Recording from Internet Radio

[TromboneAl]

There are thousands of radio stations "broadcasting" on the Internet, and you can legally record music from them. It may be a bit of gray area ethically.

Today I've been evaluating an app called Audials RadioTracker. The nice thing about it is that it gets the song information from the stream (track, artist, album), so you can tell it to record from a set of say, 10 stations, and after a short time you'll have a bunch of mp3 files that are ready to import into iTunes (with the info and album art intact).

You can even tell it go to find particular tunes or artists.

It's not perfect, in that sometimes there's a DJ speaking over the start of a tune, but so far it looks good. Sound quality is perfectly acceptable.

There's a free app called Screamer Radio that can do some of this, and another called Musicy, which doesn't work at all on my system.

 

[harley]

I've used Streamripper for years, but it records stations that play over Shoutcast. It works great, and a lot of the Shoutcast stations don't talk over the songs. I've been thinking about trying RadioSure. I've heard good things about it. It costs $10, if you want the full package. Free to try. I don't think Screamer Radio allows you to save individual songs.

 

[donheff]

I use Station Ripper to grab songs for my iPod and Android. I like Radioparadise.com. They have an eclectic mix from the 50 and 60s through the present day. I hear stuff I would never run into normally. They lean a bit soft toward ballads and the like, which I prefer, not metal. I will have to give Audials a look.

A nice think about this is you can toss a thousand songs on an iPod, hook it up to your home stereo or car and listen for hours. It is definitely a gray area but seems to fit the traditional time shifting paradigm so I don't lose sleep over it. I don't even mind the DJ parts -- after all I am listening to Internet radio.

 

[harley]

I use Station Ripper to grab songs for my iPod and Android. I like Radioparadise.com. They have an eclectic mix from the 50 and 60s through the present day. I hear stuff I would never run into normally. They lean a bit soft toward ballads and the like, which I prefer, not metal. I will have to give Audials a look.

Lol! My number one station! I also listen to Creamy Radio.

A nice think about this is you can toss a thousand songs on an iPod, hook it up to your home stereo or car and listen for hours. It is definitely a gray area but seems to fit the traditional time shifting paradigm so I don't lose sleep over it. I don't even mind the DJ parts -- after all I am listening to Internet radio.

I don't think it's a gray area at all. What's the difference between taping radio on a cassette tape and doing the same thing digitally? That was always considered fair use, a concept that the RIAA likes to pretend doesn't exist. As long as you aren't uploading it to share there's no dilemma. Heck, I used to tape radio, cut out the jibber jabber, splice or re-record them onto a mix tape, and give it to the girl du jour. I'd probably get 5 years and a $100K fine for that these days.

 

[scrinch]

I've used RadioTracker for the past several years. It is a good way to build up a portfolio of music quickly and cheaply, but it does take some effort to edit the beginning and end of most of the tracks to start/stop/fade nicely. At first I turned the program loose for about a week recording songs from a few dozen of my favorite artists, and then spent many hours selecting and editing the ones I wanted to keep. After I got the first batch of music I have gone back and filled in the collection more selectively and slowly.

 

[donheff]

I've used RadioTracker for the past several years. It is a good way to build up a portfolio of music quickly and cheaply, but it does take some effort to edit the beginning and end of most of the tracks to start/stop/fade nicely.

Does Radio Tracker have editing tools? Station Ripper just saves off the tracks as MP#s but I have never been able to edit the start and stop points.

 

[RonBoyd]

Does Radio Tracker have editing tools? Station Ripper just saves off the tracks as MP#s but I have never been able to edit the start and stop points.

I use TotalRecorder to do that (as well as record streaming audio... and video) but there are other programs that do it also -- one of the AVS programs would also be a candidate.

(I have all of the AVS programs installed but don't have time to see which one is applicable to this issue.)

 

[TromboneAl]

StationRipper looks better than Audials RadioTracker -- even the free version. I think I'll go with that. Thanks, Don.

I use Audacity to trim songs and fix things up.

 

[harley]

I've used Streamripper for years, but it records stations that play over Shoutcast.

Doh! I meant Stationripper, of course.

 

[cardude]

There are thousands of radio stations "broadcasting" on the Internet, and you can legally record music from them. It may be a bit of gray area ethically.

Today I've been evaluating an app called Audials RadioTracker. The nice thing about it is that it gets the song information from the stream (track, artist, album), so you can tell it to record from a set of say, 10 stations, and after a short time you'll have a bunch of mp3 files that are ready to import into iTunes (with the info and album art intact).

You can even tell it go to find particular tunes or artists.

It's not perfect, in that sometimes there's a DJ speaking over the start of a tune, but so far it looks good. Sound quality is perfectly acceptable.

There's a free app called Screamer Radio that can do some of this, and another called Musicy, which doesn't work at all on my system.

Al, thanks for posting up about this. I just tried it and it seems very cool and easy to use. I think I'm going to buy it for $26.

 

[donheff]

Al, thanks for posting up about this. I just tried it and it seems very cool and easy to use. I think I'm going to buy it for $26.

Station Ripper is free

 

[scrinch]

Does Radio Tracker have editing tools? Station Ripper just saves off the tracks as MP#s but I have never been able to edit the start and stop points.

Yes and no. It has tools to trim/fade within the first and last 30 seconds or so of a recording. If somehow the recording included two songs or more than 30 seconds of radio talk, I haven't found a way to edit that deeply into the recording (although it is possible that there are settings I haven't found that would enable it). The editing of each track is very easy and intuitive, however.

 

[Sarah in SC]

Cool, thanks guys! I'll try that stationripper!
I use audacity to make mixes and such for our hoopdance performances and while it is a huge pain to figure out, once you do, the output is pretty good.