[music-dsp] what's a quick and easy and free way to tap into streaming audio and record it to a file.

[Richard Dobson]

On 15/09/2010 15:48, robert bristow-johnson wrote:
>
> i found this Soundflower from cycling '74, but i cannot see how it saves
> to file or if it is meant to.
>
> do any folks out there know how i might play a youtube and save it to an
> AIFF or WAV or something like that?
>
> the app should just intercept whatever is going to the stereo
> loudspeakers/headphones and send that to a file. it shouldn't care what
> the source is. sorta like an audio version of a screen capture or snapshot.
>
> i'm using a mac 10.5.
>


I assume from what you write that you are only interested in the audio. 
SoundFlower is in the same class of tools as Rewire and Jack - a 
"virtual audio device". You arrange for SoundFlower to be set as the 
default playback device  - it will then be used by the browser. You  use 
another program of your choice to record audio from the input 
counterpart ("SoundFlower IN" or whatever). I think this is explained 
reasonably clearly on the Cycling74 website - Soundflower does not 
itself write anything to disk. Your record application will do that 
(e.g. Sound Studio on a Mac, or Audacity - whatever you want to use, 
really). You either set the Mac via Preferences to record from 
SoundFlower IN, or use a record application that similarly offers the 
choice. NB: Jack (associated primarily with Linux) is also available for 
the Mac.

If you want to extract the audio from the video file as a single task, 
Soundflower etc is no use, you will need to find whatever application is 
suggested for that job.

Richard Dobson