Engadget Podcast 008 - 10.25.2004 / How-To: Record all audio playing through your Mac
Here's a special How-To that is not only simple but extremely useful for recording all the sounds that are playing on your Mac. Why would you want to do this? You might want to save online audio broadcasts from NPR or other streaming services and to listen to later on your computer or music player. You can also record audio from any website or DVD, or perhaps you have a playlist in iTunes you want to record as one long file. We'll show you how to do all of this with free tools.
As an added bonus we're going to be using the music CD in this month's Wired, which says "Rip. Sample. Mash. Share". It was released under a new type of copyright license called the Creative Commons. So as a bonus for this How-To you'll be able to download all 16 songs from the CD here on Engadget without us getting sent to copyright jail or sued.
This simple yet powerful How-To will allow you to record anything on your Mac, from streaming audio radio stations to CDs. Just make sure it's legal and okay to do this. We're recording from a music CD and then posting the results online, something that might not be the wisest thing to do if you don't own the content or have a specific license to do so.
Ingredients
Mac running OS X 10.3.5
WireTap, free download
Audio source (we're using the Wired CD)
WireTap
Download and install WireTap from here. Install and open the application. You'll see "record", "play", and "pause" buttons, which do what you'd expect them to do. If the preference panel isn't visible hit WireTap > Preferences.
This is where you can change the settings, we're saving the file to our desktop and leaving the compression at IMA 4:1, 44kHz, stereo 16 bit. We've also checked off open if files in QuickTime and keep WireTap window visible.
Special note: The file is saved as a .aiff as opposed to a MP3, we'll eventually convert the final selection to MP3 in iTunes. The reason this free application does not save directly to MP3 (according to the developers) is that the fixed compression methods used for AIFF files are quick to compress and the file format is license-free. Licensing MP3 encoding is not free; any program that creates .mp3 files either is paying a $15,000/year minimum licensing fee, or it is doing the encoding illegally. Additionally, encoding to VBR formats like .mp3 and AAC can't always be done in real time (that is, it takes longer to encode the sound than the duration of the sound), depending on your machine's speed.
Recording the CD
Now that we're ready to record, let's pop in a CD. Don't Quit WireTap, just pop in a CD you'd like to record, or a playlist in iTunes. You could also visit a website or streaming audio site with QuickTime, Real or WindowsMedia, it's all the same to WireTap, and all of it will get recorded.
We have our handy dandy share-encouraged Wired CD in iTunes and are almost ready to start recording. In iTunes we've turned off repeat so the songs only play once.
Click record on WireTap, then quickly select the first song and press play in iTunes, if you use another music player, same thing, just hit record in WireTap then your source sound. If you're recording a web page, DVD or streaming radio program, also-same process.
Once you're finished, click stop the sound will appear where you specified, we choose the desktop. Now, we'll convert it to MP3, you could also import this file in to a music editing application and mash it up and create something totally new, but for now-we're just going to convert it.
Converting to MP3
Drag the AIFF file in to iTunes, click it once and go to Advanced > Convert Selection to MP3. Here are the settings we used.
Once the conversion is complete you can drag it out of iTunes and post, send, share or put on your music players, phones, or whatever.
For our example as we mentioned we used the Wired CD, more information about the Wired CD can be found here.
Here's a link to the MP3 we created, which is also going out on our podcast. We're pretty excited to see music being played with, not just played.
Click here to listen!
The following is the list of songs appearing on the CD and now our downloadable file. If you want better versions, visit the Creative Commons site after November 9, and you'll be able to download higher quality files of the songs.
Beastie Boys / Now Get Busy
Beastie Boys appear courtesy of Beastie Boys and Capitol Records.
David Byrne / My Fair Lady
David Byrne appears courtesy of Nonesuch Records.
Zap Mama / Wadidyusay?
Zap Mama appears courtesy of Luaka Bop Records.
My Morning Jacket / One Big Holiday
My Morning Jacket appears courtesy of RCA/ATO Records.
Spoon / Revenge!
Spoon appears courtesy of Merge Records.
Gilberto Gil / Oslodum
Gilberto Gil appears courtesy of Warner Music.
Dan the Automator / Relaxation Spa Treatment
Dan the Automator appears courtesy of Bulk Recordings.
Thievery Corporation / DC 3000
Thievery Corporation appears courtesy of ESL Music.
Le Tigre / Fake French
Le Tigre appears courtesy of Le Tigre Records.
Paul Westerberg / Looking Up in Heaven
Paul Westerberg appears courtesy of Vagrant Records.
Chuck D with Fine Arts Militia / No Meaning No
Chuck D appears courtesy of Creamwerks. Fine Arts Militia appears courtesy of ZenStone Entertainment.
The Rapture / Sister Saviour (Blackstrobe Remix)
The Rapture appears courtesy of DFA Records/Strummer Recordings/Universal Music.
