_______ __ _______ | |
| | |.---.-..----.| |--..-----..----. | | |.-----..--.--.--..-----. | |
| || _ || __|| < | -__|| _| | || -__|| | | ||__ --| | |
|___|___||___._||____||__|__||_____||__| |__|____||_____||________||_____| | |
on Gopher (inofficial) | |
Visit Hacker News on the Web | |
COMMENT PAGE FOR: | |
BlackHole: macOS Audio Loopback Driver | |
acidburnNSA wrote 13 hours 29 min ago: | |
On Linux it's | |
pacmd load-module module-loopback | |
Last Halloween we hired a fortune teller and I used this with some | |
ladspa plugins and my tts to rig up a self signups from cellphone | |
thing. When the fortune teller pressed the button the next in line was | |
announced in a scary voice over the whole home audio system. After the | |
music decreased in volume of course! | |
xutopia wrote 14 hours 55 min ago: | |
What is an Audio Loopback Driver? What does it do? What is it used | |
for? | |
haiku2077 wrote 14 hours 50 min ago: | |
It lets you use the audio output of one program as the audio input of | |
another program in arbitrary ways. A handy tool for live media like | |
streaming- maybe I want my game and music to be streamed, but not my | |
notifications or my A/V tech's voice in my ear. For audio production | |
you can also wire the output of one music creation tool into the | |
input of another. | |
pgib wrote 14 hours 55 min ago: | |
Over the pandemic, I used this and OBS with a USB HDMI capture dongle | |
attached to my Nintendo Switch to host Jackbox Party Pack nights with | |
friends over Zoom. Such a great tool! | |
xyst wrote 17 hours 14 min ago: | |
This is how I record all of my work meetings, especially when I need to | |
CYA | |
wakeleaver wrote 21 hours 17 min ago: | |
Using BlackHole also fixes any awful audio popping in Rosetta/legacy | |
apps, since Apple can't seem to figure that out. | |
djtriptych wrote 21 hours 25 min ago: | |
Essential part of my home studio audio stack (Serato / Ableton / OBS / | |
BlackHole / Aggregate/Multi-output devices in Audio MIDI setup). | |
Agree with others in this post that it's WAY too hard to get a stable | |
stack on OSX and that a tool like BlackHole should be standard in the | |
OS. | |
timc3 wrote 14 hours 33 min ago: | |
Ditch the Aggregate devices for a start ( yes itâs expensive | |
running a lot of inputs or outputs on a proper system, and you | |
donât take advantage of all the interfaces built into gear). | |
Uninstall Blackhole and spend the money on Rogue Amoeba stuff. | |
Buy audio interfaces with good drivers (e.g. RME, Lynx, Metric Halo | |
or even MOTU AVB stuff and stay away from Antelope - they have | |
problems), install, plugin and away you go. | |
processunknown wrote 13 hours 4 min ago: | |
Seconded. Rouge Amoeba has great tools | |
ErneX wrote 17 hours 13 min ago: | |
Nitpick: itâs macOS since 2016 :) | |
duped wrote 19 hours 45 min ago: | |
> WAY too hard to get a stable stack on OSX | |
compared to what? | |
djtriptych wrote 15 hours 26 min ago: | |
compared to how easy I think it should be =) | |
- Seriously though trying to understand audio midi setup from docs | |
was pretty awful. | |
- I've had a bunch of (mostly DJ) equipment refuse to connect with | |
newer macs as they keep changing their security model. | |
- Managing/fighting latency took a lot of experimentation (for me | |
anyway). | |
- The soundflower / blackhole stuff can be a pain until you've | |
stitched everything together once or twice. | |
jxramos wrote 18 hours 59 min ago: | |
for me Windows is the king in backwards compatibility. I get the | |
sense they expend significant resources doing testing in this space | |
and scrutinizing ABIs and APIs and all that. They don't want to | |
disturb the developer ecosystems with bedrock changes. | |
duped wrote 16 hours 14 min ago: | |
Not for audio. Do you use DirectSound, ASIO, WASAPI? | |
On MacOS there is CoreAudio, and it's been there for two decades. | |
atoav wrote 15 hours 57 min ago: | |
Yeah, but with each MacOS Update your expensive hardware might | |
become as useful as a brick. | |
I have a audiointerface from 2002 that I can plug into my | |
windows machine and it runs. The same interface worked on Mac, | |
once. | |
philistine wrote 18 hours 26 min ago: | |
Well, I'm sorry to report we've had the first breach in that | |
policy in ... well forever! | |
[1]: https://www.theverge.com/24148033/satya-nadella-microsof... | |
jxramos wrote 17 hours 50 min ago: | |
ah what a conundrum, pitting legacy over security that's a big | |
tradeoff decision. Those mostly seems like independent topics | |
