Session 5

I use a technology called Wiretap to capture streaming audio on the Internet or from any source that plays through my Mac computer. Prior to discovering this technology, I had been searching for an alternative solution to digitizing audio. Being in the music industry, I am constantly collecting and building upon my sample library. I use to search and download sound files if I was lucky enough to find a source for the particular sound that I was searching for. If there was no downloadable source then I could either import files from a CD or capture the audio by running it out of my computer, into an audio interface and then back into my computer. This involved cumbersome hardware and wasn’t efficient at all unless I was planning on dedicating a few hours strictly to capturing audio.

Now I am able to pull up Wiretap at any time with one hotkey command prompt and begin recording instantly. If I hear a theme song that I want to capture from an old TV show, record an online lecture with multiple participants, save rare music directly from YouTube or iTunes radio or just record personal notes without having to open up a special audio editing program; I can do it. The program is extremely user friendly so there is really no learning curve at all. You just press record and stop on the transport control and then save the resulting file. From here you can open the audio within the same application for basic editing or export it to another location on your computer.

A friend of mine in the music business first told me about an application called Soundtap that had similar capabilities. I tried this program for PC and was satisfied with it, but preferred to work on an Apple platform so I began searching for a comparable program for my MacBook. Of all of the options that I found, Wiretap offered the most functionality for the least amount of money ($30).

Wiretap is a specialized program for a specific purpose so most people wouldn’t have an immediate need for it, but it is definitely a great tool to have if you are involved in online instruction. It would allow you to capture audio from multiple sources and then host it in one centralized location for your students. You would just have to be sure to site your sources as with any other type of media due to copyright laws. You could also easily record your podcasts and online discussions and archive them within your CMS. Now that I have this ability, I laugh when I think back to the days when I would sample from vinyl records via a usb turntable or line-in from a cassette tape recording.