Just before the work term ended, Marie helped me put together an updated screencast video that demonstrates how to set up Soundflower for use with TapeDeck. She did a great job with it, but unfortunately she finished her work term before we had a chance to record a proper voiceover track.

Now, her full-time replacement, Nathan, has stepped up to fulfill that task.

Here’s the latest video to come out of the SuperMegaUltraGroovy studios:

Nathan’s also a fantastic drummer, so you should expect to see some drum-related Capo videos in the near future.

First off, the professional hardware users that have multiple audio channels can now select which source channels to use when recording with TapeDeck. This is very important when working with devices such as the Digidesign Eleven Rack, where you have to select channels 3-4 to get the processed guitar signal.

Second, there’s a large group of users that wish to record line-level sources such as cassette players and turntables. Unfortunately, after plugging these devices into your Mac, you can’t hear their output at the same time that you’re recording it—the Mac simply lacks this “software play-through” feature out of the box. So, what I’ve done is added a checkbox in the Sound Preferences that allows you to monitor the recording device as you’re capturing audio.

This will undoubtedly please a great deal of my users, and I’m glad to finally offer these often-requested features. Head over to the Mac App Store to purchase a copy now…

Based on my experience with supporting TapeDeck’s customers, I learned that it is very common for folks to purchase the application sight-unseen, and then they have trouble registering the app, or simply forget to.

What’s worse is when I get a gut-wrenching email from a paying customer that tried to record a meeting, only to realize that TapeDeck cut out after 5 minutes because it is in trial mode.

When I encountered situations like the above, it made me wonder whether TapeDeck was better suited to a pay-to-download model. Or, if it should exist as boxed software (which I get asked about quite a bit.)

Handling licensing and registration is a difficult problem, and I think I’ve handled it well in Capo and FuzzMeasure. However, both of those applications serve very different markets (which include products requiring hardware dongles, networked license servers, etc.)

TapeDeck’s customers have made it clear to me that licensing and demo limitations are the largest blemish on TapeDeck’s reputation. I am so glad to finally offer an improved solution for customers from now on.

I am also looking forward to a better track record for product updates in the field. Many customers requesting support appear to still be using older copies of the software, having chosen to disable the automatic Sparkle updates. I can only assume that the Mac App Store will make this a better experience by offering system-wide update checking.

Free updates to the 1.x product will continue for paid customers of TapeDeck. It means a bit of extra maintenance on my part, but I will do my best to keep my existing customers happy.

If you haven’t already, head over to the Mac App Store and check out TapeDeck. Maybe buy a copy for a friend as a gift, if you already have one for yourself… :)

Now you pro audio folks can record audio in the highest quality, and drag your tapes straight from TapeDeck into GarageBand with no loss in fidelity. And, if you’re really nutty about your audio quality (and have the hardware to back it up), you can unlock TapeDeck’s recording quality in the preferences so you can record beyond 44.1kHz!

Check out http://tapedeckapp.com to grab the latest release, and see the updated site design (inside the drawer). I also put some nice little touches into the UI for this release, because it needed some love. :)

If this really interests you, or you just want to try the newest TapeDeck betas before anyone else, please apply for membership at http://groups.google.com/group/tapedeck-beta.

Oh, and if you’re interested in UI design, we’ve added some little UI tweaks that we’d love to get feedback on. You’re welcome to apply as well, so you can get a sneak peak (and gripe about pixels).