Record Audio On Your Mac With Audacity

audacity icon

Have you ever not found a song you wanted on iTunes? Annoying, right? For me, I typically find my music on SadSteve or YouTube (yes — YouTube). A while ago, MacHeist hosted a mission which included some handy applications, such as WireTap Pro. At first, I had no reason to use this application, then I discovered its amazing capabilities for recording line-in audio (e.g. YouTube music videos). Unfortunately, Ambrosia Software feels that it’s necessary to make WireTap Pro ridiculously expensive ($69). I believe it’s important to make money as a software developer, but that’s just insane. Due to the fact, many of you reading this tutorial either did not win the mission on MacHeist (two years ago) or you don’t want to spend $69 on WireTap Pro, I’m going to show you how to record (streaming) audio for free, with Audacity.

  1. Download Audacity, Soundflower (special audio plugin, free), and LAME MP3 Encoder (exports MP3).
  2. Open up Soundflower in /Applications/Soundflower/Soundflowerbed.
  3. Click the Soundflower icon in the menubar.
  4. Make sure under Soundflower (2ch) “Built-in Output” is selected.
  5. Open up the Sound preference pane in System Preferences.
  6. In both the Output and Input sections, select Soundflower (2ch).
  7. Open up Audacity, and go to Preferences.
  8. In the Devices section, set Soundflower (2ch) as the Recording Device and 2 (Stereo) as the Recording Channels.
  9. Leave “Built-in Output” as the Playback device.
  10. In Audacity Preferences, go to the Libraries section.
  11. Click the Locate button next to MP3 Library.
  12. The location should be “/usr/local/lib/audacity/libmp3lame.dylib”. Click Browse, then click Open to load it.
  13. Click OK. You may need to quit and re-open Audacity for the MP3 library to work.
  14. Finally, the moment you’ve been waiting for…
  15. Go to YouTube and type in the name of the song you want. Select the music video for the song.
  16. Click the record button in Audacity (red circle button) and start recording the song from the YouTube music video.
  17. When the song is over, click the stop button (yellow square button) in Audacity.
  18. Go to File > Export.
  19. Type in the song information (title, year, genre, artist). Click OK.
  20. In the Save As window, type in the song title as the filename. Change the Format to MP3 Files.
  21. Click Options if you want to adjust the MP3 settings. Then click Save.
  22. Import the song file into your iTunes library.
  23. Done.

Screenshots: 3-4 5 6 8-9 11 12-13 16-17 18 19 20-21

24 Responses to “Record Audio On Your Mac With Audacity”

  1. MooWax Says:

    January 22nd, 2011 at 7:17 am

    Working great. Thanks for this great tutorial.

  2. MooWax Says:

    January 22nd, 2011 at 7:24 am

    Don’t forget to turn back the sound in System Preferences after you’re done.

  3. Phantos Says:

    February 6th, 2011 at 8:16 pm

    Thank you for this help.

    Took me ages, but got there in the end.

  4. Jordan Ewert Says:

    February 11th, 2011 at 10:26 pm

    I tried this, but could no get any sound to come out of my speakers after I changed my audio output in the pref panel. Is this normal?

  5. Mason Sklut Says:

    February 12th, 2011 at 8:56 am

    Hey Jordan,

    That’s not normal to happen. Try uninstalling and re-installing Soundflower.

    Thanks,
    Mason

  6. Smartalicus Says:

    April 20th, 2011 at 2:43 am

    Splendid!!! A few years later, and it still works beautifully!

    THANK YOU!

  7. Mason Sklut Says:

    April 20th, 2011 at 6:41 am

    You’re welcome! Glad you found the tutorial helpful.

    Thanks,
    Mason

  8. Kat Says:

    May 4th, 2011 at 9:41 pm

    I can’t get the liblame to show up in my Audacity preferences. I downloaded the latest version … I think.

    I didn’t agree to anything the folder appears in options when I browse from Audacity’s preferences but it’s gray and I am unable to click on it.

    Any ideas?

  9. Kat Says:

    May 4th, 2011 at 10:45 pm

    Actually, let me add to that question…

    I’ve also tried typing in the correct address, Audacity responds that it doesn’t exist and asks if I would like to create it.

  10. Mason Sklut Says:

    May 6th, 2011 at 8:02 am

    Kat,

    My best recommendation is to start from scratch.

    Get the newest version of Audacity and Lame MP3 Encoder:

    http://lame.buanzo.com.ar/
    http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

    Best,
    Mason

  11. Kate Says:

    June 18th, 2011 at 12:28 pm

    Does this work for Windows?

  12. Mason Sklut Says:

    June 18th, 2011 at 1:35 pm

    Yes, follow the same directions for the Windows version of Audacity.

  13. Marcus Says:

    July 29th, 2011 at 8:28 am

    I followed the instructions, but when launching Soundflower, in the menu bar it says Soundflower is not installed.

    What should I do?I already tried re-downloading it.

  14. Mason Sklut Says:

    July 29th, 2011 at 10:17 pm

    Marcus,

    Try using the uninstaller that comes with Soundflower. If that doesn’t work, please let me know.

    Best,
    Mason

  15. Thom C Says:

    July 31st, 2011 at 4:58 pm

    Thanks. I needed this when my copy of Audio Hijack stopped working. I found out about SoundFlower but could not get Audacity to work with it. After reading your instructions I get it.

  16. Mason Sklut Says:

    July 31st, 2011 at 5:02 pm

    Thanks Thom!

  17. Beatriz B Says:

    September 8th, 2011 at 11:50 pm

    Hey!
    I followed the steps and it was working all right but then something happened. I can’t record anything, the sound just doesn’t show up. I checked everything and the only thing wrong (which I can’t fix) is the library thing on audacity. I already have erased LAME and have installed it again and it is still not working. Would you help me?

  18. Mason Sklut Says:

    September 9th, 2011 at 12:46 pm

    Beatriz, that’s really odd. Have you tried reinstalling Soundflower?

  19. Murasaki Says:

    September 12th, 2011 at 5:37 am

    Running Mac OS X Snow Leopard for whatever reason could not for the life of me install LAME or find any .dylib files in the latest version.

    Alternate solution if the LAME encoder via Audacity is not working:
    Export as .wav file, drag into iTunes library, right click, “Create MP3 version”. You can trash the .wav file when finished.

  20. Mason Sklut Says:

    September 22nd, 2011 at 12:29 am

    Thank you for posting this!

  21. Laurens Says:

    October 1st, 2011 at 5:18 pm

    Hi, Thanks for the post. I did exactly what you described, and… it worked great!
    But… then I wanted to do a second song from YouTube and Audacity is recording anymore.
    Any idea why this happened?
    Second issue: When I did the first song I couldn’t listen while recording, is it possible to listen while recording?

  22. Mason Sklut Says:

    October 2nd, 2011 at 7:00 pm

    Laurens,

    That’s odd. Try reloading LAME.

    Let me know if that doesn’t work,
    Mason

  23. Beatriz B Says:

    October 25th, 2011 at 10:44 pm

    I erased everything and reinstalled everything and it still wasn’t working. But I finally got it to work ;)

    The problem was Soundflower indeed.
    I went to Soundflower’s Audio Setup and in Soundflower’s two channels I just increased the volume besides number 1 and 2. Now Audacity is recording as it is supposed to. And now I can hear while Audacity is recording but really don’t know why.

    Just thought you would like to know!

    Thanks anyway!

  24. Mason Sklut Says:

    October 26th, 2011 at 5:42 am

    Beatriz,

    I’m glad to hear you found a solution! Thanks for letting me know!

    Best,
    Mason

Leave a Reply