but I wonder if the deeper you go in maximizing legacy support | |
the more vulnerable you make your systems in falling for | |
security lapses of some kind. I wonder if these two things | |
tangle in unforeseen ways deep beneath the surface. | |
TylerE wrote 20 hours 45 min ago: | |
If you think the situation is bad on Mac, you e never had to fight | |
with ASIO on Windows. | |
On Mac stuff basically just works. | |
On Windows ASIO works with only ASIO, and doesnât allow the OS to | |
use the card for âregularâ sound unless the device-specific | |
driver allows for it. | |
Edit: Or in most cases for two ASIO applications to use the same | |
soundcard at the same time. So you end up needing to install a | |
virtual loopback anyway, losing out on the (theoretical) latency | |
benefits of ASIO. | |
com2kid wrote 16 hours 32 min ago: | |
It is unfortunate, the old windows media stack had a nice drag and | |
drop UI that let you connect different inputs and sinks together in | |
all sorts of weird and cool ways. Back when I used Windows 2000 I | |
was able plug a game console into a capture card and split the | |
audio and video inputs so they both went out over streaming video | |
and were visible/audible on my local machine. | |
Not that anyone cared about watching live streamed video game | |
footage back in 2001 or so. | |
TylerE wrote 16 hours 2 min ago: | |
The problem with the old apis (and this includes directsound) is | |
that they are incapable of stabling running at low latency, which | |
is crucial for recording. | |
m_a_g wrote 22 hours 6 min ago: | |
Recently, I had to record a video call (both audio and my screen) while | |
wearing headphones. Using OBS and BlackHole together was the only | |
option I could find at the time. | |
jahnu wrote 22 hours 35 min ago: | |
And you can pair this with Element [1] to do nice routings. | |
For example, in my live sets I send 8 separate audio channels from | |
Ableton Live via a miniDSP optical interface [2] to my music partner's | |
audio interface who does fx and live mixing. | |
When I'm working on the sets without him I don't have the midiDSP audio | |
device plugged in and Ableton get's annoying. So I set up a routing in | |
Element from BlackHole 8 track to mix down to stereo and my usual | |
stereo output without having to remap my channels in Ableton. Just | |
switch output devices. [1] | |
[1]: https://kushview.net/element/ | |
[2]: https://www.minidsp.com/products/usb-audio-interface | |
dmix wrote 21 hours 43 min ago: | |
is Element like Apples MainStage? | |
[1]: https://www.apple.com/mainstage/ | |
roody15 wrote 22 hours 43 min ago: | |
This is an awesome program highly recommend. Used to be called | |
Soundflower back in the day but BlackHole works better and works with | |
new M series Macâs. Awesome! | |
spencersolberg wrote 22 hours 57 min ago: | |
I think the Windows equivalent of this software is Synchronous Audio | |
Router: [1] I also find it interesting that all of the examples are for | |
routing DAWs to video call apps. Donât these apps have screen sharing | |
and wouldnât that be higher quality than using the microphone input? | |
[1]: https://github.com/eiz/SynchronousAudioRouter | |
TylerE wrote 18 hours 59 min ago: | |
Usually the idea is to record DAW audio seperately, so when you go | |
back and actually edit the video you're not limited to whatever | |
horrible 64Kbps compression algo the video call uses. | |
Plus you'll often want to be using some sort of mixer to mix in a | |
vocal/talk mic also. | |
12bits wrote 23 hours 24 min ago: | |
Something like this should be default in MacOS. I use blackhole daily | |
in my audio production and sound design practices. If you use a modern | |
audio interface you might have a loopback available there. | |
WhyNotHugo wrote 4 hours 44 min ago: | |
As a Linux user I'm lacking some context here. Does the default in | |
macOS have too high latency? Or how is BlackHole different from it? | |
superb_dev wrote 2 hours 19 min ago: | |
macOS doesnât have a loopback device by default | |
directmusic wrote 16 hours 3 min ago: | |
macOS 14.2 implemented something like this in Core Audio, but it is | |
not user facing (and also documented extremely poorly). You can | |
create a "Tap" that can capture audio from a particular application, | |
or subset of applications, or an output device. This can then be | |
added to a private or public Aggregate Device (depending on the Tap | |
being private or public). | |
[1]: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/coreaudio/4160724-... | |
