Audacity on OSX

Since last summer there is a new version 1.3.12 (beta) so we are going to use that in the lab. So off to http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ to download.

Hey the new book on Audacity 1.3 from PACKT just arrived as i typed this..how cool is that? Ok we download the 1.3.12.dmg file and open the disk image. We create an Audacity folder in Applications and copy all the files there.

Libraries

While audacity is good as is, it cannot handle MP3 and other files because of IP laws. So we need to download two libraries - LAME and FFmpeg. The LAME library file gets copied to the audacity folder and then in audacity you select audacity,preferences,libraries and click LOCATE and point it to the libmp3lame.dylib file. It will remember the location. FFmpeg comes in a dmg which has a pkg that can be installed. Once that is done click the LOCATE button for FFmpeg and it is automatically detected. Click OK and yer done.

One thing i am excited about is using Audacity to record telephone interviews using Skype or Google talk. I've finally got my external iSight camera hooked up to the mac pro (which replaced the dual G5 this spring) and it's quite impressive. Not as bright as the iSight in the mac pro notebook (which replaced the macbook this spring) but really nice.

Select Audacity, Preferences, Devices and select the iSight under Recording device. You also have to turn off all skype notifications.

Select Skype,Preferences and click the Notifications tab. Untick the Play Sound checkbox.

Enough for now..time for a snack