Good streamable stuff

September 18, 2005 8:12 PM

I just bought Audio Hijack Pro. Any recommendations on what to record?

AH Pro lets you record audio from any source and save it to disk. I got it to a) get the audio off of my music DVDs, and b) save local copies of songs I need to listen to for class (RealPlayer streams).

To get the most out of the program, though, I also want to find new stuff to listen to. Any suggestions? I'm a big jazz fan, I tend to like NPR shows, and I like technology. I'm open to anything, though. (AH Pro lets you set timers, so stuff at weird hours of the night is OK too.)

posted by danb to computers & internet (11 comments total)

How hysterical -- I just bought it (well, the non-pro version so I could make sure I liked it) and am in the middle of hour three of this weekend's NPR/PBS "Higher Ground" Jazz tribute concert to benefit people affected by Katrina! Otherwise, if you're into jazz, you can't go wrong with WBGO shows, and Car Talk is an obvious show to record as often as you can.
posted by delfuego at 8:26 PM on September 18, 2005

KCRW's "Morning Becomes Eclectic". Great indie music.
posted by Asparagirl at 8:38 PM on September 18, 2005

NPR's Fresh Air interviews.
posted by Rothko at 8:43 PM on September 18, 2005

Australian Radio National might have some stuff to your liking. In particular, check out The Planet and The Night Air.
posted by Jimbob at 9:37 PM on September 18, 2005

Here are many hundreds of hours of potential listening for you!

This American Life is an amazing series of 1 hour shows, each with three or four sections which may be funny, sad, inspiring or just odd. True stories and fiction based on a theme for each show. Nearly three hundred episodes available for listening to online.

Soundprint is an amazing collection of documentaries, updated often and with a huge archive.

Neil Gaiman's `Snow Glass Apples' - (Radio Play) A wise Queen who wants nothing more than to reign over her kingdom peacefully is forced to match wits with an inhuman child. A creepy radio play based on a familiar fairy tale.


J. Michael Straczynski, creator of Babylon 5, has a series of radio plays called City of Dreams. Ooo!


BBC Radio 4's series of documentaries, hundreds available for listening to online. Science, religion, history, politics. An amazing resource.

Transom.org promotes the creation of audio documentaries by members of the public, and has guides to producing and editing your own documentaries. This link takes you to some online listening.

Science Friday is a series of 1 hour science shows on a wide range of topics. This link takes you to their archive.

Hearing Voices presents a series of documentaries, mostly short, on many topics.

posted by tomble at 1:57 AM on September 19, 2005

How about recording your vinyl onto your iPod or CDs? I have a bunch of vinyl but want to listen to it outside my house. I piped the sound from the hifi into the line in of my computer, then used an audio-grabbing program (like Audio Hijack) to record it and then copied it onto my iPod.
posted by pollystark at 2:31 AM on September 19, 2005

I usually hijack NPRs Wait Wait -- Don't Tell Me, since I never remember to listen to it during its broadcast time. I find its humor second only to the Daily Show in its ability to keep me sane in our political climate.
posted by bibliowench at 6:43 AM on September 19, 2005

KEXP's audio archive is lovely. I've used Audio Hijack Pro to save lots of their in-studio performances. Mostly indie-type stuff.
posted by jdl at 7:44 AM on September 19, 2005

I always recommend a visit to Public Radio Fan. They collate programming from streamers across the Internet, provide links to the home stations, the program pages, and all available streams, and they give show times that make it far easier to set up AH (though always double-check against the station's program guides, since it's an endless task for PRF to keep up with programming changes).

The coolest thing is that you can seek out other streams for the syndicated shows being broadcast on other stations, which can let you choose a high-quality stream. For a while, I was recording the BBC off of a Danish station because the stream was 128KB Stereo--far better than the lower-quality streams off the BBC web site. (I had to stop that, though, because the Danish station only broadcast BBC for a few hours a day and didn't capture programs I wanted and did capture a few I don't like--like Talking Point with Elise Dusette, who has an annoying voice, an annoying manner, and leads a horrible show in which rhetoric is never breached.)

You can also use PRF find a stream that doesn't interfere with other things your computer might be doing. For example, I set a couple of shows that are broadcast in NYC on the weekends to record from other stations while I'm at work so that AH recording isn't interrupted or being interruptive when I'm at home when I might want to listen to something else using the same playback program that AH is using.
posted by Mo Nickels at 8:18 AM on September 19, 2005

Not to pull away from the topic here, but some of KCRW's shows like "Morning Becomes Eclectic" are available as podcasts now. Not all of the bands and performances are there, though.

My suggestion would be to locate radio stations that broadcast their content online. The radio station of the college I graduated from has their schedule and a RealAudio stream online but it's not always convenient to be around to listen to, especially when shows run into the late night/early morning.
posted by mikeh at 8:26 AM on September 20, 2005

Mo Nickels, thankyouthankyouthankyou. That's exactly the kind of site I was hoping to find. Quite an incredible resource. I need a bigger hard drive now...

And everyone else, thanks for the other wonderful suggestions!
posted by danb at 9:11 PM on September 20, 2005