# The Basics of Using Audio Hijack

Audio Hijack is extremely powerful, but it's also very easy to pick up. In no time at all, you'll be recording audio right on your Mac. Everything in Audio Hijack begins with a Session, which is a reusable collection of settings used to capture audio. Within a Session, you'll take blocks from the Block Library and chain them together in the Audio Grid. Once your Session is configured, you'll run it to record or sweeten audio.

### Recording Audio

Audio Hijack is most frequently used to record audio from another application running on your Mac, so we're going to demonstrate how to do just that. Follow along with this quick example, as we set up Audio Hijack to record web-based audio from the Safari web browser.

### Creating a Session

First, we'll click "New Session" in the Home window. This brings up the Template Chooser.

Selecting the Web Audio template

The templates provided make it a snap to get started with common audio capture tasks. We'll select the "Web Audio" template by double-clicking it, and Audio Hijack will create a new session for us.

### Configuring the Audio Grid

An Audio Hijack Session

The "Web Audio" template will create a session like the one seen above, with three blocks in the Audio Grid. On the left, the Safari web browser has been selected as the source. Audio will flow from Safari into a Recorder block, where it will be saved, then on to the computer's speakers, so the audio can be heard while it's playing. This default setup can easily be adjusted and extended however you like, by adding in new blocks from the Library.

Learn more about the Audio Grid on the Mastering Sessions.

### Activating the Session

An Audio Hijack Session, running

Once the session is configured as desired, we hit the Record button in the lower left. This starts audio flowing through Audio Hijack, and thanks to the blocks we've configured in our Audio Grid, causes it to be recorded. When we're done, we click the Record button off to stop audio flow. Now we can check our recording.

### Find the Recording

Audio Hijack's Recording tab

After we're finished, we can check our recording. Clicking the "Recordings" button in the lower right will open the Home window to the Recordings tab, where recordings are listed. From here, we can give the recording a listen, reveal the actual file in the Finder as well, or pass it to an audio editor, iTunes, or other application. Great!