An easier solution to record iTunes radio is the Streamripper based radio recorder Stationripper. Stationripper comes with many additional features including support to record various Internet radio streams like those from iTunes radio but also Last.fm.

The best aspect is that it is actually very easy to start recording the streams. Here is how it is done:

Start by downloading Stationripper from the official website. The free version is just fine but comes with a few limitations like being only able to record two Internet radio streams at a time or missing, more advertisement than the commercial versions (not a huge problem if you minimize the application after starting to record the iTunes radio streams) or support for last.fm or Pandora. The free version offers on the other hand everything that is needed to record up to two iTunes radio stations at once. It does impose a limitation of 25 songs per session before the application needs to be restarted.

Start Stationripper after installation and start iTunes as well. The most comfortable way is to place the applications next to each other on the computer screen.

All that needs to be done now is to drag and drop the selected iTunes radio station into the lower part of the Stationripper interface to start recording the iTunes radio station. Free users can drag and drop two stations into the interface which will automatically be recorded from that moment on.

The directory where the iTunes radio songs get saved can be changed in the program’s options. Stationripper will automatically created a directory in the download folder for every iTunes radio station that is being dragged and dropped into the interface. The songs will be saved in the format band name – song name in the directory including an image of the record or album if available.

Here is a second solution if you do not like the 25 song limit that is imposed on users. You do need the latest version of Streamripper for this. Install Streamripper (complete) and open it and iTunes. Locate the iTunes radio station that you want to record. Drag and drop it into the left sidebar of iTunes to create a playlist.

Select that new playlist and right-click on the only entry in the song list. Select Get Info from the menu to open detailed information about that radio station.

A section entitled Where should be visible in the first tab that is showing up. Where lists the url of the iTunes radio stream. This url needs to be copied. A click on Edit Url will open the url which can then be copied with Ctrl C after selecting all of it (or by selecting the url and right-clicking it and selecting Copy from the context menu).

We need to open or activate Streamripper now. A right-click in its interface will display a context menu with the option to Load a url.

The full url of the iTunes radio station needs to be pasted into the form. A click on OK and on Start in the main menu will start the identification and connection process.

Streamripper will also create separate directories for every iTunes radio stream. It usually can identify song names and artists as well. Best of all, it will record as long as it is running. Users who want to record multiple iTunes radio stations can simply open another instance of Streamripper and repeat the process.

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ESP is a software program that combines both concepts. It makes use of the Shoutcast directory of Internet Radios that the user can listen to online. It provides the means to record the active stream right away. Other applications that handle this well are Streamripper, Musicy and several music players like AIMP2 or XMPlay.

ESP would not be special in this regard if it would not offer a more or less unique feature in addition to being able to record Internet Radio. The software can automatically search for music that has been publicly made available by the artist or the record company. The developers say that ESP looks only for music that has been uploaded by the artist to social networking websites. The software itself will not display the source of the music download which could be reason enough for cautious users to not use the feature. Tests revealed that it pulled songs from websites like MySpace.

ESP is available for most Windows operating systems including Windows 98, Windows XP and Windows Vista.

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Stripper is a Java frontend for Streamripper that offers and easy to use interface with the option to add and record multiple Internet Radio stations simultaneously. Both applications are available for a variety of operating systems including Windows and Linux.

I would begin by installing Streamripper on the system. Stripper itself is a JAR file that can be executed without installation if the Java Runtime Environment is installed on the system. It asks for a few preferences at start, most notably the path to streamripper.exe and the path where the music should be saved in.

It’s only a matter of finding a few Internet Radio stations where the moderators are not forced to talk into every song to prevent the clean recording. A good start is the Shoutcast directory which lists thousands of Internet Radio stations sorted by popularity and music genre.

The urls of the streams ending with .pls usually have to be copied and added as a new Stream in Stripper. A click on the record button starts the recording of that Internet Radio station.

I tested it with six simultaneous stations and it worked nicely. The limit seems to be the capacity of the user’s Internet connection more than anything else.