12bits wrote 9 hours 39 min ago: | |
Sweet! Thanks for sharing, I will keep my eyes on this. | |
ndiddy wrote 23 hours 37 min ago: | |
I think it's unacceptable that a third-party driver is necessary to | |
record system audio on Mac. Both Windows and Linux have been able to | |
natively record system audio for at least 20 years now. I consider it a | |
basic required feature for something like screencasting. | |
m463 wrote 19 hours 25 min ago: | |
Wonder if it's like taking a screenshot of video on mac. | |
They don't want you to be able to do that. | |
(you get a blank area where the video is) | |
adamomada wrote 19 hours 16 min ago: | |
You sure it isnât DRMed video? Itâs the same on all platforms | |
Iâm not at my computer to check, but if this really is true, use | |
VLC to get screen grabs from videos | |
m463 wrote 12 hours 3 min ago: | |
yes, but fair use should let you do it. | |
maybe the same thing happens with audio, but there's no drm | |
knowledge/support so they didn't implement any of it. | |
meindnoch wrote 22 hours 6 min ago: | |
>I think it's unacceptable that a third-party driver is necessary to | |
record system audio on Mac. | |
Good news: it's not. At least not from macOS Ventura onwards. | |
KingOfCoders wrote 23 hours 2 min ago: | |
But then again Windows has no native web cam multiplexing. One app | |
has the camera, and no one else can use it. That app crashes and you | |
need to reboot Windows. | |
One would think in the edge of remote work, an operating system would | |
bring a virtual web cam driver. | |
I used ManyCam but they cheated me out of a lifetime license. | |
causi wrote 19 hours 22 min ago: | |
Is there any major company that's respected a "lifetime license" | |
for more than five or ten years? Every one I've bought was | |
eventually reneged on. | |
haiku2077 wrote 14 hours 46 min ago: | |
WinRAR! | |
plorkyeran wrote 23 hours 14 min ago: | |
It was vastly overdue, but macOS shipped a native solution for screen | |
recording with audio in macOS 12 and you no longer need BlackHole for | |
that. BH is still useful for more advanced uses, but they're mostly | |
the sort of thing where it's not jarringly weird that they require | |
some third-party software. | |
cududa wrote 20 hours 22 min ago: | |
I really could have sworn that around 2017 there was a way to do | |
this built in, but it went away pretty quickly. Or I just imagined | |
that | |
salzig wrote 23 hours 10 min ago: | |
Last time I checked QuickTime was still not able to. Did I miss | |
something? | |
dmix wrote 21 hours 38 min ago: | |
I checked and seems to be just Microphone (or other audio) input | |
w/ QuickTime when recording sceengrab videos or recording just | |
audio. | |
redundantly wrote 19 hours 56 min ago: | |
This is correct. And if you use a headset it won't pick up the | |
general system sounds. Used it for an IEP call last week and | |
found out afterwards the only audio it picked up was my own. | |
Pretty frustrating. | |
jxramos wrote 19 hours 1 min ago: | |
yah, I just recently made the purchase for BlackHole because | |
I couldn't get the system sounds otherwise. Great little | |
project! | |
duped wrote 23 hours 27 min ago: | |
> I consider it a basic required feature for something like | |
screencasting. | |
That's why MacOS provides this in ScreenCaptureKit | |
jahnu wrote 20 hours 15 min ago: | |
Can that record the system audio too? I mean not just the | |
microphone like in Quicktime. | |
duped wrote 19 hours 48 min ago: | |
Yes, microphone access is through CoreAudio. ScreenCaptureKit is | |
for capturing system video and audio. | |
I haven't used it personally but that's my understanding of why | |
it exists. Otherwise there's no point to sending audio through | |
it. | |
AndrewStephens wrote 1 day ago: | |
Does anything similar exist for video? There have been meetings I've | |
wished I could route a loop of my face looking alert and interested to | |
Zoom instead of a live camera feed Mission-Impossible-style. | |
evilduck wrote 21 hours 5 min ago: | |
What's your plan for getting called on by others to speak? | |
Shadowmist wrote 9 hours 49 min ago: | |
You make sure you are wearing the same clothing as the recorded | |
video loop. Use something like a stReamdeck to have hardware | |
buttons that let you toggle to a live webcam. Elgato even has a | |
foot pedal version that works great. | |
somat wrote 14 hours 45 min ago: | |
It's probably just me, but the video in these video calls is mostly | |
