"Do I need audio routing software to record a podcast on Mac?"

"If you're recording solo with a single mic, no. You need it the moment you want to play background music, sound effects, or a guest's audio into a recording or remote call — macOS doesn't let apps capture system audio without a virtual audio driver."

"What's the easiest tool for remote podcasting?"

"Soundshine. Toggle a switch in the menu bar and pick Soundshine Microphone as the input in Riverside, Zencastr, Zoom, or your DAW. Total setup is around 30 seconds."

"Is Loopback worth it for podcasters?"

"Only if you need to combine multiple sources — mic, co-host audio, music, sound effects — onto separate tracks. For simpler setups, smaller tools do the same job with less friction."

"Is BlackHole really free?"

"Yes, BlackHole is open source and fully free. The 'cost' is setup time: you configure devices in Audio MIDI Setup, which adds time the first time and can break after macOS updates."

Best Audio Routing Software for Mac Podcasters (2026)

Remote podcasting on Mac has one persistent headache: getting the right audio to land in the right place. You want background music in the recording, your co-host’s voice in your DAW, and your own clean mic on the call — all at the same time. macOS makes none of that easy by default, which is why audio routing software exists.

This guide covers the tools Mac podcasters actually use in 2026, what each does well, and which setup fits your situation.

What “Audio Routing” Actually Means for Podcasters

Before comparing tools, let’s be precise. Audio routing software creates virtual audio devices: fake microphones and speakers that live inside your Mac. You send audio into one of these virtual devices, and another app picks it up as if it were a real mic or speaker.

For podcasters, the common use cases are:

Play music or sound effects into a recording session without needing a second device
Route system audio (a video clip, a jingle, a guest’s audio) into your recording app
Combine multiple sources — your mic, a co-host feed, and background music — onto a single channel
Monitor what your listeners will hear while you record

The tools below solve these problems at different price and complexity levels.

The Tools: Quick Comparison

Tool	Price	Complexity	Best for
Soundshine	$7.99 one-time	Very low	Sharing system audio in calls/recordings
BlackHole	Free	Medium	DIY routing between apps
Loopback	$99 one-time	Medium–high	Studio setups with multiple sources
Farrago	One-time purchase	Low	Triggering live sound effects

Soundshine — The Simplest Way to Route System Audio

Best for: Remote podcasters who want to play music, clips, or sound effects into a recording without complex setup.

Soundshine is a macOS menu bar app built around a single function: turning system audio into a virtual mic input. Install it, flip a switch, and any app — Riverside, Zencastr, Zoom, Discord — sees a “Soundshine Microphone” it can record from. Your music, video clips, or sound effects play through that virtual mic alongside your real voice.

The signal path is transparent. You still hear everything through your speakers while Soundshine simultaneously routes it into your recording app. No noticeable latency, no DAW skills required, and setup takes about 30 seconds.

For remote podcasters specifically, this solves the most common pain point: playing background music or audio clips into a Riverside or Zencastr session without holding your phone up to the laptop speaker. It also cleanly handles adding sound effects to a podcast recording — trigger a sound on your Mac, and it lands in the recording.

At $7.99 one-time, it’s the cheapest paid option on this list. The trade-off is scope: Soundshine routes system audio as a virtual mic. It doesn’t let you build complex routing graphs with multiple sources or mix several inputs into custom channel layouts. If that’s what you need, keep reading.

Verdict: The fastest path from “I want to share audio in my podcast recording” to actually doing it.

BlackHole — Free, Flexible, Fiddly

Best for: Technically comfortable podcasters who want free, flexible routing and don’t mind setup time.

BlackHole is a free, open-source virtual audio driver for macOS. It creates virtual audio devices (in 2-channel and 16-channel variants) that you can use as passthroughs between apps. Unlike Soundshine, BlackHole is just the pipe — you configure what flows through it, typically using macOS’s built-in Audio MIDI Setup to create Aggregate or Multi-Output Devices.

For podcasters, a typical BlackHole setup might be: create a Multi-Output Device that combines your real speakers and BlackHole, set it as system output, then select BlackHole as an input in your DAW. System audio flows into the recording while you still hear it through speakers.

