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Someone further up posted a link to Total Recorder, which is payware (from US$17.50). I don't know if there are any OSS versions out there, but it would seem to be fairly simple to write one which simply converts to WAV.

From what is said in the French press and on French news websites, Deezer's music catalog is far from being 100% legal. They have a few agreements, but for most of the songs they have at best *contacted* the corresponding recording company.

They have a temporary agreement with the SACEM, till December 2007, with the SACEM having the ability to make it stop even sooner if they want. What makes me think this thing won't last, is the fact their agreement is based on the promise that their service is the first one where the user can listen to the music without the data being downloaded on the user's system, and without the user having the ability to record it.

In other words they guarantee that there's no way for user to record a song and listen to it without using their service. Hello there, Total Recorder and similar applications.

Look at http://www.highcriteria.com/ Total recorder when I was more windows centric I used it and I was happy.

I've ripped music from MySpace pages, but I did it using a recording program like Total Recorder. Basically it creates a virtual audio driver, records using that, then sends the audio to your regular driver. The only downside is that it does so in real-time, so you'd have to wait for the song to play.

Unfortunately MySpace music is only 96kpbs MP3s (AFAIK), so it's gonna be low quality, but lots of artists have MySpace exclusives or live songs only available there, which leaves it as the only choice.

Have you noticed how few motherboards actually have a line-in port these days?

No. Everything I've got that has onboard sound, everything I've seen recently (including cheap business PCs) and so on has both line-in and mic ports.

Mic inputs are mono[...]

Not mine. I ended up getting a mic from radio hut because I needed to record some quickie voice stuff for the in-house advertising loop. I further ended up with a 1/4" mono to 1/8" stereo miniplug adapter... for a reason.

[...]and have preamplification and bandpass filtering which make them unsuitable for anything but recording speech

On some sound devices, even some onboard ones, both can be disabled. Many cheapies don't do the filtering at all.

It's all a moot point because you can use Total Recorder (or similar) to capture the stream before it even goes to the sound card.

I dunno if you ppl. have heard this piece of utility called 'Total Recorder' [ http://www.highcriteria.com/ ].

It is used to rip off music that comes out of our soundcard directly to MP3. It is very powerful and easy to use.

Ofcourse there wont be any loss of quality as our mpq extension will be play the tarcks without loss of quality.

--

Any System like Every Other System has its own Weakness

Total Recorder is another option.

Seriously though, once they force everybody to use DRM, you're not going to find streams that easy to crack. DVDs would still be unrippable if the design of CSS hadn't been botched. That's not a mistake the industry is likely to repeat.

I grew up in Minnesota where the land is flat and it would take me three and half hours to drive between my parent's house and the University of Minnesota. My car was a complete junker and therefore wasn't worth the two hundred or so dollars it would take to equip it with a CD player. So instead, I listened to the many programs that NPR and MPR had to offer.

Two of my absolute favorites were This American Life and Car Talk. Oftentimes, I would find myself in a parking lot listening to Ira Glass as the episode he was doing had me hooked and I couldn't even get out of my car to buy groceries.

My senior year of college found me looking up TAL episodes online and using Total Recorder to compress the Real Audio feeds directly to MP3. Was I stealing from TAL? I didn't really feel like it, I was a poor college student and I had heard the program on the radio--I just wanted it on my computer to listen to it time after time.

I'll never forget the time I heard the two part series of Come Back to Afghanistan and it's sequel. What really happened and is happening in Afghanistan never hit home until I heard it through the voice of a young teenager named Hyder Akbar.

I have made a few contributions to NPR since I've graduated but I can see where they'd be strapped financially. I think NPR could take advantage of the modern media formats that all of us seek. I have purchased Car Talk CDs and I'd purchase TAL CDs too. Even more importantly, I'd be more than willing to pay a dollar through iTunes or Napster or whatever service you choose to have a random episode of TAL or Car Talk on my MP3 player. They seem to have the audio book version of Poultry Slam but not every episode, correct me if I'm wrong but I don't have any kind of service to check on hand.

FM PCI card + Total Recorder + Shoutcast.

Or you could just try one of those Radio Sharks, which actually seems like what you want.

And you can easily convert it to an mp3 with Total Recorder.

I tried buying a subscription to This American Life through audible.com, but the quality was like bad AM radio (when it was advertised as FM quality) and it was DRM'd so I had to use Total Recorder anyway to get it to work on my mp3 player. I found that the free RealPlayer stream was actually significantly better quality than the audible.com version! So I donate my money directly to TAL, rip from their RealPlayer streams, and cut out the middle man.

