Capturing streaming audio in OS X

2009 January 7
by John DeStefano

How to grab and record “what you hear” audio on a Mac with open-source tools, using Audacity, Soundflower, and Sunflowerbed.

  1. Download and install the Soundflower open-source audio routing system (which now includes Soundflowerbed application).
  2. Download and install the Audacity open-source audio editing application.
  3. Start the Sunflowerbed application: /Applications/Sunflowerbed.app
  4. If not presented with a Sunflowerbed welcome or initial configuration screen, click the flower icon in the task bar, and beneath Soundflower (2 ch), click Built-in Output.
    Soundflowerbed output settings for Sunflower

    Soundflowerbed output settings for Sunflower

  5. In your system audio preferences (Apple system icon -> System Preferences, Sound -> Output), select Soundflower (2ch).

    Sound preferences in OS X 10.6

    Sound preferences in OS X 10.6

    Note: in 10.5 (and likely earlier), the Sound panel is a bit different:

    Sound preferences in OS X < 10.6

    Sound preferences in OS X < 10.6

  6. Start Audacity, and in its Preferences, in the Audio I/O tab, under Recording, change the Device to Core Audio: Soundflower (2ch).

    Audacity Audio I/O settings

    Audacity Audio I/O settings

  7. Now, anything you can listen to or stream to your system can be recorded, including Internet audio, DRM-protected content (which you’ve obviously bought but were unable to transfer to other formats), etc.
  8. When you’ve finished recording, you may want to switch your Sound output setting back to Internal Speakers.
3 Responses leave one →
  1. 2009 November 8
    Froggy permalink

    You rock! This works great!!!!

  2. 2009 November 11
    Shai permalink

    Fantastic! Thank you. Free too!

  3. 2009 November 13

    Thank you for this. One of my favourite radio programs has switched to a flash audio stream (probably to prevent us from recording it) and it PISSES ME OFF because I am never home to listen to it (Ideas, on CBC Radio One). So with all the bits and pieces listed above, I am now, as I write this, recording one of their radio documentaries (take that, CBC!!) in Audacity. It wasn’t too complicated to set up once I had installed (a) Audacity’s latest version; (b) LAME (just because I can); (c) Sunflower; and then going to the system prefs and choosing Sunflower 2CH as the output, and then into Audacity’s preferences to choose Sunflower 2CH as the input. It is happily recording the show The only thing I forgot to do was to set up Audacity to flow through the sound so I could check audio as it was recording, but I can see the VU meters and the waveform…

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