It works. But “works” comes with an asterisk. Setup is manual and unintuitive, and it fails in subtle ways — Aggregate Devices can introduce sample rate conflicts, and macOS updates occasionally require reconfiguration. If you want to understand what’s happening under the hood, BlackHole is worth studying. If you want to record a podcast this afternoon, the setup time is a real cost.

There’s also no GUI beyond macOS’s Audio MIDI Setup itself. No level meters, no routing visualization, no toggle switch.

Verdict: Excellent for free, but budget 30–60 minutes for initial setup and occasional troubleshooting.

Loopback — The Pro-Level Routing Board

Best for: Podcasters with complex setups involving multiple sources, guests, and apps that need to talk to each other.

Loopback, by Rogue Amoeba, is the most powerful audio routing tool on this list. Its interface uses a visual “cables” metaphor: you drag connections between sources (apps, hardware inputs) and outputs (virtual devices), building a routing graph you can see and reason about. You can combine a mic, a co-host’s audio from Skype, background music from Spotify, and a sound effects app — all into a single virtual device that your recording software captures.

For podcasters with genuinely complex setups, this level of control is real. If you’re running a live show with multiple guests, an effects board, and a DAW, Loopback gives you the control to wire it all together without needing a physical mixer.

The price is $99 one-time, which is significant. Whether Loopback is worth that price comes down almost entirely to whether you need that multi-source complexity — for most remote podcasters who just want to play a music bed or a clip, it’s overkill. Rogue Amoeba offers a free trial with a voice watermark so you can try before buying.

Verdict: The right tool for complex studio-style setups. Overkill for simple remote podcast audio sharing.

Tip: If you’re evaluating Loopback primarily to share background music into a Riverside or Zencastr session, try Soundshine first. It solves that specific use case in a fraction of the time and a fraction of the price.

Farrago — Live Sound Effects for Podcasters

Best for: Podcasters who want a dedicated soundboard for triggering effects and jingles live during recording.

Farrago, also from Rogue Amoeba, is less an audio routing tool and more a soundboard app — but it earns a spot here because it solves a real podcasting problem. You load audio clips into a grid, assign keyboard shortcuts, and trigger them during recording. Intro stings, transition music, applause, sound effects — all playable with a key.

Farrago routes its output through your Mac’s audio system, which means you can combine it with a routing layer (BlackHole or Soundshine) so those triggered sounds land in your recording app. The two tools are complementary, not competing.

It’s a one-time purchase. If live triggering is a regular part of your workflow, it’s a reasonable investment. If you just want to play a prerecorded music bed from Spotify or a file, you don’t need a dedicated soundboard — any audio player plus a routing layer handles it.

Verdict: A specialty tool for live triggering. Pair it with a routing layer; don’t use it as a standalone routing solution.

Which Tool Should You Actually Use?

Here’s the honest decision tree:

You want to play music or audio clips into your podcast recording or remote call, with minimum setup: → Soundshine ($7.99 one-time)

You want free routing and you’re comfortable configuring Audio MIDI Setup: → BlackHole (free)

You have a complex setup with multiple apps, guests, and sources that need to combine: → Loopback ($99 one-time)

You want a live soundboard to trigger effects during recording: → Farrago, paired with a routing layer

Most remote podcasters are in the first category. The complexity of tools like Loopback is genuinely useful — but only if your setup actually needs it. Paying $99 to route a music bed into Riverside is like buying a professional mixing console to play a Spotify playlist.

Heads up: Don’t confuse “more features” with “better for my use case.” Audio routing tools are infrastructure — the right one gets out of the way and lets you record.

A Note on macOS Compatibility

All of the tools above work on Apple Silicon and Intel Macs. BlackHole is fully open source and tends to keep up with macOS releases quickly. Loopback and Soundshine maintain active development with macOS version support. If you’re on a recent Mac running Sequoia or later, any of these should work — but always check the developer’s compatibility notes before a major macOS upgrade.

If you also use OBS for video podcasting or streaming, routing system audio to OBS on macOS takes the same virtual audio device approach described here — all the tools above work for that use case too.

Fix Your Audio Routing Today

If you’ve been holding your phone up to your laptop speaker to share audio on a podcast call, that ends today. Download Soundshine and have system audio routing into your recording app in under a minute — for $7.99, no subscription, and no audio engineering degree required.