Q: How to hear and monitor audio sound playback In Logic Pro and Pro X on Your PC or iMac speakers while recording?
Having trouble hearing the audio in your iMac or PC built in speakers when you are using Soundflower software to record directly into Logic Pro or Logic Pro X using YouTube or some other sound source on your PC or Mac? Fret no more!
I found all kinds of forums and web pages that gave me useless or no answers to how to hear playback audio but none actually helped! I could get the recoding meters bobbing up and down nicely ready to record, but alas no sound coming through the mac speaker (if you haven’t even got that far – see lower dow this page to see how to basically setup Soundflower on MAC to route and send sound from YouTube or a website to Logic to record directly into Logic Pro).
In fact, I messed around for days trying to work out why I can’t hear the sound playback when I have Soundflower routed to Logic Pro. Eventually I found the and solution – a single check box in the Logic Audio preferences window! Here is your answer….
!!!To hear playback – make sure you have ‘SOFTWARE MONITORING’ checked ON in Logic Pro/Pro X’s Audio Preferences window before you start to record!!! See screenshot below;
Wait a minute – I can’t even get the Soundflower set up to record – let alone hear the playback!!! What about the other settings?!
OK I’ll talk you through all the settings – there are very few. The first thing I could not get my head round was that you have to first set set the OUTPUT – yes the OUTPUT in your System Preferences > Sound to Sounflower(2ch). After much head scratching as to why (I thought this would stop sound coming out the Mac’s speakers) I concluded this must be because Soundflower is acting as a middleman between your system’s sound source eg; CD or Youtube video – and Logic. So the sound route goes; Mac source (eg Youtube) > Soundflower > Sounflower Output > Logic Input > Logic Output (system speakers). To monitor the recorded sound and get it to come out of the speakers set your Logic Audio preferences as per the screenshot above (NOTE ‘Software Monitoring’ MUST BE ON!)
Back to setting up your mac settings to route the Youtube or other source correctly to Logic. Since writing the above – I have decided to skip the nonsense and just give you screenshots wth the settings you need. If all that confused you – just simply check the following windows and settings on your Mac or PC are setup as follows – happy recording with Soundflower!
These are the ONLY Settings that MUST be changed on your MAC/PC to record external sound (youtube etc) into Logic Pro X from Soundflower…
NOTE: you do NOT need to change the INPUT settings above – only the OUTPUT settings to Soundflower (2ch)!
How to increase or decrease sound source input / output level from Soundflower to Logic to get a hotter louder recording signal level…
Simply use the volume/output setting on you Mac sound preferences (screenshot above); goto Apple icon > System Preferences > Sound > Output Volume (at the bottom). You might want to check ‘Show volume in menu bar’ for easy access later for increasing / decreasing output from Soundflower into Logic.
Also check…
The Audio MIDI Settings program below (found on Mac by going Applications > Utilities >Audio MIDI Settings) does NOT need to be changed – but in case you want to check the settings – it should be as follows;
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