9 April 2021 • INGO VOGELMANN

Ginger Audio has introduced Ground Control, a virtual audio device for macOS. Ground Control makes it easy to send multi-channel audio streams from one application to another with zero latency, picking up where Soundflower left off. And it’s free!

Ginger Audio Ground Control

Routing audio streams between applications on your computer should be a simple task, but in reality, it’s often trickier than it sounds. And there are many situations that require you to send the audio output of one application to another, like streaming, recording on-screen video, recording stuff from the web, using multiple DAWs and more.

On the Mac, Soundflower was a widely used solution until it fell into disrepair. With Ground Control, Ginger Audio has just released a free alternative that’s designed to easily pass audio from one app to another. According to the developer, Ground Control has zero latency and provides up to 64 channels at sample rates up to 192 kHz. It also works on the latest Macs, including the M1 processor and macOS Big Sur.

Ground Control adds three virtual audio devices to your macOS Audio/MIDI Setup. There’s a basic 2-channel device for stereo streams, and two multi-channel variants with 16 and 64 channels. To route audio between applications, all you need to do is select Ground Control as the audio output device in the source application and as an audio input device in the target app.

Ground Control adds three virtual audio devices to your system

But there’s more: Ground Control also lets you monitor the virtual audio stream so you can hear what’s going on. The included Ground Control Cube app provides a large volume knob alongside mute, dim and mono buttons, just like you’d find on any good monitor controller. There’s also a VU meter that helps to catch any clipping that might occur. This is a nice touch that sets Ground Control apart from other solutions like Blackhole and VB-Cable.

Compatibility

Ginger Audio Ground Control is currently only available for macOS, but a Windows version is in the works. It requires macOS 10.13–10.15.7 or macOS 11 Big Sur and supports Intel and M1 processors.