We’ve recently updated our sound control utility SoundSource, and it’s a big leap forward. On top of a wealth of assorted improvements and bug fixes, there are two notable advances.

First, SoundSource is now dramatically simpler to install on your Mac. There’s no longer any need to adjust startup security settings, nor even restart your Mac a single time. You can get started in seconds.

Second, SoundSource has support for MacOS 15 (Sequoia). If you’ve already updated your Mac to Sequoia, you can now run SoundSource on it.

You can download the latest right from the SoundSource product page. For more details about this update, read on.

Simplified Setup

SoundSource is now powered by our next-generation audio capture backend, “ARK”. Thanks to ARK, you can start using SoundSource in under a minute, with a new, streamlined setup process.

When you launch SoundSource on MacOS 14.5 and higher¹, the app will walk you through the necessary setup. With a few clicks, you’ll install the ARK plugin, grant the necessary permissions, and be up and running.

This change is the result of many months of development, as extensive work was required to overhaul the app’s backend. Despite those huge changes under the hood, we worked diligently to ensure existing users experience minimal changes in functionality. SoundSource remains the most powerful utility for audio adjustment on your Mac, and now, getting started with it is a snap.

Update SoundSource Now

If you’re already a SoundSource user, all you need to do is choose Check for Updates from the SoundSource menu to update to the latest version for your system.

If you’re not currently using SoundSource, visit the product page to learn more and download the free trial. It’s never been so easy to take control of all the audio on your Mac.

Footnotes:

1. The new audio capture backend requires MacOS 14.5 or higher, so SoundSource currently has two variants, with nearly identical functionality. On MacOS 14.5 and up, SoundSource 5.7.1 is the current version, while MacOS 14.4.1 and lower uses SoundSource 5.6.4.

   You don’t have to worry about that, however. All you have to do is download, and SoundSource will take care of making sure you have the right variant for your Mac. ↩︎

With Monday’s update to SoundSource, our entire product lineup now offers support for MacOS 15 (Sequoia). While it’s always wise to exercise caution in updating your Mac’s operating system, you won’t need to delay due to our apps. Make sure you have our latest versions, and you’ll be set to update your Mac to Sequoia.

Better Beta Cycles

When the first developer preview appeared back in June, we were thrilled to have five of our seven products already functional on Sequoia. Airfoil, Audio Hijack, Farrago, Fission, and Piezo were all capable of running on the new OS without needing any updates. By contrast, Loopback and SoundSource required most of the summer to gain Sequoia support. Eventually, though, they too were able to support Sequoia in advance of its release.

This required an immense amount of hard work from our entire team. We’ve spent much of the past two years overhauling the backend of all our audio capture apps to use our next-generation capture system, which we call “ARK”. In addition to the greatly simplified setup ARK affords, it also gives us the ability to support new OSes sooner.¹

In the past, it was not viable to provide updated versions of our products until near the end of Apple’s beta cycle. Thanks to ARK, the future looks brighter. If Apple follows their standard beta process next year, we hope to be able to provide updates that work on previews of MacOS 16 (Rancho Cucamonga?) earlier than ever.

This is also a good spot to once again link to our helpful Status page, which provides the most up-to–date information on compatibility with various operating system versions. This page is updated year-round, so if any of our tools are crucial to your setup, consider bookmarking the Status page to check before installing any major OS updates.

Happy Updating

As folks begin to update their Macs to Sequoia, we’re watching for any issues. We’re also working hard on further improvements, which we expect to ship in the weeks ahead. For now, though, we’re just thrilled to be ready for Sequoia after a long summer of work and testing. Make sure you have our latest versions, and after that, happy updating!

Footnotes:

1. I’ll also mention that ARK is available for licensing. If you have a Mac app that can benefit from audio capture, see our Licensing page for more information. ↩︎

Throughout this year, we’ve been working hard on significant improvements to the first-run experience for all of our audio capture applications as promised in our 2024 status report. We’ve shipped free updates to Piezo and Airfoil in March, Audio Hijack in April, and Loopback in early June. The final app we need to update is our audio control utility SoundSource.

That update is almost complete. SoundSource’s next update will provide a much simpler setup process, similar to Loopback: on a new Mac, no restarts will be required, nor any of the formerly necessary security setting changes. Instead, you’ll be all set in just a few clicks.

Bringing Support for MacOS 15 (Sequoia), Too

We’ve also been making the necessary refinements to get SoundSource working well on MacOS 15 (Sequoia), which Apple will be releasing soon. The rest of our lineup has already been updated for Sequoia, and SoundSource’s forthcoming update will offer preliminary compatibility with the new operating system release as well.

“She Needs More Work, Sir. A Shakedown!”

As we finalize SoundSource’s public release, we want to take it for a bit of a sea trial—and you can help! We’ve created a test release of SoundSource, for use on MacOS 14.5 and higher, including betas of MacOS 15.¹ To try it out, just click the big button below:

This will be a free update for all existing users, so don’t hesitate to give it a spin. We’re very interested in getting your feedback on this update, so please get in touch with us via this link, or through the Contact Us… command in SoundSource’s Help menu. Whether you experience issues or it’s working well for you, let us know.

Footnotes:

1. We’ll have another update to SoundSource that’s compatible with MacOS 11 through 14.4.1, as well. For now, we’re focused on testing against MacOS 14.5 and up. ↩︎