AudioRoute is a system-audio capture tool that lets you record whatever your computer is playing - Spotify, YouTube, Zoom, browser tabs, video calls, games, anything - straight into a track in your DAW. No BlackHole, no VoiceMeeter, no aggregate device wiring, no driver hijacking.

Runs as a small background daemon plus a VST3/AU plug-in you drop on a track in Cubase / Logic / Ableton / REAPER / FL Studio / Pro Tools etc. Exposes virtual audio device on Mac.

Two plug-in flavours:
- AudioRoute Capture FX: the Audio Effect variant. Lives in your Audio FX menu and drops onto any audio track. Recommended for most workflows.
- AudioRoute Capture: the Instrument variant on a MIDI / Software Instrument track, for setups that prefer that side of the routing.

Same daemon underneath both; pick whichever matches your DAW habit.

Bit-perfect Windows capture via WASAPI Process Loopback. Verified bit-identical with null tests (max |c - s| = 0) across 48 kHz and 96 kHz device rates: https://audio-route.com/guides/bit-perfect-capture-windows

On Mac, capture goes through Core Audio process taps and is bit-perfect when source rate matches device rate; full writeup on the site covering the Mac cross-rate caveat honestly: https://audio-route.com/guides/bit-perfect-capture


Dedicated DAW guides for Logic, Cubase, REAPER, Ableton Live, plus a "Does AudioRoute need an ASIO driver on Windows?" guide for anyone wondering about ASIO / WASAPI interaction: https://audio-route.com/guides/

14-day trial, no credit card. 29 EUR lifetime license. Mac and Windows.
https://audio-route.com

Genuinely curious for feedback, bug reports, use cases I haven't thought of, or "wait, does it handle X" questions. Happy to engage with whatever you throw at it.

 

Uneeded.
I use Audacity to do the same exact thing and Audacity is freeware. Except for the whole "straight into your DAW" thing. Record to a 32 or 64 bit wave, trim edit, and save to whatever flavor is needed. Then import the saved file to DAW. Since I don't allow internet on any production boxes anyway this is still rather useless to me.. It's just as easy to transport the file via LAN and import the file to the DAW on the prod box..

 

Last edited: Jun 19, 2026 at 12:09 AM

You can do the same with System Audio Bridge by Bird's, and it's free.

 

Fair points if Audacity covers your workflow, it does the basics. 100+ paying customers have decided AR is worth it anyway, so a few things worth flagging beyond "straight into the DAW":

- Global hotkey to start/stop recording from anywhere, no alt-tabbing to a recorder window.
- Background daemon, always ready: hit hotkey, capture starts in under 50 ms. No "launch Audacity, set input, hit record" each time.
- Bit-perfect on Windows via WASAPI Process Loopback, verified with null tests (max |c - s| = 0 at 48 kHz and 96 kHz native rates). Audacity's input path usually resamples through Stereo Mix or WaveIn. Honest Mac caveat documented on the site.
- Floating overlay for one-click record without touching the tray.
- VST3/AU plug-in path that drops captured audio straight into a DAW track. No file round-trip, no LAN transfer to the prod box.
- Per-DAW guides for Cubase, Logic, Ableton, REAPER, Acoustica.
- No virtual driver, no Stereo Mix, no aggregate device setup required.
- AR runs fully offline once activated, so the no-internet-on-prod-boxes constraint is fine.
- Many more features to come

Re System Audio Bridge: haven't tried it, can't speak to it. If it solves your specific problem at zero cost, that's a perfectly reasonable answer. Different tools fit different setups. The 14-day AR trial is there so you don't pay before deciding if any of this matters to yours.

 

I did some comparison against System Audio Bridge, since it's in a similar field. See my conclusions below.

Technical foundation:
- SAB uses WASAPI Loopback: captures the final mix going to an audio endpoint device. Every app sending to that device gets captured, including the DAW itself, which is why SAB tells you to manually avoid feedback.
- AR uses WASAPI Process Loopback (Windows 10 version 1903 and later, the newer API): lets us exclude a specific process from the capture. AR drops the host DAW's PID from the loopback path so Feedback Protection works automatically. No routing gymnastics required.
Same broad mechanism, but Process Loopback is the surgical version of basic Loopback. SAB chose the older device-level API and pushes feedback management onto the user.

Beyond the capture engine, AR adds:
- Mac + Windows. SAB is Windows only. On Mac, AR uses Core Audio process taps, the conceptual equivalent of Process Loopback.
- Mac virtual audio device. AR installs "AudioRoute Input" as a system-wide virtual input. Any Mac app that can pick an audio input device (Audacity, OBS, GarageBand, Zoom, Discord, Acoustica, etc.) can use it as a recording source. Works outside the DAW path entirely.
- Standalone tray app with global hotkey: capture starts in under 100 ms from anywhere, no DAW required.
- Floating overlay for one-click record.
- Two plug-in flavours (Audio Effect on an audio track, or Instrument on a MIDI / Software Instrument track), VST3 + AU.
- Bit-perfect Windows capture verified by null tests (max |c - s| = 0 at 48 kHz and 96 kHz native rates).
- Per-DAW guides for Cubase, Logic, Ableton, REAPER, Acoustica.
- automatic updates, ongoing development.

SAB has the simpler scope and is free. If "system audio into one DAW track on Windows" is your whole job and you're fine handling feedback yourself, it's a reasonable pick. If you want Mac support, automatic feedback protection, the standalone workflow, or documented per-DAW setups, AR fills different gaps.

 

I use the abandonware Asio Link Pro and it can record on flac file system audio, or asio, or both. It doesn't transfer that in daw though, but it's something that I don't use at the moment.

 

ALP works for capture-to-file. Some things AR adds you might find useful alongside it:
- Real-time DAW track delivery: the "no DAW transfer" gap you mentioned. VST3/AU plug-in drops the captured audio straight into a DAW track.
- Cross-platform: AR runs on Mac as well as Windows, using Core Audio process taps on macOS. ALP is Windows only.
- Feedback protection
- Easy recording with a keyboard shortcut and on-screen overlay
- Maintained and supported: ALP is abandonware since ~2014. AR has active development, regular updates, and customer support.

 

Made a quick walkthrough video showing how to record system audio on Mac with AudioRoute - using the menu bar app and a keyboard shortcut:

Feedback welcome.

 

Not really certain about the feedback loop creation described here If you're simply recording the stream you're listening to thru the conventional method, this action should produce zero feedback no matter what tool is used... There really is no reason to get more esoteric about it - like attempting to rig up some weird monitor setup that could possibly cause feedback to happen. The process is pretty simple and doesn't need to be made more complicated.