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With Radio Gaga, you can do a lot more than just listen to music. You probably want to record Internet radio, right? Radio Gaga lets you do that in three ways:
However you roll, click the Tracks selection in the left column to see what you recorded. We'll talk more about what you can do with recordings in the section below, "Organizing your audio library".
Easy. Just click a station to select it, then click the red Record button at the bottom-left of Radio Gaga's window. You can also choose Record from the Controls menu or control-click on a station in list view and choose Record from the contextual menu...
Getting a little more fancy, you can make Radio Gaga record stations starting at any time in the future, and for as long as you like. In fact, you can do this with as many stations as your Internet connection will handle, and set up schedules to record a station at the same time every day or week! First, you have to bring up the scheduling window for a station:
You'll see a window like this:
Now, set the time and date when you want the recording to start, and how long you want it to last. Let's say we want to record a one-hour show on this station at 6:00 PM today. By clicking in various fields and typing in the values we want, we'd change that section so it looks like this:
However, the recording won't actually be scheduled until we click the word "Disabled" in the upper-right corner so it changes to "Enabled". If everything's set correctly, two other things will change: the schedule's title bar will turn green, and the number 1 will appear next to the Schedules selection in the left column. (If you've set up other recordings, then of course the number next to Schedules will change to reflect how many are scheduled.) Here; it's clearer to show than to tell:
If the title bar doesn't turn green, it means you've accidentally scheduled a recording for some time in the past! (This is a common mistake, so don't feel bad... just remember to check the title bar's color each time you schedule a recording.)
To repeat the recording on particular days, just click them. Here, we're going to record a half-hour show that plays every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 1 PM. We really don't want to miss the introduction or ending credits, so you'll notice that we've decided to start the recording a couple of minutes early and let it run a little long. (We'll edit out any excess later in an audio-editing program.)
What if you want to record a station at 1 AM on Sunday and 3 PM on Tuesday, and another station at 2:15 PM on Friday? Easy: just set up three schedules. In fact, you can set up as many schedules as you like: you're only limited by your Internet connection and your computer's hard drive space.
To see and control all your schedules, click on Schedules in the left column for a list. You can temporarily disable a schedule by clicking the word "Enabled" in the upper-right corner, delete it entirely by clicking the "X" next to that, or change when and for how long it will be recorded.
Note: if a radio station is off-line when you try to record it, or if it goes off-line during a recording, Radio Gaga will attempt to reconnect to it during the length of your recording period.
But what about that "Use filters" checkbox? Ah, we're getting to that... right now.
Now, for one of Radio Gaga's coolest features: the ability to record only tracks by a certain performer, or with a certain name. This came in handy for me recently when I craved David Sedaris' comic monologues, but had put my box set of his recordings in storage. I just set up filtered recordings for "Sedaris" on several comedy-genre stations, and the next day my craving was satisfied.
But let's start a little more simply, by setting up one station to filter for tracks by "Sedaris". How you get started depends on whether you're looking at the station button or station list view.
You'll get a window that looks like this:
In our case, you'd change the popup menu from Name to Artist, type "Sedaris" into the box, and click Record. Radio Gaga then starts monitoring the station, but only records the appropriate tracks. This monitoring process takes up some bandwidth, so be careful how many stations you record this way! Even though you're not capturing every track to disk, it's still pretty easy to max out your bandwidth.
To record only tracks with a certain name - say where the artist is David Sedaris and the title is Santaland Diaries - click the plus sign to add another filter, then click Record. Boom!
"But why," you might ask, "can't I set Radio Gaga to record only songs of a certain length?" Once again, It's Not Radio Gaga's Fault (TM). The way Internet radio works, a station only transmits a track's title and recording, and then starts playing the track. So a track's length isn't available until after it's finished.
Whenever Radio Gaga's recording or monitoring stations, a Recordings item appears in the left column, along with the number of stations being recorded or monitored at the moment. Additionally, a big red dot and spinning-arrows icon reminds you of active recordings. Clicking it shows you information about the stations being managed, with appropriate control buttons:
If Radio Gaga can't connect to a station for any reason, a flashing warning icon appears next to the Recordings selection, and details of the problem show up on the Recordings page. (Clicking that flashing icon shows only those stations with recording problems.) In some cases, the radio's server may be down, but in others it may simply have reached the maximum number of authorized connections.
Don't want station failures staring you in the face? Want to focus on (and fix) recording problems? Filter the list of recordings by clicking the Display popup at the top of the screen.
At the bottom of the screen is an information bar that shows you how much space you have left on your hard drive, and a button that stops all recordings. Handy! Above that bar, you'll see how many recordings are active, and how much of your bandwidth is being used.
So now you have a bunch of recordings on your hard drive. What now? Read on to learn how to put your tracks in order and send them to iTunes - and from there, to a portable music device such as an iPod.
« Previous: Recording tracks | Next: Organizing your audio library »
