iTunes Hack for Macs: iTunes, Audion, 2 sound cards.

[The Peanut Vendor]

I figured out a 1-keystroke solution to add selected songs from iTunes to another audio player (Audion 3). This solution allows you to cue up songs using iTunes, and play your master line on Audion using 2 separate soundcards.

-put songs from iTunes to Audion using a shortcut key.
-use 2 soundcards simultaneously on your Mac.
-no "refresh iTunes playlists" - it works live!
-use iTunes to manage your collection!

It's taken me a year to figure out, but here it is:

STEP ONE: DOWNLOAD AND INSTALL PROGRAMS
-Install iTunes
-Install Audion 3 (http://www.panic.com/audion/)*
-Install "Detour" (http://www.rogueamoeba.com/detour/)*
-Install my applescript "Add Selection to Audion -DJ-.scpt" by copying the file into ~/Library/iTunes/Scripts/. Find this script I made at: http://www.ece.ualberta.ca/~birkley/SugarSwing/, labeled "Add Selection to Audion -DJ-.scpt

*NOTE: Audion 3 has been retired. Pretty powerful program, but still works for our uses. Detour has also been retired. It works on PowerPC macs for-sure and MAY work on IntelMacs using Rosetta.

STEP TWO: SETUP DETOUR
-Click the squiggly thing next to your clock.
-- >Setup Detour
-- >Add the following applications: iTunes and Audion, found in your "applications" folder.
-- >Open Detour and set output device of Audion to <Soundcard 1>, and iTunes to <Soundcard 2>

STEP THREE: SETUP AUDION
-Setup Audion:
--Create new playlist called "DJ". It MUST be called "DJ" unless you would like to modify the applescript.
--Go File > Open Playlist Quickly > Refresh from Playlists Folder

At this point, (assuming you have both iTunes and Audion open), you can select a song(s) in iTunes and add them to Audion via the menubar: Scripts > Add Selection to Audion -DJ-. However, you can hotkey this function to make life even easier:

STEP FOUR: HOTKEYING!
-Go to "System Preferences" > "Keyboard & Mouse" > "Keyboard Shortcuts" menu
-hit the "+" symbol (2/3 the way down in window)
-Application: choose "iTunes"
-Menu Title: write "Add Selection to Audion -DJ-" exactly
-Keyboard Shortcut: click and put in your keystroke. I chose "Splat+D".
-Close iTunes, and Reopen

Now you can hit "Splat+D" in iTunes, and the song will be added to playlist "DJ" in Audion. Using Detour, you can have one soundcard playing Audion, and the other soundcard playing iTunes.

Done!

Birkley

*Please note that I JUST created the script today and this method hasn't undergone rigorous testing. It seems to work beautifully so far for me.

*Also, I should mention that I have tried Dj-1800, and besides costing money, it doesn't work as well as I hoped. Sure, it links with iTunes, but it seems to stop playing songs every time you need to update playlists. I much prefer using iTunes to organize my collection, so using Dj apps like MegaSeg or Traktor doesn't go over well.

----

[david]

Detour doesn't work on my intel mac, unfortunately. It's a shame, and it seems like a weird limitation that it's so hard to run applications on a Mac that talk to different soundcards.

[The Peanut Vendor]

It seems that Jack OSX and Soundflower may work instead of Detour. Here are the links... I'll try them out later this week.

http://www.jackosx.com/
http://www.cycling74.com/products/soundflower

[david]

It seems that Jack OSX and Soundflower may work instead of Detour. Here are the links... I'll try them out later this week.

Thanks, I'll have a closer look at those. But from a preliminary scan of the feature lists for both of these, it appears that they appear as additional sound cards. This won't help apps that only play to the "default" sound card, while detour did exactly this, but rerouting audio under the feet of the applications.

Is there e.g. a way to select the output sound card in iTunes?

[The Peanut Vendor]

Apparently I'm not the only person with the bright idea:
http://www.swingknoxville.org/forums/vi ... ight=#2405
http://www.yehoodi.com/phpBB2/viewtopic ... b80c1e64b6

(I still like my solution a bit better because the previewing happens in iTunes, while Audion, a pretty powerful application itself, has playlisting capabilities)
--
I tried using Jack and Soundflower, and you're right, they don't seem to do the job as Detour.
Maybe a solution to select the output sound of iTunes can be found using applescripts, but I couldn't find anything by googling.

[david]

For now, I'm happy with CuePhase, which can preview without sending to another app. The basic design of it suits me well, but there are a few minor bugs that the developer promised to work on.