The frontend provides stream specific settings. Users can change settings like the User Agent, proxy servers, the maximum file sizes and length of recordings and even schedule recordings to record their favorite radio show. Tags and other information are saved by default if the stream is sending those information.

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Once you got that install the software. You might notice the Winamp Plugin which is probably the better way of saving Internet Radio tracks because you can use it from within Winamp that way. Since I’m not using Winamp I favor the command line option. Another option would be to install Winamp and use it just for the purpose of downloading Internet Radio tracks.

Streamripper can save track information, like artist and album, if the Radio Station is sending those information. This is great because you will end up with correctly named and tagged tracks. If no information are send you will end up with one huge mp3 file in the end.

I assume you have installed Streamripper and are ready to go. The first thing that we need to do is locate a Internet Radio stream. You can use shoutcast for this for instance which is a directory that contains hundreds, if not thousands, of Internet Radio stations that can be listened to directly with the click of the mouse.

What you need to do to find out the stream url is the following. Right-click the tune in button on the Shoutcast website and select Save Link As from the menu. This will download a .pls file that contains the information that we need. Open the Playlist file in a text editor and locate the line beginning with File1=. The stream url is located in that line.

Now open the Windows command line (Windows R, cmd, enter) and navigate to the directory where Streamripper was installed to. It is located by default in the streamripper folder in program files.

cd c:\program files\streamripper

The command to start saving songs from Internet Radio stations is a basic one, it is.

streamripper url

Enter the stream url that you found earlier and Streamripper will automatically begin to download songs to your hard drive. One useful parameter is the -d parameter which defines the directory where the music is saved into.

streamripper url -d e:\music\new\

This would save all songs in e:\music\new\. The major benefit of running Streamripper in command line mode is that you do not need to listen to the music while ripping. It’s a bit more complicated than using Winamp or XMPlay but it’s probably worth a shot if you have none of these players installed.

If you want to save two streams at the same time you simply open another command line window and use the command with the second url again.

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This article will give you a tutorial on how to start streamripping and legally download all the latest mp3 files to your computer. I can´t speak for all countries though so you better check out if recording music from radio is legal in your country.

All you need is a version of the streamripper program available at sourceforge.net. Select the version best suited for you, there are versions for pc, mac and unix as well as a winamp 5 plugin. The easiest way is probably simply to download the plugin for use in winamp 5. If you don´t have winamp head over to winamp.com
and download it now.

There is a good installation tutorial on the project site, if you have probs installing go there, this should do the trick and get you started.

After installing the plugin you are prompted to start winamp with the streamripper plugin, select yes and you see the standard winamp screens and the additional streamripper window. A streamripper icon should appear in the taskbar next to your clock. Right-click it and select options, we should configure the program before we start using it.

The most important option is File / Output. You select a directory where the mp3 files should be saved. All others are optional, you can define under which name the song should be saved as, the default is Stream Artist – Title, you probably want to change that.

After saving the options we are ready to select a stream and start the ripping process. I suggest the following two websites for an excellent variety of streams that you can rip. The first is shoutcast.com which has more than 30 genres and thousands of radio stations. There should be stations for every taste.

The second one is the stream directory of xiph.org which also has a excellent selection and genres to select.

I suggest your streams should have at least 128 Kbit if you are on broadband, if you can spare it select stations with higher kbit but remember that the saved mp3 files will be larger this way and consume more bandwidth when transferring.

My first selection is the number 1 stream on shoutcast, CLUB 977 The Hitz Channel (HIGH BANDWIDTH) station. Its important that winamp shows artist and title in its windows. This ensures that the stream sends this information and the files will be named correctly. If no information is send the files will get default names and you will have no clue about artist and title later.

When the stream starts in winamp streamripper will automatically show a dialog “press start to rip “ip”". Just press start and streamripper starts its service and saves the files to the location you specified. You can leave it on until you run out of hd space or have to shutdown the pc. If you want to stop simply select stop and the ripping process stops immediatly.

Thats all there is to know, enjoy this fine tool and watch your music collection grow legally.

Technorati Tags: streamripping, ripping, mp3, radio, legal, download, stream

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