Using Shazam to pick up audio over internal soundcard / headphones

Question

I recently discovered Shazam has an app for mac, it seems it works by listening on the built in mic (or any mic presumably).

I wondered if there was a way I could get it to listen to the soundcard instead? I typically listen to radio streams over VLC, through headphones and thought it would be awesome to be able to use Shazam for those unknown tunes.

I found out about the Audio MIDI Setup.app which you can create aggregate devices, I thought maybe I could somehow forward the output into the mic- but I don't really understand it exactly truth be told.

Is there a way I could get this to work?

Answer 1

You can do this like so:

1. Install Soundflower (from https://rogueamoeba.com/freebies/soundflower/)
2. Option-click the volume icon and change both the input and the output device to "Soundflower (2ch)"
3. Start the Soundflowerbed application that comes with Soundflower, then click its icon in the top right (of a flower) and choose "Built-in Output" from the list under "Soundflower (2ch)"

Now your system audio output (e.g. VLC) is going out on the Soundflower virtual audio cable and your system input (e.g. Shazam) is coming from the Soundflower virtual audio cable, so Shazam can listen to whatever you play on the Mac, but Soundflowerbed lets you also route that virtual audio cable out through the system audio output so you can hear it all the time!

This could have a slightly negative effect on CPU usage and latency, so you might not want to use this set up all the time if you aren't using Shazam - in this case, you just Option-click the volume icon and set the output (and input if required) back to "Built-in". It's really cool to have Shazam IDing tracks as you listen to a DJ mix/radio station, and it's (sometimes) impressively accurate!

Answer 2

Have a look at Soundflower - freeware internal audio router

Answer 3

It works with soundflower on el capitan again. WoW, installed soundflower version 2.0b2 and be sure to uninstall earlier versions first with the given script in the 2.0b2 installer (available at GitHub). If you set with the alt-click option on the volume icon all (both input and output) to soundflower(2chl). If you have no real audio output anymore you can create e.g. a multi-output device in audio/midi configuration. This will disable audio volume control. Instead I can use soundflowerbed v1.1.6 again with no trouble on OSX El Capitan 10.11.6 With Soundflowerbed volume control keeps being in control.

Answer 4

SoundflowerBed is available separately from Soundflower. You can get SoundflowerBed here: https://github.com/mLupine/SoundflowerBed

Answer 5

No, no ,no.

THE EASIEST WAY YOU DO IT - IS THROUGH WINDOWS SOUND settings (go to them and select RECORDING, then STEREO MIX and enable it and then right click it (stereo mix) and click LISTEN and then Listen to this device (aditionally select what device is playing the audio).

Then hit OK and shazam will work (you may have to dissable all other microphones or just set stero mix to default).

You just usually need some soundcard for this (Asus works good) - but in asus drivers you should alway disable FX and GX and use Classic as effect. Also to generally improve quality on soundcards - just dissable unused playback devices / recording devices (use only those that you use).