Being back in Minnesota for a month really lit a fire beneath me to find a better solution to recording podcasts when away from home. In the past, I’ve either recorded episodes ahead of time, or brought an additional laptop running Linux to do the recording. I wanted to avoid that this time, and so I learned how to use new tools on macOS.
A majority of my podcast listening is taken up by technology-focused shows, and they have a tendency to discuss how they record as part of the show. As such, I was familiar with a few. The standout was always Audio Hijack by Rogue Amoeba. This tool allows you to record any number of devices from any number of inputs to any number of tracks. For my setup, that means a single program lets me record my microphone to a single track, my cohosts on Skype to a separate track (for a rough backup), and a third track that combines the first two as a way to synchronize our voices.
It’s a fantastic piece of software, though I had a little trouble with their auto-snapping block setup at first. But once that was figured out, everytime I open it the various devices and tracks are all in place, and I only need to hit “Record”. It’s elegant and makes my life much easier.
There are programs that do something similar on Linux in conjunction with the JACK software, but the interface is not as clean, and audio routing is far more complicated. It is certainly powerful enough, but the benefit of Audio Hijack is that it’s simple enough for my use case, making the entire flow easier.
I’m not sure if I’ll stick with this long-term, but it is good to have options, and more importantly, have this travel recording setup figured out.