We’ve just released SoundSource 6.1, a free update that brings dozens of refinements and improvements to all SoundSource 6 users. Read on for more details, or just click to download it immediately.

Continued Progress

Last winter, we shipped SoundSource 6. It was a major upgrade to our popular audio control utility that brought a bevy of new features. Today’s update builds on that progress, with a few small new features, some big refinements and optimizations, and more than two dozen bug fixes.

More Ways to Access Quick Configs

SoundSource’s quick configs save complete audio configurations for your Mac, then allow you to switch between them instantly. We’ve just added two new ways to select your quick configs.

Most notably, you can now put your quick configs right in your menu bar, as seen to the right. Enable the optional menu bar icon with the switch found in the Manage Quick Configs sheet. As well, SoundSource’s alternate menu (accessed by Control-clicking the main menu bar icon) now has a Quick Configs sub-menu.

Access your quick configs, quicker than ever.

Clearer Volume Levels in the Menu Bar

This update brings another notable change to the menu bar, as we’ve improved the volume level indicators found there. The previous three dots in SoundSource’s menu bar icon have now been replaced with four wider levels.

This updated art is shown when SoundSource’s Menu Bar Icon (in the Appearance settings) is set to either the Speaker (SoundSource) or Match Output Device.

Refinements for Bluetooth, Audio Devices, and Audio Units

Bluetooth outputs can often cause headaches, but this update reduces the pain. We’ve eliminated several issues that could cause audio glitches and dropouts when playing to your Bluetooth devices.

Speaking of audio hardware, SoundSource’s Audio Devices window has also been updated. It now includes “Preferred Device Order” controls for MacOS’s “Sound Effects” output, in addition to ensuring that devices you mark as hidden correctly stay hidden everywhere.

If you use SoundSource to enhance audio on your Mac, we’ve got plenty for you as well. We made multiple improvements to Audio Units in version 6.1. Of particular note, newly installed effects are now instantly ready for use in SoundSource.

Substantial Optimizations

This update also fine-tunes the ARK plugin that powers audio handling, making it more efficient than ever. To minimize resource consumption, we worked around several issues in MacOS itself. Recent tests show CPU usage down 18-35%.

We‘ve also elevated the experience when using SoundSource to send to AirPlay devices. Optimizations in streaming code allow for improved synchronization between AirPlay outputs, along with better connection reliability.

Bugs, Squashed

We’re constantly working to eliminate bugs, so the app works the way you expect it to. In SoundSource 6.1, we’ve stamped out 33 distinct issues, including four (fortunately rare) crashes.

The most notable fix allows SoundSource to play nicely with audio playback from games running in MacOS’s “Game Mode”. Game on!

Get SoundSource 6.1 Today

SoundSource’s release notes always offer a comprehensive review of what’s changed, but why not simply try it yourself? If you’re already running SoundSource 6, visit the Settings window and click Check for Update to move up free of charge.

If you’re still running SoundSource 5, now’s a great time to upgrade. Download SoundSource 6, read about what’s new, and upgrade at a substantial discount.

And if you’re not yet using SoundSource at all? Head over to the SoundSource page to learn about it and download the free trial.

If you do anything with audio on your Mac, SoundSource 6.1 is ready to assist you.

If I had to identify a single principle that has allowed Rogue Amoeba to consistently develop high-quality, award-winning software for the last twenty-four years, it would be the aggregation of marginal gains.

You might know that term from the story of cycling coach Dave Brailsford. Brailsford took the helm of the British national team in 2003, after a century of underperformance. The team’s historic rankings were so poor, in fact, that at least one manufacturer refused to sell to the team. The vendor feared that the British using their bikes in competitions would sully the brand’s reputation.

How do you fix that? Previous coaches had attempted sweeping changes, but they had no success in improving things. By contrast, Brailsford approached the problem through what he called “the aggregation of marginal gains”. He and his team looked at every conceivable aspect of competitive cycling: seat comfort, rider posture, tread grip, rider self-care, and more. For each, they asked the same question: “How can we improve this by 1%?”.¹

Over time, the team made hundreds of small improvements, and positive results followed. Five years after Brailsford took over, the British won 8 gold medals at the 2008 Olympics. Four years later, at the 2012 Olympics, they set multiple Olympic and world cycling records.²

When it comes to software, major updates with big new features catch attention, but we’re also constantly working on our own “1% improvements”. I’ve recently worked on a handful I’d like to highlight.

Customer Dashboard

Our Customer Dashboard provides a single location for our customers to access everything you might need from Rogue Amoeba, including a comprehensive record of your purchases:

This may seem like a larger initiative rather than a marginal improvement, but we’ve had automated systems in place for years that allowed users to recover license keys. Last year, we decided to improve upon that. First, we built a page that provided a list of your license keys, along with download links. Later, we provided the ability to manage the email address associated with purchases, then added purchase invoices. Our most recent enhancement adds automated notifications of eligible upgrades.

We started with something that matched our previous system in terms of functionality. From there, small, incremental changes rolled out features as they became available, resulting in a more robust system over time.

Permissions Window

Each year, MacOS includes more and more OS-level permissions. The resulting stream of prompts can interrupt work and cause friction, especially for folks trying out our software for the first time. While we can’t do much about this at the system level, in the spirit of incremental improvement, we asked ourself how we could make this marginally better for our users. The result is our centralized Permissions window, which has now been implemented across all of our apps:

This Permissions window provides a single interface to grant permissions to the app. It’s also a useful store of information, showing which permissions are required and which are optional, along with details on how each permission is used.

Unobtrusive Updates

Speaking of things that interrupt work, how many times have you launched software on your Mac only to be confronted with a workflow-interrupting update notification? We encourage our users to run our latest versions, but we also know that the moment you’re getting ready to launch a recording session is not the optimal time to update. So, we recently developed the unobtrusive update notifier to…um, unobtrusively notify users about updates, which they could then handle at their convenience:

This is a small improvement, and one that may well go unnoticed. But as Paul noted in the post announcing this change, this is a very nice quality-of-life improvement.

License Window

We provide free trials of all our software for users to evaluate, with a paid license required to unlock them for long term use. Over the years, we’ve made multiple refinements to our licensing system to improve that experience, including both visual and audible feedback, helpful messages to alert you to your eligibility for a discounted upgrade, and most recently, single-click-to-copy license codes:

We want users to have as little friction as possible, from evaluating the software with an easy-to-access free trial to unlocking the software once it’s been purchased.

Conclusion

In my 10 17 year tenure at Rogue Amoeba, I’ve seen the principle of incremental improvement applied consistently. Over time, small gains have aggregated to incredible functionality, accessibility, and performance for our users. While our software hasn’t won any Olympic medals, it has been used to facilitate Olympic broadcasts, among countless other uses. We’re proud of the steady stream of incremental improvements we’ve provided over the last twenty-four years, and look forward to continuing that practice long into the future.

Footnotes:

1. You can read more via James Clear’s blog post. Clear is also the author of the book “Atomic Habits”, which focuses on getting 1% better every day. ↩︎

2. Learn more about cycling at the 2008 Summer Olympics and records at the 2012 Summer Olympics. ↩︎