Recording Internet Radio and More


Internet radio is a fleeting affairjust as your radio doesn't store programs, iTunes and other streaming players don't store Internet audio on your hard drive. That means you can't add your favorite streaming radio programming to your iTunes library or listen to it on your iPod.

At least not without a little help. Several inexpensive programs can record streaming audio on your hard drive. In fact, they can record any sound your Mac can play. Thus, you can also record audio from DVDs: record some tunes from a favorite concert movieor some dialog from your favorite Cheech and Chong rompand burn an audio CD to play in the car.

You can also use one of these programs to record real-time performance effects in GarageBand. You can even record the soundtrack and explosions of a favorite video game, if that's your idea of easy listening.

Incidentally, if you have favorite AM or FM radio broadcasts that you'd like to record and add to your iTunes library (and iPod), check out Griffin Technology's RadioShark. It turns your Mac into a TiVo for radio, enabling you to schedule and record radio broadcasts.

Hijacking in Three Easy Steps

The top tool for recording the unrecordable is Rogue Amoeba Software's Audio Hijack (see opposite page for a look at other tools). Here's how to use it.

Step 1.

Hijack.

Create a preset for the program whose audio you want to record. If you like, set a timer to start or stop recording at specific times. You can also specify that Audio Hijack run an AppleScript after recording (see page 82 for an introduction to AppleScripts). Audio Hijack includes scripts that use iTunes to encode a recording into AAC or MP3 format.

Step 2.

Click the Record button and start playback.

Click Audio Hijack's Record button and then begin playing back the audio. Audio Hijack starts recording when playback begins.

Step 3.

Add to iTunes and tweak track info.

Add the recording to iTunes if necessary (if you run either of the encoding scripts after recording, this happens automatically). Then, locate the track in your iTunes library, choose Get Info from the File menu, and edit the song information.

For more information about adding audio files to iTunes "by hand," see page 80.

Link to audio-recording programs and more. www.macilife.com/itunes


Getting the Best Sound

When recording Internet audio, you'll often have to make audio-quality decisions.

The right rate. Internet audio is often heavily compressed to allow streaming over slow modem connections. To avoid degrading the sound quality even more, encode at a relatively high bit rate, such as 96 kbps for spoken-word programming, and 128 or 160 kbps for music. If you're recording talk radio, record in mono rather than stereo.

As for format decisions, as I've mentioned elsewhere, AAC provides better sound quality at a given bit rate than does MP3.

Before or after? With some programs, including Audio Hijack Pro, you can choose these settings before you record. With most of the other tools, you must use iTunes to encode after you record.

Being able to encode as you record is a timesaving convenience that uses disk space more efficiently. On the downside, you don't have the opportunity to experiment with different encoding settings. If you're recording music and want to get the best sound quality, record in uncompressed AIFF format first, then use iTunes to encode, experimenting with different bit rates and formats until you arrive at the combination that sounds best to your ears.

Which Program to Use?

Several stream recorders are available, and each fills a useful niche.

The casual recorder. You want to record the unrecordable only occasionally. You don't want or need complicated features, and heaven forbid that you should have to pay a dime.

For you, there's Ambrosia Software's free WireTap. WireTap couldn't be simpler: start the audio playing and click WireTap's Record button. The only other control WireTap provides is a button for pausing and resuming recordinggreat for cutting out talk radio commercials.

When you click WireTap's Stop button, you have an audio file that you can immediately play back in Apple's QuickTime Player or in iTunes.

For more control, consider Ambrosia's WireTap Pro. It taps into Apple's iCal software to let you schedule recordings, and save recordings in several audio formats.

Serious sound. The premiere programs for recording the unrecordable are Rogue Amoeba Software's Audio Hijack and Audio Hijack Pro; unlike the WireTap family, both can snag the sound from specific programs. And if you don't want to hear the audio as you're recording it, one click of the Mute button silences the stream even as it's being recorded.

Both Audio Hijack programs have VCR-like timers that let you start and stop recording at specific times. Both programs also allow you to make bass and treble adjustments as you record, and both provide a feature that removes some of the muddiness associated with Internet audio. Audio Hijack Pro goes much further, providing a broad selection of audio-processing effects: apply the reverberation effect, and you can make Howard Stern sound like he's in a cathedralat least from an acoustical standpoint.

For the radio lover. Bitcartel's RadioLover specializes in recording MP3 stations, such as those that iTunes can tune in. Many MP3-based stations send artist and song information along with their streams, and RadioLover can use this information to create separate song files as it records. Set up RadioLover to record for a few hours, and you'll return to find dozens of separate MP3 tracks, already named and ready to add to your iTunes library. It's the kind of feature that makes recording executives reach for antacid, but it's a fabulous way to discover new music. It's also imperfect: the beginning or end of a song is almost always cut off. (You can sometimes fix the problem by adjusting the program's recording preferences.)




The Macintosh iLife '06
The Macintosh iLife 06
ISBN: 0321426541
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2004
Pages: 229
Authors: Jim Heid

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