a waste of bandwidth, I am never paying attention to the bobbing | |
heads in the screen. My point being, I, for one, would not notice | |
very quickly if the person speaking was just a loop of someone | |
looking interested, I sort of want to do this myself, OBS is | |
probably the key, when called to speak you could switch scenes to | |
the live feed. | |
I did some research into using ffmpeg as a sort of live network | |
based video router and compositor, My conclusion was that it would | |
work. however my heart was set on actual transparent rgba video and | |
support for that was finicky. | |
hbs18 wrote 5 hours 0 min ago: | |
> It's probably just me, but the video in these video calls is | |
mostly a waste of bandwidth, I am never paying attention to the | |
bobbing heads in the screen | |
"People and culture" departments would argue that it creates a | |
sense of belonging and cohesion to the team. | |
dylan604 wrote 18 hours 44 min ago: | |
Just start speaking. The surrealism would be amazing. Just tell | |
them there's clearly something wrong with Zoom. Everyone will buy | |
it. | |
Also, it's just yet another reason that I'm so happy my Zoom | |
meetings do not require a camera feed. There's just something | |
Orwellian to me about having to have a camera on me. Having a | |
camera on me is my absolute nightmare regardless of the purpose of | |
the camera. | |
jonhohle wrote 23 hours 58 min ago: | |
The issue is there is no standard for video out from a single | |
application (except that apps window buffer). | |
That said, OBS has a âcameraâ mode where it will present itself | |
as a camera. Anything you can do in OBS (including playing a video) | |
can be sent to anything that takes camera input. | |
corytheboyd wrote 23 hours 17 min ago: | |
+1 for OBS virtual camera, works like a charm. Havenât tried the | |
fake meeting presence idea yet though :p | |
grishka wrote 1 day ago: | |
This is what I've been using since upgrading to M1 because SoundFlower | |
I used on my previous Mac is a kernel extension and installing those on | |
Apple Silicon is a mess. | |
eigenvalue wrote 17 hours 58 min ago: | |
SoundFlower is a total nightmare to install and remove, causes huge | |
problems and then requires hours of work to remove completely. | |
Wowfunhappy wrote 14 hours 58 min ago: | |
How so? Isn't it just a kext? What prevents you from just deleting | |
the kext and launcher? | |
grishka wrote 17 hours 16 min ago: | |
As is pretty much anything that comes in a .pkg, to be honest. It's | |
kinda bonkers that you need third-party apps to (attempt to) | |
cleanly uninstall things. | |
lucascacho wrote 1 day ago: | |
I've personally been using a nifty piece of software called VB-Cable, | |
which basically does the same thing. Creates a software audio output as | |
well as an audio input, which you can then use across different | |
applications. | |
I personally use it to route my studio mic input through OBS, where I | |
apply some filtering, to then be able to use it with different VoIP | |
software. | |
[1]: https://vb-audio.com/Cable/ | |
jonhohle wrote 23 hours 56 min ago: | |
Do you need additional software for this? Canât you use OBS as a | |
webcam[0] and take its audio source? (I havenât tried, but thatâs | |
how Iâd approach it if I was going to). | |
0 - | |
[1]: https://obsproject.com/kb/virtual-camera-guide | |
jerbear4328 wrote 12 hours 48 min ago: | |
Unfortunately, no, OBS handles video only, no audio comes through | |
the camera. It's really frustrating, I have wanted to do some more | |
complicated audio setups on a Windows PC (specifically bridging two | |
calls on different platforms together, I know the latency would be | |
bad), but you have to use the VB CABLE proprietary driver, of which | |
you can only have one for free, or try playing with Voicemeeter | |
(same company with old, proprietary software). I have tried | |
Synchronous Audio Router, but I couldn't get it to work after hours | |
of pressing buttons. | |
On Mac, I can just buy Rogue Amoeba software, and on Linux, I can | |
just run some commands or download a GUI to route audio around | |
however I want. | |
unshavedyak wrote 1 day ago: | |
I always want this but for Midi, and cross platform. Working on | |
multiple platforms with audio equipment is so annoying to a casual | |
user hah. | |
imvetri wrote 1 day ago: | |
Idea: feed this to a recurrent neural network | |
imvetri wrote 1 day ago: | |
Idea: feed the meeting audio using this to a black mass. A singularity | |
program that converts words into action. | |
