Hi all, I have a slightly niche request which I think would be helpful to lots of people.
I want to set my gear up to automatically record my spontaneous jams.
Specifically: I sit all day at my desk doing dayjob non-audio work on my desktop computer (a Mac Mini). That desktop also has my audio kit attached to it (TE TX-6). I get short breaks where I can flick on an op1 or octatrack for five minutes, half an hour, in between work, or childcare. I’d like to capture those for archive.
To do that: I want an app that can automatically record whenever incoming audio appears at the input of my soundcard.
I’ve tried automations in Audio Hijack but it doesn’t have “audio signal” as a trigger. I can’t think of a DAW that does it, but also, Ableton is quite a hefty piece of software to have running perpetually in the background all day and night, through dayjob work, etc.
To be clear, I know I can open a DAW, create a track, press record, then stop at the end, and then save. I don’t want to do that. I salute everyone who has the ability to carve out long periods of time for jams, and I salute everyone who will diligently open a DAW, create a track, press record, then stop at the end, and then save, every time they have a few minutes for a spontaneous moment making music (or can foresee when a great moment of improvisation will come) (or can remember it perfectly). That’s not me!
I’m looking for something to auto-archive, and super keen to hear if anyone has ideas, or has cracked this already!
Can’t you just use audio hijack and hit record before you start playing? From memory it won’t record until it detects some sound
Edit - rereading the post, sounds like you want something that will record any sound it detects, then save automatically once the sound stops, then record the next one etc?
A possible alternative could be to run a line out from your interface to a Zoom H4N or other dedicated handheld recording unit. I’m not sure about threshold recording settings on those devices, but they are definitely quick and handy for capturing recordings in one’s audio format of choice.
If I understand the question, Monkey C’s Rewind does that really well: https://monkeyc.audio/ and it’s what I use. It also has a MIDI recorder that does that as well.