I record NPR and PRI shows via RealAudio streams to .m4b (bookmarkable AAC) using Audio Hijack Pro on a Mac mini. I used to use Total Recorder Pro on Windows. TRP worked, but AHP has better auto-naming facilities so I can be lazy about deleting old stuff & still find the new. It also is able to "hijack" just RealPlayer's PCM output so I can use the computer for other audio stuff. TRP pretends to be a soundcard driver, so any other audio is recorded too.

Finding a stream with a high enough bitrate to sound good that stays up during a popular show like Car Talk is tricky, but doable.

I'll be switching to an FM tuner with an outdoor Winegard PR-6000 aimed at KQED and an Edirol UA-1A (out of production so I've linked the similar UA-1EX).

Outdoor antennas are cheap. A good chimney mount is going to double my cost, but the total is still cheaper than an indoor Terk & it'll actually work. If the PR-6000 or PR-5030 can't pull in that distant station Antenna Performance Specialties makes what many claim are the best around. $219 for the APS-13 might seem like a lot, but compared to an Audible.com or Sirius subscription, it's not too bad & a good strong FM signal sounds pretty good below 15kHz. I'm tempted to get one of these just for pure outrageousness of a 200" boom, but it's overkill for KQED from Santa Cruz-- need a rotor to really justify it.

I'll be using a cool 70's brushed-aluminum-faceplate Kenwood KT-5300 with analog "big knob" tuning that I got for $30 before I found the crazy FM DXers page that reviews every old radio & has info or links on tweaking them for better selectivity.

If I end up wanting to record another station, rather than getting a Radio Shark and hacking on an external antenna connector, I plan to just get more tuners & switch them with a repurposed Keyspan USB->serial adapter and some relays.

Such a device already exists: TotalRecorder

For Windows Total Recorder http://www.highcriteria.com/ will copy any audio stream - protected or not - on a schedule, or real time.

I'm just waiting for an automated program that'll do this

It's called Total Recorder and if you can play it on your computer, you can record it with no loss. It installs itself as a fake soundcard driver and captures all the sound data. And it has a mode that can trick most programs into playing back much faster than real time since programs sync audio to the sound driver.

I use it to capture some NPR programs RealPlayer streams and convert them to mp3 since the audio quality on Audible.com is so bad and the copy protection won't let me play them on my portable mp3 player. I just donate the money I would have given to Audible directly to the NPR programs.

-paul

You can also do it with something like Total Recorder. It even supports ogg.

I don't know if I could justify $69+s/h for a hardware device with no way to boost signal reception. If you already have a radio that has stereo out, you can cross connect it to your PC and use this software: Total Recorder. This enables you to schedule and encode the broadcast directly to any number of formats (mp3, aiff, wav, etc). It's only $12. This is from a Windows perspective, but I'm sure there is some Mac software out there that can do this.....but then again, if you listen to certain regularly syndicated radio show, you can snag eps of it from suprnova.org, I do this for Howard Stern.

The app I use that pretends to be a soundcard, but records the audio to a file (compressing through lameenc.dll if you want) is TotalRecorder for twelve bucks. Comes with a scheduler. I might use it to record HHGG and All Things Considered, but I'd have to leave my power hungry PC on 24/7. I think instead I'll get Audio Hijack Pro & use my new iBook. I'm also ripping vinyl these days and Audio Hijack Pro (or Total Recorder Pro if I wanted to pay the $25 to upgrade) will split tracks on silent bits.

If you want to pay someone else to do this for you, Audible has some NPR programs available.

For windows you can try Total Recorder . It's not free but only costs $12.00 and basically records anything targeted at your sound system. Available from http://www.highcriteria.com/, and all I can say is that it just works.

Normally I don't go for non-free software, but I paid real money to register Total Recorder -- Windows I'm afraid -- so that I could record the BBC's John Peel RA streams to MP3. It's nice, and if the server plays ball (as the BBC ones do), you can stream non-live content as fast as your network can deliver it.

Time-shifting the broadcasts using Total Recorder.

Here is a clickable link for Total Recorder, a Windows app.

If you use a Mac you can try Audio Hijack.

They're just upset because they're planning on introducing a similar feature in a couple months. I don't see how this is much different than something like Total Recorder. Just recording for yourself (time shifting) is perfectly legal fair use.

Done already - for example Total Recorder, which as a user I've been very pleased with. However, that doesn't help you when the player refuses to play to an unsigned driver.

And, eventually, the various companies are looking to make the decryption be done in the sound card, or ideally the speaker, so that you can't get it in the clear until the last possible second.

You seem to understand some things about the process. Maybe you can tell us how the damn committee hearings are scheduled? I've been checking Capitol Hearings every few days now since June 22 when the bill was read (twice in one day? doesn't that remove the check that multiple readings are supposed to ensure?).

