How to grab and record “what you hear” audio on a Mac with open-source tools, using Audacity, Soundflower, and Sunflowerbed.
- Download and install the Soundflower open-source audio routing system (which now includes Soundflowerbed application).
- Download and install the Audacity open-source audio editing application.
- Start the Sunflowerbed application: /Applications/Sunflowerbed.app
- 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.
- In your system audio preferences ( -> System Preferences, Sound -> Output), select Soundflower (2ch).
- Start Audacity, and in its Preferences, in the Audio I/O tab, under Recording, change the Device to Core Audio: Soundflower (2ch).
- 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.
- When you’ve finished recording, you may want to switch your Sound output setting back to Internal Speakers.