Soundflower replacement

Questions
1

Has anyone found a replacement for SoundFlower? LoopBack is way too expensive for a multi-seat lab. I’ve read up on how to work around the latest OS update lock downs, but our tech team would like a cleaner solution.

I typically use it to route, e.g., SC to the analysis tools in Amadeus Pro, or to Logic Pro to record multiple tracks.

2

this thread is slightly old but i remember trying to find info on this topic.

Jack (https://jackaudio.org) works with supercollider -> logic and is reliable. It’s a little finicky to set up at first but once you get a handle on the quirks, it’s decent.

i’ve switched to loopback now and feel it’s worth the cost for my use case.

3

Have you tried out Jack for OSX lately? It has improved in recent years. Still “feels” a bit heavy on resources for the OSX version though.

4

Hello,

The followings work in Sierra, High Sierra and Mojave:

Soundflower: https://www.fluxforge.com/blog/soundflower-os-x-10.11-10.12-macOS-sierra/

SoundflowerBed: https://github.com/mLupine/SoundflowerBed/releases

Best Regards,

prko

5

I guess the whole point is forward compatibility (64 bit). SoundFlowerBed looks pretty old (2014).

We settled on the iShowU plugin. Works well, but only two channels.

6

PS: Also, Screenflick now has its own plugin (ScreenFlick Loopback), which comes with the program. And the whole Screenflick package is less than Loopback! :-/ We were getting approval for licenses to Screenflick when we found iShowU, which allows using their plugin without on its own.

7

I’m surprised you’re looking for an alternative. I’ve used Soundflower for years. There was a point where there were some problems, but it seems to work fine now that its back in the hands of its creator. I remember learning Supercollider from your text book, where you use Soundflower, which in a way is what got me using it in the first place - as opposed to Jack.

8

We believe it will not work on Catalina.

9

interesting and good price for sure, but not really comparable to loopback (or jack, soundflower) for audio routing tasks. multi channel routing and selecting different monitoring is must, for me at least.

10

I’m on Linux these days where Jack works great but I tried it about a year ago on OSX and even used it in a performance. It seemed to work well on Mac now although it seemed a little heavy on resources. Otherwise, Jack is fantastic and it would be amazing to see the OSX and Windows versions on par with the Linux version. Perhaps it is a suitable replacement for Soundflower these days?

11

Unfortunately:

“Well since nodody is maintaining the JackRouter code anymore, I doubt this issue will be fixed.”

hjh

12

oh nooo. On OSX specifically or is Jack generally in a lull? hoping not Jack in general as i really love it.

Also, just saw this on CDM: https://cdm.link/2019/10/blackhole-mac-soundflower-alternative-catalina/

and the direct link to the software: https://github.com/ExistentialAudio/BlackHole

13

Only JackRouter is not maintained - this is a part of JACK that allows CoreAudio applications to use JACK (otherwise only apps directly compiled for JACK support would be able to use it and understandably nobody does that on macOS).
m

1 Like