Recording System Audio with Jing–Mac OS X Edition

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I mentioned here that users often ask us how to record system audio when making a Jing video. The answer for Mac users is a little easier, but comes with the same caveat as the Windows version: you can only record one thing at a time (voice narration or system audio).

That said, using SoundFlower from developer Cycling ’74 is a great way to route audio on the Mac. Soundflower creates an internal input and output channel; you can tell your system that you want your audio pointed at the internal output and your recording pointed at the Soundflower input. This creates a software loop inside your machine that points your system audio right to your recorder. This means that programs like Jing (which records the default system input) records your system audio.

The downside to this is that while your system audio is rerouted with Soundflower, you can’t hear it from your speakers or headphones. That’s where Soundflowerbed comes in. It pulls off some trickery and allows you to hear what Jing is recording.

Here’s how you do it.

First things first, install SoundFlower. You need administrator access to your machine to do this. It requires a restart as well.

Once that’s done, click on the Apple menu and select System Preferences>Sound. On the Input and Output tabs, select Soundflower (2ch) as your input and output channel, respectively. Launch Soundflowerbed and from the icon on the Menubar select Built-in Output.

That’s it; Jing is now setup to record audio from your system. To record voice narration, just go back and switch the input back to your microphone.

Here’s a Jing (0:36) of the process. The video picks up right after I’ve installed SoundFlower and resarted my computer. Remember you can only record one input. Therefore there’s some nice music in the background of this video, but I wasn’t able to use my microphone to speak to you.

  • Mike Curtis, TechSmith

    Hi Keith,

    I had some issues with the volume too. I was never able to adjust the volume of the music but I think I may have found a work-around.

    First, I uninstalled SoundFlower. I then downloaded the one from the site. When I used it, the volume control was grayed-out. So, I just turned up my system volume to the level that I thought the music sounded ok. Then, I launched SoundFlower and recorded my video. It’s hard to say if my volume stayed the same, or if SoundFlower overrode my settings.

    Maybe someone out there has more insight into SoundFlower? Maybe someone knows of a similar product that might give more control over the volume?

    Thanks for your interest in Jing!
    Mike Curtis

  • Jumana

    This is great! I’ve struggled in search of programs that could record the sound coming from my computer, Soundflower seems to do the job and worked well with Jing!
    I also couldn’t adjust the volume on my computer. All I could do was adjust the volume on iTunes or any other program the sound was coming from.

  • Don Lett

    Well I don’t think I’m using internal sound because I’m using a Bose external system?

  • DB

    O.K. I figured out how to do it with soundflower, BUT… My Audio Hijack Pro manages to get sound much cleaner AND I can listen in as well, plus when I am done it puts things back the way they were. In short less hassle. I am new to Mac/Sound flower and just may not be using it correctly, but the ease of use is important. I have had a program in the past which required me to install Sound Flower, but then it managed the settings of it from then on. You at least could make Jing to that in the background.

  • Strephon Williams

    I offer this procedure I made myself. For some of us a list procedure is helpful, especially to remember things to do without having to read your text or look at your tutorial again.

    Feel free to use this. I appreciate your software and your efforts to get it right.

    —procedure—–

    TO RECORD A SCREENCAST

    1. Set up OS Sound preferences for Input and Output to be both set to Soundflower 2c
    2. Open Soundflowerbed from Applications: the icon black flower should appear in top menu bar next to Jing icon already there
    3. Set up a screen capture of the video that you want to record. Drag from upper right corner of record area. To do this click Capture from the upper menu bar of Jing.
    4. When you stop capture area a four icon bar appears underneath. When you click on Video: this starts the capture of a video screencast of the area. But it’s tricky! Jing gives you a countdown of three. Have your cursor over the play button of your desktop video ready to click it to start the video already being recorded. Jing does not start recording automatically when you start your video to be captured.
    5. Quickly start the video on the desktop if not already going.
    6. When you come to the end of what you want to capture then click Stop Button on the little bar underneath the Capture Window. It will quickly make a flash file over the record area. Move over and play, checking that the sound recorded is fine.
    7. You can save your new recorded video as a file to your hard disk. Or you can upload it directly to your Screencast account which you have already made.
    8. Jing does not allow you to make text comments for your screencast. You can make comments only for its camera snaps after the snap.

  • Lynn

    How can I save the captures image to JEPEG file instaed of the default png file

  • le0pard13


    How can I save the captures image to JEPEG file instaed of the default png file

    You could open the PNG file with the Preview app and do a Save as… to JPG.

  • Anonymous

    should not be a counter-promotion, but if you have already jack os x installed, you can define your own rounting for every application that produces sound… select the jack audio driver, when started the jackpilot (and server) in system preferences, and viola .. in the jack routing plane are all pseudo outputs from the programs listed to connect with other programs of your chioce to record like cubase, audacity, …

    kind regards

  • Anonymous

    Hey all!

    Unfortunately I cannot get system audio working after following the steps above. My video doesn’t record any sound. Any troubleshooting ideas?

  • http://buildawebsitetonight.com Teena Hughes

    Hi — first off, I love Jing and have done since the first time I used it.

    I have a new problem with Jing Pro today which hasn’t happened before.

    I have an eMac OSX 10.4.11.

    When using Jing Pro recording as MPG4, my mouse is not visible – I’ve learnt to live with that, as the videos uploaded to Youtube are out of sync and I haven’t used them.

    Instead I’ve been using Jing Pro recording as SWF (as per Support’s suggestion), and embedding the files in my website pages (but can’t publish to Youtube). I can live with that (sort of :-) .

    Today is new – recording as SWF now has NO SOUND whatsoever, but immediately after changing Jing settings to MPG4, I do have sound (but still no mouse). No, I have not touched any Mac settings whatsoever.

    I don’t want to start installing more software – I wonder what’s happened at Jing to effect this change with Mac/SWF?

    Cheers
    Teena
    http://buildawebsitetonight.com

  • http://www.discburner.org Ivan

    Matt, this is good tutorial how to record audio on MAC using Jing software.
    Maybe you should add some screen capture so it will be easier for users who are not too much experienced to follow steps.

  • Phyl Putz

    All the comments on recording the audio on videos is about MACs. I can’t seem to get the recording done on my PC with XP Pro. Any help?

  • Peter Cox

    I just stick an audio lead into the input and output socket. Can’t hear anything through the speakers but a head phone divider would solve that. No need to reset the machine or anything complicated like that.

  • Steven Claes

    At first it didn’t work although I did everything you explained! But finally I found what the problem was: I didn’t change the audio output of Jing itself. Jing > Preferences > Audio Input > Select Device > Soundflower (ch2) Ok, maybe that was stupid of me but It didn’t say in the explanation above so maybe there R some people like me who are helped with this comment…
    Great stuff btw!!!!!!!