, once installed, you now have two extra devices on both output and input by the name of SoundFlower (2ch) and SoundFlower (16ch) – for most people the SoundFlower (2ch) should be fine.
Line-in
Rouge Amoeba give out a free Utility by the name of LineIn, this basically allows you take one input (say a microphone) and pipe it out to another output (say Soundflower).
To use this for say Skype:
Audio Output – SoundFlower (2ch)
Audio Input – SoundFlower (2ch)
On Line in – select as my picture above or simple Microphone your using to SoundFlower (2ch) and now on the stream select SoundFlower (2ch) as the Input, the people will hear both side of Skype due to the fact the Mac alloows most programs to choose input and outputs. You need SoundFlowerBed (comes with SoundFlower) to pass SoundFlower (2ch) output to Speakers so you can hear the Skype caller.
Audio Hijack
This is not a Free Program but its by the same people who make LineIn – Rogue Amoeba and this gives you the extra controls over what is been diverted to SoundFlower.
Here is the screen were we can select a Microphone and piping it through to SoundFlower, once you click Hijack – all sound coming through the Mic will be diverted to SoundFlower, just like Line-in (same as).
If you notice, on the left is a list of programs, this grows as you have various programs open – anything that can generate Audio will be listed. In this example we shall choose iTunes but any work. Select the Effects Tab (far right) and right click on one of the empty Effect Tabs (Click here to insert effect).
You need to pick 4FX Effect and branch out to pick Auxiliary Device output. What this does is bring up a box while looks a little like LineIn, you can pick the output device here.
Your good to go.
Once you have set up the Aux device as above, this is a one time operation and your good to go each time you start the program. If you capture Skype, you do not need to capture the Microphone as both side will be broadcast. You can Mute or un-hijack to stop the program from going out on the stream.
