Recording Skype (Teams, Zoom, Webex) to MP3 with Audio Hijack

July 8, 2020

Goal

Record a Mac Skype for Business meeting to MP3 – participating in the meeting as normal with my headset – creating a MP3 with myself and other participants heard equally in both left and right channels.

Took a couple of days, but figured it out. Here is the how-to…

Note: I did this for Skype and Microsoft Teams. But the same approach will work for any conferencing software like Zoom or Webex.

What you need:

The recommended approach from Rogue Amoeba does work, but its problem is the MP3 has my voice on the left channel (ear) and other participants on the right channel. Which, although audible, I find uncomfortable to listen to.

The below solution records yourself and others in mono MP3, at equal volume, in both ears.

How-To:

  • Install Skype
  • Install Audio Hijack
  • Connect your headset
  • In Skype preferences set all your Audio Video devices to your headset
  • I am a low-talker, so I have my microphone volume increased to 150%

  • Make sure for both Skype source elements you open the Advanced settings and disable Include audio input

  • For the MP3 recorder, the consensus on the Internet for recording voice is
    • 96 Kbps bitrate
    • constant bitrate CBR
    • 44100 Hz sampling rate
    • mono channels
  • With those settings you will generate approximately 1MB in MP3 file size per minute recorded
  • Adjust File name pattern, Save to output directory, Title, and cover image as needed

In-Action:

  • Open the session in Audio Hijack, click to start recording
  • Join your meeting in Skype
  • You will hear participants in your headset as normal
  • Your voice and participants will be recorded in mono to the MP3 file
  • Observe the VU Meters in Audio Hijack and make sure you see appropriate activity
    • Top meter, to MP3, triggers on both your voice and others voices
    • Bottom meter, to headset, triggers only on others voices
  • Check that the MP3 file appears and is growing as you record
  • Click to stop recording
  • Success

If you need to edit the MP3 after recording I find Fission - Rogue Amoeba $29 to be a great tool for lossless editing/ trimming/ chapters/ splitting/ transcoding… I also played around with Loopback - Rogue Amoeba $99 – neat advanced tool but I did not need it for this task.