Cornelius / Wataridori 2
Cornelius appears courtesy of 3D Corporation Ltd.
Danger Mouse & Jemini / What U Sittin' On? (starring Cee Lo and Tha Alkaholiks)
Danger Mouse & Jemini appear courtesy of Lex Records. Cee Lo appears courtesy of Arista Records. Tha Alkaholics appear courtesy of Waxploitation Records.
DJ Dolores / Oslodum 2004 (includes (cc) sample of "Oslodum" by Gilberto Gil)
DJ Dolores appears courtesy of Azouge Discos.
Matmos / Action at a Distance
Matmos appears courtesy of Vague Terrain.
Phillip Torrone can be reached via his personal site: http://www.flashenabled.com
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Raul Rivera @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM
nice
brickballs @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM
first post!
yea, these things kep getting beter and better!
i was listening on my way to school this morn til my battery died >_
brickballs @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM
try again with out the faces...
ill have to catch the end sometime later on. iv gotta do stuf now though...
oh, and im definately hittin refresh every 15 secs for the bluetooth thing. contests are fun
dustin @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM
im gonna win. im refreshing every 10 secs
pwn3d
Ringo @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM
I'm sure I'm not the only one thinking this, but how do I do the same thing on Windows? I'd love to be able to capture NPR shows and listen to them at my leisure.
Loraan @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM
You can do the same thing under Windows using TotalRecorder (http://www.highcriteria.com). It has the option to install a device driver that emulates a sound card. You set your system to play sounds through the TotalRecorder "virtual" sound card, and then it passes the sounds through to your real sound card, optionally recording everything.
On top of that, it's an excellent recording program, with basic (cut and paste, split into tracks) editing capabilities. It has a great scheduler.
I'm not associated with High Criteria at all--just a happy user.
David Cook @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM
Sweet - thanks for this... was looking for a similar solution!
Kenny @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM
I've been using LoopRecorder for years - does the job. Pretty sure you can get it at download.com
Preston @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM
My roommate and I were just talking about being able to do this with DVDS just the other day. This post was right on time.
Now back to trying to win the headset! *refresh*
popeyecahn @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM
Been using this for over a year along with Cacophony for editing (Sound Studio is also another exc Mac app). The only problem is that in saving as an .aiff file you get a hugh file for what is probably compressed data, and one must recompress it to reduce the size thereby further reducing sound quality. But ya gets what ya gets...
Noah Sachs @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM
Try Streamripper, it kicks ass for recording audio off shoutcast and live365, needs WinAmp to work.
http://www.sourceforge.net/projects/streamripper
wackinmehead @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM
I've been usin tr for over a year. Cartman says:
kick ass!!
Naquada @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM
http://www.bitcartel.com/irecordmusic/
is a great app for recording and encoding to MP3 pretty much any stream... integrates with itunes and is also schedulable...
they also do RadioLover... for streaming and tagging itunes radio or mp3 radio station feeds...
http://www.bitcartel.com/radiolover/index.html
mkaz @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM
1) Radio Recorder (http://u1.netgate.net/~snowcat/RadioRecorder.html) is a very intuitive program that records mp3 audio from the internet. After recording, then RR auto copies the recordings into your iTunes folder.
Aaron Williams @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM
Uh, I've been able to record audio coming out of my PC for YEARS. Any app that will make a wav file and has a "record" button on it will do. I use "Cool Edit Pro," myself, but most sound cards come with a mixer/equalizer where you tell the computer what sound sources to record from.
Really, this isn't anything new.
Ricky B. @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM
You can download the cd via a link to a torrent found on this page:
http://home.no/soevil/2004/10/free-as-in-beer-and-speech-cd.html
whatever @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM
apparently, it's new to Macs... you know, the platform of choice for audio/visual work
what'd really be nice is if iTunes had a way to edit audio tracks, i.e., cut out song gaps, normalize volume levels, etc.
Pete Prodoehl @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM
WireTap is also scriptable, so with a little AppleScript and cron magic, you can set it up to record a regularly broadcast show.
Oh, if you really wanted to put together a whole bunch of MP3's into one file, you can just cat the files together in the terminal.
As for iTunes editing audio tracks, well that's what Audacity is for. ;)
Benn @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM
Heh, I didn't know there were this many programs to do this on the Mac, but here is another two, Audio Hijack and Audio Hijack Pro.
http://www.rogueamoeba.com/audiohijack/
http://www.rogueamoeba.com/audiohijackpro/
Quite a lot more functionality than WireTap (scheduling, multi-format saving, effects, iTunes playlist adding, multiple hijacks), but they aren't free, though the unregistered version was good enough for me. I used it more for messing around than recording actual program streams.
leokrapp @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM
why record audio on a mac with wiretap,
not with audio hijack (rogue amoeba)?
it's got more functionality for sure. I tried
both and if you register for audio hijack,
you get higher audio quality too. hm?
dave @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM
audacity too