How do I use AU effects as inserts in my system audio?

February 13, 2008 4:36 PM

I've searched for a software utility for Mac OSX, which would allow audio moving through the system to be processed with Audio Units effects in realtime, with no luck. Help!

So I record a podcast show with my cohost, who is on the other side of the country. We use Skype to communicate with each other, and he intiates Skype calls with SkypeOut, for bringing guests onto the show.

So the catch is that I'd love to hang a decent software AU (Audio Units) compressor/track plug on my outgoing audio - I'm using a decent mic with an external USB audio interface - but I've found absolutely nothing that will let me tack an AU plug onto my outgoing audio. I suspect that it would be something that would appear in the Sound system pref pane, that would patch in an AU effect/s as an insert, but as far as I can tell, there is no such utility. Yes, my cohost can hang AU plugs in the software he's using to capture the mix moving through his machine (Audio Hijack Pro), but he can't limit it to specific channels (such as only my Skype channel - as far as I can tell, it applies the audio effect to the overall system mix).

Anyone know if there's an answer, outside of getting a hardware compressor/limiter?

posted by dbiedny to technology (5 comments total)

Audio Hijack? http://rogueamoeba.com/audiohijack/
posted by schwa at 5:14 PM on February 13, 2008

To clarify: What you want to do is insert an effect after your mic, but before Skype? So the flow of the data would go: Microphone -> Mac sound input -> effect -> Skype?

You may want to try Soundflower. You'd have to tell Skype to take audio from the "Soundflower" device -- not sure how you do that, I hope it's configurable.
posted by xil at 5:23 PM on February 13, 2008

And the other alternative is Jack.
posted by xil at 5:27 PM on February 13, 2008

I've done this (sort of) with Soundflower and Logic: sending my mic through Logic, mixing it with the audio tracks from a project, and pumping it into Skype. Works just fine. Basically, you'll set Logic (or Garageband, or whatever your AU host is) to use the Soundflower 2-channel outputs as your main outputs, and then set Skype to use those same outputs as its inputs (I think). There will be some latency, but it should be manageable.
posted by uncleozzy at 8:37 PM on February 13, 2008

I lubs me da AskMeFi. Thanks guys, Soundflower did the trick just perfectly!
posted by dbiedny at 5:27 AM on February 14, 2008