Capitol Hearings is the only place I've found with free audio of committee hearings but you have to grab it live. (I use Total Recorder)

FedNet archives audio of hearings, but only makes a selected few available for free and then only for a few days. FedNet's audio quality is also inferior to CapitolHearings'.

I used the audio from the "Fritz Chip" hearing for a song. I'm always looking for more material, though it's hard to beat a Hollings, Eisner & Valenti cage match.

They collected prepared testimony and flew in the witnesses, so they planned for this. Why couldn't they pre-announce it by more than two days???

-Morgan

I don't know. I mean, a penny-a-song is pretty cheap. But, something about me wants to pay once and be able to play a song as much as I want.

This works fine for me, eval version available (no, I'm not affiliated, etc.).

TotalRecorder

Second, my list. Almost all of my favorite programs are already mentioned in the +5 posts, so I won't list them all (there are a lot). Here's what's left of my top 25 or so programs I definitely install on a fresh Windows reinstall, in no particular order. Everything is free, unless otherwise noted. I don't think any of these are open-sourced, though.

• ObjectDock - OS X's sexy toolbar that expands when you mouseover is now available for windows, too. Tons of useful plugins available, such as a weather tracker and system monitor.
  
• Yz's dock - no link for this one because Apple killed it with a C&D letter. Same basic concept as ObjectDock; marginally better IMHO. If you really want it, google for yz_dck0083.zip.
  
• StyleXP - I can't believe no one's mentioned this one yet. Windows skinning, anyone?
  
• Crimson Editor - yet another lightweight (i.e., fast) file editor with extended functionality such as automatically coloring source code files.
  
• MetaPad - extremely lightweight file editor, a replacement for notepad.exe.
  
• Sothink SWF Decompiler - good for when I want to grab an image or sound out of a flash file.
  
• Google Toolbar - yes, it's created by Google, the next Big Brother, but I like the pop-up blocker, and the privacy issues are moot if you take the time to uncheck one box.
  
• Middle Man - for people like me who still use AOL's bread-and-butter AIM client, this is a great unofficial plug-in. Removes ads and adds a ton of new functionality.
  
• Peer Guardian - another biggie that I'm surprised hasn't been mentioned before. Blocks the RIAA and its ilk from connecting to your machine.
• Total Recorder - (shareware/demo) captures all audio output and logs it to a wav or mp3 file. Good for stream ripping.
  
• NetLimiter - (shareware/demo) limit your maximum upload/download speeds, optionally on a program by program basis. Some firewalls already have this functionality, though... but not all.
  

Listen.com + Total Recorder. Now all we need is something to rip the info for ID3s.

Get Total Recorder. Listen, grab, rip. You're as good as gold.

I'm all in favor of people working hard, writing good software, and giving it to me for nothing. But if I can't find what I want for free, I don't whine about paying a reasonable fee. I've paid the munificent sum of $12 for Total Recorder, and I haven't regretted it yet.

Record the sound through Total Recorder:

High Criteria

This doesn't address the problem of ripping from your computer, but you can if you get a line (either directly from the CD drive or through the MIC or INPUT line from a CD player) to your computer, the Total Recorder program can record the sound in MP3 or Ogg Vorbis.

http://www.highcriteria.com/

I... um... Some guy I know uses it to record directly to MP3 files from Rhapsody. The sound quality is almost indistinguishable from the original when recording at 320kbps, but still noticably a bit lower than a CD rip.

Another nice tool (Windows only, sorry) is Total Recorder from High Criteria. It installs an audio driver shim and can record audio from any source. Essentially, if you can hear it on your PC's speakers, you can record it. I use it for time-shifting and for converting RealAudio and other streams into MP3 for my portable player.

You can also use Ambrosia's Wiretap

That only sounds like the Mac OS X equivalent of TotalRecorder. You could compress what it captures with FLAC, but that'll be much larger than the source file. Getting it back into AAC will entail some generational loss. QTFairUse lets you extract the original AAC data; with some additional tools (faad and mp4creator), you can recreate an .m4a file that plays in iTunes the same way as the original .m4p--no data loss, no increase in size.

At least one already has. For Windoze anyway....

Well, that page is talking about TotalRecorder. It's available here: http://www.highcriteria.com/

It's only $12, so it's not like he's charging a lot for it. It does have some nifty features. First, yeah, it sticks a driver in so that it can capture sound data directly. But it's got some other coolness to it, actually.

-The 30 second auto-buffer lets you hit record after the song has started and still get the song.
-Choose your own format, of course. But it can send the data to an encoder too (Ogg, LAME, whatever) before saving it off to disc.
-Detection of the beginning and ends of sound being played so as to trim the silences and save into separate files automagically if you so choose (works surprisingly well).
-Suppress system beeps and such while it's recording, so you don't get those in the resulting file.
-Timer based recording so that you can have it record a daily radio show or something similar.

