Rogue Amoeba’s Loopback for Mac OS X is a tool for enabling audio routing between applications and audio devices on your Mac. In just a few clicks, you can easily pass audio directly between apps.

Loopback's virtual audio devices will be instantly familiar to those who've previously used the open-source tool Soundflower, but there's so more. Loopback will capture audio from just one application, or a whole set of applications and devices, all with just a few clicks to configure.

Loopback is a great tool for anyone working with audio on the Mac, from podcasters to gamers, Internet radio hosts to regular folks chatting via Skype. Here are just a few examples of what Loopback can help you do:

° Play audio to all podcast guests: Take audio from your physical microphone and combine it with audio sources like iTunes or QuickTime Player. Your guests on Skype will hear both your voice and your sound effects and musical add-ons.

° Create screencasts: Screen recording tools like QuickTime Player tend to allow you to include either audio from a microphone or all the audio from your system. Neither of these options tends to be ideal. With Loopback's help, those screen recorders can get audio from both the microphone and the application being filmed, so you get just the audio you want.

° Combine multiple hardware devices: Audio apps like GarageBand, Logic, and Ableton Live only allow recording from a single audio device at a time. These apps record from many channels. For easy recording in any app, combine multiple input devices into one virtual Loopback device with many channels.

° Live stream a podcast: Set a simple device (known as a pass-thru) as the output at the end of a chain in Audio Hijack, and then as the input source in Nicecast to live stream your podcast as you record.

° Record gameplay videos: Making gameplay videos with great audio can be overly difficult. If you want to record both your mic and the game audio while using a game capture device like those made by Elgato, Loopback can assist.

Loopback (http://rogueamoeba.com/loopback) requires Mac OS X 10.9 or higher, with a free fully-functional demo version available on the Rogue Amoeba site. While in trial mode, the quality of audio passing through Loopback's virtual devices will be degraded after 10 minutes. Loopback is regularly-priced at $99. For a limited time, it can be purchased at a special introductory price of $75.