Airfoil
Audio Hijack
Farrago
Fission
Loopback
Piezo
SoundSource
Copyright © Rogue Amoeba Software, Inc. All rights reserved.
Printable Manual
At the top of SoundSource's main window, you'll find the controls for System audio devices. Here, you can adjust settings for the default devices the system uses for audio output, audio input, and sound effects.
The System Devices Area
By default, all audio on your Mac will play through the system's selected output device. Using these controls in SoundSource, you can switch the specific device being used for output, and adjust the output volume, balance, and sample rate.
Output Device Controls
You can also apply audio effects to all audio played through the output device. For more details, see the Audio Effects page.
The system's selected default input device is used to pull in audio in to your Mac, and will generally be something like a microphone or mixer. Using these controls in SoundSource, you can switch the specific device being used for input, and adjust the device's input level and sample rate.
Input Device Controls
By default, SoundSource's input meters now show activity only when the selected input device is actively being read by another application on the system. When the input meter is otherwise inactive, it will be drawn disabled to indicate that it's not displaying audio activity. We call this “passive metering”, and it’s used to prevent MacOS’s mic-in-use indicators from appearing at all times.
If you wish, you can restore SoundSource’s former “active metering” behavior to have the meter show input activity at all times. Control-click on the input device’s meter, then select “Active” from the pop-up menu. This setting will also affect the optional Default Input Device menu bar meters.
Be aware that active metering will cause MacOS’s mic-in-use indicator to appear whenever SoundSource’s main window is visible.
Sound effects are a special type of audio played by applications on the Mac, and include things like the ding of a new email arriving or the bonk of an error occurring. You can opt to play sound effects through a secondary audio device, so they don't blast over other content you may be enjoying.
Sound Effects Device Controls
With these controls in SoundSource, you can switch the specific device being used for sound effects, and adjust its volume level.
Control-clicking a device in SoundSource's Devices list will reveal a contextual menu, containing additional options.
The Output contextual menu
The Input and Sound Effects contextual menu
With this option selected for a device, the corresponding level meter in SoundSource's main window will be disabled, and will not show audio activity. If the Output or Input menu bar meter setting is enabled in Settings, the corresponding meter will remain visible, but it will cease to show audio activity.
When this option is enabled, all effects processing for the output device will be disabled. For more details, see the Audio Effects page's Bypass Effects section.
Adjustments made to an output device's audio settings within SoundSource are stored automatically, then applied whenever audio flows through that device. Selecting this reset option will fully reset a device, removing all adjustments SoundSource is applying to it.
After you reset a device, SoundSource will not adjust its audio in any way until you again instruct it to do so.
← PreviousNext →Accessing SoundSourcePer-App Adjustments