vouaobrasil wrote 1 day ago: | |
That is very nice. I've been looking for something like this. It's | |
useful in the case where you want to do a tutorial with an application | |
that produces sound, but you want to talk at the same time. The best | |
solution before would be to plug a 3.5mm cable into an audio interface | |
that accepts this sort of input, and then record at the same time. The | |
problem is that then you cannot do small cuts in real-time as easily as | |
if you are recording directly into a DAW with audacity, and plus it | |
gives you the possibility of using real-time effects with your DAW. | |
Good for streaming also, without needing to use OBS, which is hit and | |
miss when it comes to some things. | |
cpuguy83 wrote 1 day ago: | |
Rogue Amoeba provides some really great software if BlackHole isn't | |
enough for you. | |
Loopback and Audio Hijack in particular. | |
matthew-wegner wrote 13 hours 40 min ago: | |
It's worth noting you do have to downgrade security permissions for | |
Loopback, but not for BlackHole: [1] I use Loopback and BlackHole | |
both, although for different reasons/setups. I guess it's more an | |
artifact of the surrounding macOS environment at the conception of | |
each project. BlackHole's first commit was September 2019, while | |
Loopback was released in 2016 (but also shares its capture engine | |
with Audio Hijack, and its 1.0 release was 2002!) | |
[1]: https://rogueamoeba.com/support/knowledgebase/?showArticle... | |
matthew-wegner wrote 13 hours 10 min ago: | |
Replying to myself--it looks like they do have a new capture | |
framework relying on much newer APIs (requires macOS 14.4). It | |
just isn't rolled out to Loopback yet: | |
[1]: https://weblog.rogueamoeba.com/2024/04/05/our-new-instal... | |
bredren wrote 14 hours 19 min ago: | |
Audio Hijack has a block for whisper in the newer version. | |
The animations in the tool are quite good. Very polished. | |
quitit wrote 16 hours 21 min ago: | |
I'm pretty sure Rogue Amoeba are the reason why Apple doesn't ship | |
with one by default. | |
computerdork wrote 16 hours 32 min ago: | |
I use Amoeba too, really nice piece of software:) | |
naikrovek wrote 1 day ago: | |
I feel like Loopback would be enough for anyone. You can do | |
everything Iâve ever needed to do, and I had some hare-brained | |
ideas during the pandemic. | |
dmix wrote 21 hours 42 min ago: | |
Audio Hijack is good if you want to add some VST plugin | |
processing. | |
A good usecase is having a nice mic for your Zoom calls or | |
Youtube videos and doing basic noise filtering, compression and | |
limiting on it w/o having to run a full DAW in the background. | |
Otherwise Loopback does everything else like piping specific | |
sound sources from one app to another, without the rest of system | |
audio. | |
quitit wrote 16 hours 19 min ago: | |
Some Audio Hijack features seem unusually well suited to | |
stealing music from Spotify. | |
For example one can have a free spotify account, then Audio | |
Hijack is a few clicks from saving the music with automatic | |
file splitting between tracks. | |
colecut wrote 13 hours 7 min ago: | |
There's nothing specific to Spotify. Audio is audio, there | |
will always be the analog dub route, same as recording from | |
radio to cassette in the 80s | |
quitit wrote 4 hours 34 min ago: | |
>There's nothing specific to Spotify. | |
Well suited doesn't meant designed for, and that's not the | |
implication. | |
The thread of this conversation is why someone might use | |
Audio Hijack instead of a no-cost alternative (of which | |
there are many.) | |
I'm suggesting that Audio Hijack makes it very easy to rip | |
music from free music services such as Spotify. Thus | |
providing a reason why someone might choose to pay for | |
Audio Hijack rather than the no-cost option. | |
It's much tidier to have a set of pre-sorted (and if one is | |
clever, pre-named and tagged) output files rather than | |
having one long audio output that would require time to sit | |
and divide up manually. | |
kristiandupont wrote 1 day ago: | |
I've been using this for years to route audio between DAW's. Once it's | |
set up, it runs flawlessly. | |
deeblering4 wrote 1 day ago: | |
How is the latency for you? I know blackhole is advertised as 0ms | |
itself, but I always found that crossing virtual devices incurred the | |
input/output latency of the daw itself. | |
matthew-wegner wrote 13 hours 27 min ago: | |
I haven't experimented with lowering these numbers in maybe two | |
