OS Catalina users can now use BlackHole for free custom audio routing

Soundflower is not yet compatible with newer Mac Versions, but Blackhole might be the ideal solution for virtual audio routing.

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blackhole GUI

Soundflower is a great utility tool for routing audio around a computer’s OS and recording audio between apps and is often favoured by OBS users, or those looking to route audio from one DAW to another. The only problem is that Soundflower’s code was based on Mac tools that are not as accessible as they were 15 years ago when Soundflower was conceived. Now, BlackHole might be our saviour.

BlackHole offers 16 channels of audio inputs and outputs, which can be configured to accommodate 256 channels – although it might be unlikely the average user will require such a beastly amount. It seems simple enough to use, and most importantly, of course, is compatible with newer Mac OS X versions up to Catalina. It also supports sample rates from 44.1kHz up to 192kHz

The virtual audio driver offers no additional latency, and is free to download and use. It’s worth noting that this isn’t an application that Windows users can benefit from. Virtual audio drivers compatible with Windows include JACK and LoopBeAudio.

BlackHole is available for free on Github via this link, and was created by ExistentialAudio. The developer has included some quick and easy installation instructions too, and seems to be active in responding to bugs and issues raised.

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