The Song Fight Bulletin Board

I'm sound-editing a film here, and I'd like to know if it's possible on a Mac OS X computer to mic the program output. More specifically: I wish to create a sound file of just the audio on this film, but exporting each audio file from each scene of a 45-minute film is too damn tedious. It seems more beneficial to create a new audio file with a seperate program (In this case, Sound Studio). So that, if I click record in Sound Studio, then click over to Final Cut Express and hit play, it'll record the film audio.

I wish there were a simpler way to explain this. I've answered this very question numerous times to people on PCs, but now I need to know how to do it with a Mac.

You could try the program "Audio Hijack."

What movie software are you using? It seems like you should be able to export the soundtrack only.

Failing that, you could always export a whole movie and strip the soundtrack from that.

It's Final Cut Express, which I'm sadly not very familiar with. I just wish I could run all this on my own computer. The director wants me to remove a lot of hiss and ground hum, which I told him would be possible, but I can only really do it if I get the audio onto my own computer. Hence the problem.

Complicating matters, the director (who is also the editor) is giving each scene its own timeline, so even if I can batch grab the soundtrack for the whole timeline, I'll still have to do that forty some-odd times.

So there's no default mixer setting that grabs mic input direct from program output? Damn.

c hack is right! Audio Hijack is amazing, great, and, wonderful. Whatever the source, if it is making noise on the Mac, it can grab it and save to a file. Compressed, uncompressed, whatever. Also great for capturing streaming audio from any application. The demo is free, but will add major hiss after the first 10 minutes or something. $16 relieves you of this problem.

is there anything like audio hijack for PC?

slowRodeo wrote:is there anything like audio hijack for PC?

Windows recording mixer has a built-in function to take input from whatever the speakers are playing. Just open the recording mixer from whatever program you record with.

Ambrosia Software's WireTap ain't half bad either, though you do have to make sure no other beeps from email, clock chimes, or other system alerts occur as it grabs all the sound output from your Mac while it's running.

On the other hand, it is free.

Anybody else miss the days of grabbing sound resources with ResEdit? Damn, in computer years, I'm old.

Well you said you didn't want to export so maybe this isn't what you're looking for, but I would guess it would be quicker than recording each scene in realtime.

I edit in Final Cut Pro, so I'm not sure if Express has the same functionality here. You can go to File>Export, then you can choose OMF or quicktime. If you export to quicktime make sure you go to "Options..." and turn off video and set the audio quality options.

You're going to have to switch timelines manually anyway, this may be quicker.

Alternatively FCP has some basic audio filters built in, including a hum remover, but they may not be as good as what you could do with an external program. But maybe FCE doesn't have those filters.

Get a stereo 1/8" patch cord (male-male) and run it from the speaker jack to the audio in on your sound card. Voila, no?