years, but I use BlackHole to route 8 channels from Traktor to | |
Ableton Live (all four decks in stereo as external outputs). I | |
have one big aggregate device with my internal speakers for clock, | |
the BlackHole bridge, and an original RME Babyface for the physical | |
output. | |
Looks like I have Traktor set to 192 samples @ 44khz. It's showing | |
"4.4 ms processing + 17.6ms output = 22.0 ms" in its UI. | |
Ableton is set to 128 samples, and showing "Input Latency 4.72 ms, | |
Output Latency 6.05 ms, Overall Latency 10.8 ms". | |
So maybe 33.8 ms in the whole pipeline? Although I throw audio | |
signal across the room via the Babyface's optical out to a cheap | |
optical -> RCA box, so that's probably adding a little more to my | |
physical environment. | |
I've had this same Traktor/Live setup going for a long, long time. | |
At one point I even used a physical loopback with the Babyface's | |
optical out/in carrying 8 channels between Traktor and Ableton. | |
That was sadly better than any software available before BlackHole. | |
It was solid, although a bit higher latency, and it's nice to be | |
able to use the optical out for its intended purpose! | |
I used to get very occasional crackle this BlackHole setup, until I | |
tried a random tip of using the built-in speakers as the clock | |
source on an aggregate device. It's been rock solid since. I | |
could probably lower sample buffers even further these days (M3 | |
Max)... | |
jcelerier wrote 15 hours 32 min ago: | |
not if you use JACK (available on macOS) or PipeWire (not) | |
kristiandupont wrote 23 hours 43 min ago: | |
Yeah, I always adjust for that. I don't remember how much exactly | |
but definitely noticeable. | |
swah wrote 1 day ago: | |
Do you look at the code / line count when you open a project like this? | |
I have this "hard time" imagining what the X thousands lines of code | |
do. | |
Even more when the piece of software claims to be simple. I would have | |
to devote months to really understand it, I guess, and "cure" this | |
"superficialitis" (tendency to think everything is 50 lines of code) | |
I guess compilers are the only "kind" of project I can imagine a few | |
complex parts. | |
meindnoch wrote 22 hours 1 min ago: | |
A large amount of the code is the C boilerplate for implementing the | |
object graph needed by audio system. You'll see that basically every | |
function is a huge switch-case. | |
1123581321 wrote 22 hours 27 min ago: | |
Skimming or folding to only show the names of the functions might | |
make it easier to grok. For example, there are about 75 OSStatus | |
messages this driver supports. | |
There are a ton of case statements; each one represents a situation | |
that must be supported. | |
3500 lines goes quickly when you divide it by a few hundred | |
situations/statuses. | |
As comments in another discussion tree have said, it's a shame that | |
macOS doesn't provide some of this natively. If it did then this | |
would probably be higher level code and shorter. Knowing where the | |
boundary lies between the system and the application is part of | |
having an understanding of why all this was written. | |
I wouldn't feel bad about this; it's just a domain knowledge thing. | |
Be excited by the opportunity to learn with a toy project or a deep | |
code review! | |
duped wrote 22 hours 28 min ago: | |
> I guess compilers are the only "kind" of project I can imagine a | |
few complex parts. | |
What's so hard about a compiler? You read some files, split into | |
tokens, sort into a tree, and then walk the tree and write some | |
instructions to disk at each node. Can be done in a couple hundred | |
lines of code. (\s: the point is that all software gets complicated, | |
and a few thousand lines is not a lot of code) | |
Aurornis wrote 1 day ago: | |
> I would have to devote months to really understand it, I guess, and | |
"cure" this "superficialitis" (tendency to think everything is 50 | |
lines of code) | |
You wouldnât have to spend months understanding it, but you also | |
wouldnât be able to glance at the code for 5 minutes and understand | |
everything that needs to happen. | |
Anything that handles driver or system level operations and deals | |
with audio will get complex quickly. What happens when the input | |
device gets unplugged? The output device disconnects? User changes | |
from speakers to AirPods? | |
How do you handle situations where the input and output sample rate | |
are different? What about when something backs up and a buffer | |
