Sunday, March 14, 2010

ScreenFlow and Tascam US144

Today I wanted to record some demonstrations and I found the Telestream ScreenFlow application. It is a really competent recording and editing tool for recording from the screen, adding other types of media, text and much more.

I have a Tascam US144 Audio device. When trying to record from this device directly, it seems like the sample rate is not compatible with the expectations in ScreenFlow - it records, but it sounds like running a tape deck at 1/4 of the correct speed, and the quality sucks.

Found tips to use routing via Soundflower and Garageband to overcome the problem.

Do this:

  • Start GB, add a track for voice, set it to record from the US144
  • Turn on monitoring on the track (this is important, or you will be recording silience)
  • Set GB output to Soundlower 2ch
  • Set ScreenFlow input to Soundflower 2ch

You don't have to record anything in GB to make this work, it is enough that GB is on and monitoring the input. The cool thing is that ScreenFlow will now get the processed audio, so you can use reverb, compression and peak limiting - of if you want to go wild there is always the chipmunk effect :)

Although it sucks to not be able to record the audio directly I can at least use ScreenFlow to make my recordings (and I really like all the other features of this package).

Now to the joys of recording...


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