And some other nifty stuff. It's rather well thought out, actually. It's worth the $12 if you want to convert virtually any DRMed format to something a little less protected. But it's worth the $12 not because it simply saves the stuff to disc like some free drivers might be capable of doing, but because it's a good program overall with some good effort put into it.

Oh, it works with iTunes too. Just change QuickTime's playback settings to "Playback through TotalRecorder" and it works just fine.

It is a bit more work than downloading, but ...

If you're listening live, you can choose RealPlayer or Media Player. I think audio on demand is limited to RealPlayer.

With Total Recorder, you can capture the stream (and any other digital or analog audio stream in your computer) and save the resulting file(s) in any format you want. It has powerful automatic file naming, editing and scheduling tools, so since BBC7 repeats its output twice or more in a 24-hour cycle, I capture one stream to disk automatically divided into 15-minute chunks at 48kbps/22500kHz stereo, then schedule on-demand audio for other BBC programmes I want. The software gets the URL, starts RealAudio, does the capturing and shuts everything down nicely afterwards. It's an outstanding product.

It's called Total Recorder and it works very well...

Total Recorder for Windows and Wire Tapfor OS X.

Both intercept and record an audio stream from inside the computer (to put it simply enough for all to 'get' the idea) and save it to the HD or RAM disk AS AN MP3 file.

Import that MP3 file into your "music" folder/library/portible digital player of choice and away you go, unencumbered by DRM.

I beleive that either of these applications mayl also work with WMA files, regadless of how DMR bound they may be.

Both intercept and record an audio stream from inside the computer (to put it simply enough for all to 'get' the idea) and save it to the HD or RAM disk AS AN MP3 file.

Just think of the money you'll save by not having to buy blank CDs if you use one of these products.

One of coolest programs I have seen in a while is Total Recorder from High Criteria. This software basically installs it's own virtual sound card that allows you to capture anything that comes through it. You can literally capture anything that can be listened to on your computer. With technology like this, I really don't care what they do to CDs as long as I can listen to it on my PC.

Perhaps they want to stop things like this program that installs a VxD audio recorder. It installs itself as a sound card makes all the DRM you have useless.

Load encrypted file, Verify Rights, Decrypt Audio Stream, send result to sound card which saves it straight to Wav, MP3 or Ogg. Thank you very much.

Actually this is why I bought it. I consider it a very nice audio conversion program that works with all formats. Better then SoX!

Try this one: Total Recorder (win only, sorry) - it should most likely do the trick...

Total Recorder is a Windows app that will save anything that passes through a sound card.

Wrong. I use Total Recorder to "creatively cache" the songs to my iPod. Combine that with an app like Tag&Rename that can figure out what CD a group of MP3 files is and then rename/set tags based on freedb entries, and you're all set.

$9.95/mo well spent.

And, in the few months since I've subscribed to Rhapsody, I've *bought* many more new CDs of new artists I've found by clicking and sampling.

There are tools to convert audible recordings to mp3 format so you can burn them to an mp3 cd.

And you don't end up burning 12 regular cd's like if you use audible's CD-burning process.

i'm assuming that you are referring to this total recorder...

and if you actually read the review above, he mentions "an app that hijacks the audio stream", which sounds like audio hijack, an OS X app that basically does the same thing.

anyway, a quick visit to total recorder's website would have shown that total recorder is windows-only...

Total Recorder for Windows is excellent and inexpensive software to do this. I have an old Sony FM tuner/amp connected to the line-in on my Sound Blaster Live. Total Recorder does scheduled recordings straight to MP3 from the line in. It does this with the line-in muted so I can listen to MP3's, play games, whatever while it's recording radio from the line-in. I wrote a small app to rename the MP3 files from my own radio show listings file. I record at 64K so one hour of radio is about 28 meg. I use MP3Splitter to split the one hour MP3 file into 30 pieces of two minutes each. I edit out commercials and/or NPR newsbreaks and then copy to my MP3 player or burn on to audio CD. The splitting is a big convenience since most MP3/CD players were made to play 3 minute pop songs, not hour long radio shows.

Total Recorder is available from http://HighCriteria.com is $12 for the basic version and $35 for the advanced version. I use the basic version. The advanced version now has better automatic file naming, stream recording, etc.

MP3Splitter is from http://www.codevisions.de. It's lacking in command line options, but I use the defaults and the shell extension "Quick Splitter" from the right click in Win Explorer to minimize input. Their download seems to be down right now. Try left menu "Downloads" then choose mirrors. Here is a working download link:
http://hj.dusnet.de/codevisions/mp3splitter.zip