overflows? Or underflows? What mechanism do you use for handling user | |
setting changes? | |
The list of situations you have to handle goes on and on. The core | |
concept is simple, but there are so many things to do that the code | |
base will naturally become bigger than the 50 lines of code youâre | |
imagining. | |
cqqxo4zV46cp wrote 1 day ago: | |
This has âI could build Slack in a weekendâ energy. | |
swah wrote 1 day ago: | |
Yes, this is what I mean, how to get better at this etc. | |
exe34 wrote 1 day ago: | |
The best way to cure this is to write something in 50 lines to | |
show the world how it's done, and wager a large donation to e.g. | |
the trump election campaign if you leave a public ticket unfixed | |
for more than a week. As soon as you try to interface with other | |
people's workflows and needs, the 50 lines turn into thousands | |
very quickly. | |
naikrovek wrote 1 day ago: | |
âThe devil is in the detailsâ, as they say. | |
ehutch79 wrote 1 day ago: | |
I just looked at the code. It's mostly just handling events and | |
conditions a driver would need to handle just to be a functional | |
driver. | |
I don't think you could write any driver in 50 lines of code? | |
p0w3n3d wrote 1 day ago: | |
Offtopic: I love Audio MIDI Setup for the Multi-Output Device and the | |
possibility of connecting two Bluetooth headphones to one laptop. Is | |
there a similar thing for Windows or Linux? | |
jchw wrote 1 day ago: | |
Many Linux distributions have moved to Pipewire as the default audio | |
daemon in recent years. With Pipewire, you can use Qjackctl or | |
Qpwgraph to edit how devices route to eachother using a visual graph. | |
Pipewire has the distinct advantage that it works with tools for both | |
the PulseAudio daemon and the JACK daemon simultaneously, so you can | |
typically combine things you might do with either. | |
Unfortunately, I don't think there's a good UI that exposes both a | |
graph view and a way to create virtual devices for more advanced | |
routing, however there is very rich support for advanced routing: [1] | |
So there's probably no direct analogue, as at best you'll probably | |
need to run some commands to get a device to combine streams for you, | |
and then you can hook it in using Qpwgraph. | |
Pipewire also handles video devices and graphs too. | |
If you ever want to try this with a proper audio interface, you'll | |
also want to switch the audio interface into Pro Audio mode most | |
likely. It's a profile that can be selected (typically in whatever | |
handles your volume settings, e.g. pavucontrol) | |
[1]: https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/pipewire/pipewire/-/wikis/Vir... | |
andrelaszlo wrote 1 day ago: | |
Yeah, in Linux with Pulse [1] There might be other ways to do it | |
depending on your distribution, for example | |
[1]: https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/443064 | |
[2]: https://askubuntu.com/q/78174 | |
vmfunction wrote 1 day ago: | |
Hmm on first look, it looks like Audio MIDI Setup App [1]. | |
Then again it looks like patch bay. Then isn't there already: QjackCtl, | |
and that works with mac/win/linux? | |
links: | |
1: | |
[1]: https://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/audio-midi-setup-your-... | |
thedanbob wrote 22 hours 30 min ago: | |
Technically JACK runs on macOS but last time I checked (a year ago) | |
it doesn't really work and other software doesn't support it anyway. | |
danek_szy wrote 1 day ago: | |
The screenshot you've looked at is the Audio MIDI Setup App... It | |
just shows that there's Blackhole as an output ;) | |
wdb wrote 1 day ago: | |
Is this a free alternative for Audio Hijack / Loopback? | |
ravenstine wrote 1 day ago: | |
For Loopback, partially. Not so much for Audio Hijack. | |
I still use Loopback because I like the interface it gives you. If I | |
remember correctly, BlackHole doesn't provide a GUI. | |
deeblering4 wrote 1 day ago: | |
Why not? You can create multi-output audio devices in macos, say | |
blackhole and your speakers and use that multi-output device as the | |
input in the recorder. | |
ravenstine wrote 19 hours 54 min ago: | |
Not throwing shade on Blackhole. You can accomplish a lot with | |
it. And yes, technically, it can do most if not all of what | |
Loopback does. I just like the experience of using Loopback more | |
than having to use the built-in MIDI setup in macOS, which I | |
always find a bit confusing. | |
Oh, actually, now I remember why I bought Loopback in the first | |
place. I couldn't figure out how to map a single stereo input | |
