9/08/2005 08:38:00 PM|||Joe|||I got it to work!

It's actually simpler than I thought -- I just had to wrap my head around it. What's really nice is that I only need one session.

Here's how it works. Crank up Audio Hijack Pro. Set up one session. Audio Source is set to "Audio Device". Input Device should be set to "Silence Input". Output Device is "Silence Output".

That may seem weird, but stick with me.

Under "Effects", I have three (well, 3 and a half) rows. The first is for my voice, the second is for Skype, and the third is for music. First row, first slot has "Voiceover". Be sure to bring up its option window (click editor), set the input device as your mic and click "Start". First row, second slot is an "Auxiliary Device". It's set to output on "Soundflower (2ch)", which is what Skype will take for its input.

Start up Skype and switch back to Audio Hijack Pro.

Second row, first slot has "Application Mixer". Set that to hijack Skype, then click "Hijack". Second row, second slot has another "Auxiliary Device", but this one is set to output to "Built-in Audio", with the Source set to "Headphones". So the hijacked audio will also be sent to your headphones.

The third row is a little weird. I'll link to a picture further down so you can get the idea. This is for the music. Third row, first slot is "AUAudioFilePlayer". This makes iTunes (which sucks up a lot of cycles) unnecessary. But, since both you and your Skype buddy need to be able to hear it, we need to pipe it into two outputs. So third row, second slot is "Auxiliary Device", with the output set to "Soundflower (2ch)", which will be picked up by Skype. The next one needs to go into the fourth row, second slot. It's also an "Auxiliary Device", but its output is set to "Built-in Audio", Source is Headphones.

Got all that? Now switch to Skype, go to Preferences, Audio tab. Audio output can be set to "Sunflower (16ch)", or anything else where you won't hear it. You don't need to, since Audio Hijack Pro will output it to your headphones. Set the Input to "Soundflower (2ch)", which is where the VoiceOver (your voice) is being routed to in AHP.

That should be it. Hit hijack, then record and go. You can set songs in "AUAudioFilePlayer". You can set up a little playlist and do some fun things. I wish there was an easy way to fade the audio in and out, but hey.

There's going to be some latency, and I haven't been able to test it with a conference call. [UPDATE: I've tested it; conference calls work] I'm not sure other callers will be able to hear each other. If they can't, then I don't know how to fix that without them hearing echoes of themselves, so it might not work.

And actually the one I'll be using has more effects in it to condense the audio, etc. Just use the "PassThru" effect to keep all three rows from intersecting to do that. You may want to add PassThrus to all rows and boost the volume on it in the second row, since the recordings of Skype are a little quiet. More effects will add more latency, of course.

Here's the picture of the effects setup.|||112623939341951413|||Podcasting Part 3