channel to both left and right channels with Blackhole, but | |
Loopback makes that very easy. Maybe it's possible to do with | |
Blackhole, but I'll happily pay to not feel like a confused old | |
man when all I want to do is record audio the way I expect. | |
In the case of Audio Hijack, one might as well save the money and | |
go with Blackhole instead of Loopback. | |
And in any case, as much as I normally embrace FOSS, Rogue Amoeba | |
makes high quality software that's worth paying for, so I'm not | |
champing at the bit to replace them. | |
RulerOf wrote 17 hours 39 min ago: | |
> And in any case, as much as I normally embrace FOSS, Rogue | |
Amoeba makes high quality software that's worth paying for, so | |
I'm not champing at the bit to replace them. | |
I tried really hard to get my desired audio setup to work with | |
stock Mac OS features, but it was just... not good. | |
I have two Apple Monitors flanking both sides of a larger | |
display with terrible speakers. I wanted to split left/right | |
between the two Apple monitors. With Audio Midi Setup, I got it | |
to work, but then I couldn't adjust the volume with the soft | |
keys. | |
I installed Loopback and Soundsource. Everything just worked, | |
and it was very easy to configure. The price was a little high, | |
but I'm not really the target customer. Was worth it to not | |
have to put bulky speakers on my desk. | |
cpuguy83 wrote 1 day ago: | |
I don't recall exactly my issues, but definitely found some | |
things that didn't work this way. | |
It's also a pain to set things up this way (compared to loopback | |
or hijack). | |
tomduncalf wrote 1 day ago: | |
Yes, depending on what you need it for. It does require a bit more | |
setup though. | |
infotainment wrote 1 day ago: | |
I'm glad to see this! So many posts online still cheerfully suggest | |
using SoundFlower for this purpose, which doesn't work with M1 Macs. | |
RCitronsBroker wrote 1 day ago: | |
youâre awesome!! Iâll test if i can ditch loopback by rogue amoeba | |
for your piece of software :) | |
naikrovek wrote 1 day ago: | |
Why would you want to ditch Loopback? | |
deeblering4 wrote 1 day ago: | |
Because of price gouging. $100 for basic audio routing is absurd, | |
and they'll hit you up again eventually for upgrades. | |
cpuguy83 wrote 20 hours 44 min ago: | |
The whole thing is, it's not basic. | |
Loopback does things that Blackhole cannot, granted it requires a | |
kernel extension. | |
But if Blackhole does what you need, that's awesome! | |
barbariangrunge wrote 21 hours 5 min ago: | |
If you use it and need it, youâll get a lot more than $100 | |
worth of value from it. Itâs not price gouging, itâs just a | |
small company making enough money to stay in business. They arent | |
sustaining themselves off advertising and your data like big tech | |
naikrovek wrote 23 hours 58 min ago: | |
Thatâs fair. It isnât cheap, but theyâre the only ones… | |
know of who can route things around and mix them together without | |
a DAW or some other utility running. | |
MacOS doesnât even have per application volume control, which | |
is a crazy thing to say for the OS aimed at audio professionals | |
(at least as far as I know.) | |
crazygringo wrote 23 hours 27 min ago: | |
The lack of per-application volume is annoying I agree, as a | |
consumer. | |
But I don't think that's a feature requested by audio | |
professionals. They're working within applications, not playing | |
audio from multiple apps at the same time. And it would be | |
extremely annoying to discover that your DAW output volume had | |
accidentally somehow been set to 90% and you hadn't realized | |
it. I mean, mixing is done with visual decibel meters, but a | |
lot still depends on little details that are above or below the | |
threshold of hearing, which an application-level volume control | |
would mess with. | |
naikrovek wrote 16 hours 26 min ago: | |
Iâm pretty sure MacOS could easily have a built-in master | |
audio mixer and a setting on that mixer labeled âbypassâ, | |
which gives the current MacOS behavior of âno master audio | |
mixer.â | |
I canât believe that only a few people have ever asked for | |
a way to mute an app entirely. | |
I grow weary of excuses around the lack of a built-in feature | |
for this. âApple doesnât want to do itâ is the only | |
reason. | |
ckcheng wrote 1 day ago: | |
Not mine! Just sharing what I found. I was looking for an alternative | |
to rogue amoebaâs loopback too | |
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