Scheduled audio recording software

[randy mcelligott]

I have been using Ubuntu for two weeks now. On my Mac I use Audio Hijack
Pro which allows me to set a schedule to record shows off the radio. So
for example, I have it set up to record a show on Sunday's at 2pm,
another schedule to record a show on Tuesdays at 5pm every week etc...

Is there such software for Ubuntu? This is the only application that is
holding me back from using Ubuntu on a regular basis.

Thanks!

Randy

[John Masters]

Post by randy mcelligott
I have been using Ubuntu for two weeks now. On my Mac I use Audio Hijack
Pro which allows me to set a schedule to record shows off the radio. So
for example, I have it set up to record a show on Sunday's at 2pm,
another schedule to record a show on Tuesdays at 5pm every week etc...
Is there such software for Ubuntu? This is the only application that is
holding me back from using Ubuntu on a regular basis.
Thanks!

There was a pretty good Windows prog I used to use, forget the name.
Never did find the equivalent for Linux so went back to Mac and Audio
Hijack, Fission etc. Now run Ubuntu solely through VMWare Fusion and of
course Debian on my server. Much as I like Linux, (and I DO love it),
there is still a way to go in getting developers to create the apps we
need. Many Mac apps, and I mean the small to medium sized everyday
useful apps, are written by small software houses, often one or two
programmers. They have to live and pay the bills. Some, as they become
more successful, may choose to give something to the OSS community.
Otherwise Linux has to rely on philanthropic millionaires, large
software houses seeking cheap testing or ones own resources.

I am now retiring to my underground bunker till the flak stops flying.
:)

[Matthew Flaschen]

John Masters wrote:
Many Mac apps, and I mean the small to medium sized everyday

Post by John Masters
useful apps, are written by small software houses, often one or two
programmers. They have to live and pay the bills. Some, as they become
more successful, may choose to give something to the OSS community.
Otherwise Linux has to rely on philanthropic millionaires, large
software houses seeking cheap testing or ones own resources.

If you have no issue with proprietary software, there's plenty written
for the GNU/Linux platform.

Matt Flaschen

[Erik Christiansen]

Post by randy mcelligott
I have been using Ubuntu for two weeks now. On my Mac I use Audio Hijack
Pro which allows me to set a schedule to record shows off the radio. So
for example, I have it set up to record a show on Sunday's at 2pm,
another schedule to record a show on Tuesdays at 5pm every week etc...
Is there such software for Ubuntu? This is the only application that is
holding me back from using Ubuntu on a regular basis.

In the absence of a fully gui-fied canned solution thus far, maybe the
following thoughts on a possible work-around will spark off a solution
which is less delightfully DIY.

It's likely that most of the audio applications (e.g. arecord) can be
invoked from the command line, to record. Using "crontab -e" then allows
you to program repeat scheduled recordings, while the "at" command is
good for a one-off.

I once used "arecord -d nnn -f dat -t raw /tmp/audio" to record nnn
seconds of audio. Using that, one wouldn't need a second crontab (or
"at" command) to stop recording.

To snarf arecord etc., run: sudo apt-get install alsa-utils

It would be a little bit of an adventure, with only two weeks of Ubuntu
experience. Much can be gleaned from the manpages, and some
experimentation, though. ;-)

Erik

[David Fox]

On Fri, Nov 7, 2008 at 3:27 AM, Erik Christiansen

Post by Erik Christiansen
In the absence of a fully gui-fied canned solution thus far, maybe the
following thoughts on a possible work-around will spark off a solution
which is less delightfully DIY.

None is really needed, just use cron and mplayer -dumpstream to record
the desired stream, edit after the recording is done using audacity. I
used to record Schickele mix from a station in Tennessee when it was
broadcasting the show. I had it automatically go off at 5pm every
Sunday night.

All you really need is a shell script that you invoke with cron.

#!/bin/sh
# record wpln into a stream.dump file for 1 hr

cd /tmp && mplayer -dumpstream http://main.str3am.com/wplnfmwm -cache 128 &
sleep 3600
mv /tmp/stream.dump /tmp/stream`date +%m%d`
killall mplayer

[Brian McKee]

Post by randy mcelligott
I have been using Ubuntu for two weeks now. On my Mac I use Audio Hijack
Pro which allows me to set a schedule to record shows off the radio. So
for example, I have it set up to record a show on Sunday's at 2pm,
another schedule to record a show on Tuesdays at 5pm every week etc...
Is there such software for Ubuntu? This is the only application that is
holding me back from using Ubuntu on a regular basis.

Are you getting the show from an internet feed? or a capture card?
or the audio input jacks on your pc?

I don't know of a pre-built application, but it's probably pretty easy
to script something up for you. Let me know which type of audio
source you've got and we'll go from there.

Brian

[Randy McElligott]

I am recording from a radio that is hooked up to my PC.

Post by Brian McKee

Post by randy mcelligott
I have been using Ubuntu for two weeks now. On my Mac I use Audio Hijack
Pro which allows me to set a schedule to record shows off the radio. So
for example, I have it set up to record a show on Sunday's at 2pm,
another schedule to record a show on Tuesdays at 5pm every week etc...
Is there such software for Ubuntu? This is the only application that is
holding me back from using Ubuntu on a regular basis.

Are you getting the show from an internet feed? or a capture card?
or the audio input jacks on your pc?
I don't know of a pre-built application, but it's probably pretty easy
to script something up for you. Let me know which type of audio
source you've got and we'll go from there.
Brian
--
ubuntu-users mailing list
ubuntu-users at lists.ubuntu.com
https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-users

[Brian McKee]

Post by randy mcelligott

Post by randy mcelligott
for example, I have it set up to record a show on Sunday's at 2pm,
another schedule to record a show on Tuesdays at 5pm every week etc...
Is there such software for Ubuntu? This is the only application

that is

Post by randy mcelligott
holding me back from using Ubuntu on a regular basis.

Well, it's not as pretty a solution as I thought I'd find, but this will
work just fine...
The basic background is here -
<http://jordilin.wordpress.com/2006/07/28/howto-recording-audio-from-the-command-line>

Step one - Assuming you want mp3 output - install 'lame' either by
searching for it in Synaptic, or opening a terminal and typing 'sudo
aptitude install lame'

Step two - make sure your recording source is set to the right device.
I believe System -> Preferences -> Sound - the Devices tab Sound Capture
should be set to Alsa
Alternatively, open a terminal and type 'alsamixer'. It's not exactly
pretty, but it's functional. Hit the 'tab' key to switch from Playback
to Capture (you'll see that mentioned on the top left) then use the
arrow keys left and right to highlight your line input column and hit
the space bar to make the L R CAPTUR entry show up in that column.
Lastly, hit the Escape key to exit the program. (yes, it's clunky)

Steps one and two only have to be done once.

Tune your radio, make sure it's playing, then open a terminal and we'll
make a test recording.
Type
arecord -f cd -d 10 -t raw | lame -r - out.mp3
What that is going to do is record 10 seconds (the number after the -d)
of cd quality audio and pipe it into lame, which re-encodes it to mp3
and saves it as out.mp3

You should end up with a file called out.mp3 in your home folder that
sounds like 10 seconds of your radio.

Once you have that working, scheduling is easy!

The 'at' command is an old unix standby. Just tell it when you want
your recording to start. e.g. type

at 7pm Monday
and hit return
You'll get a > prompt indicating it's waiting to find out what to do at
7 on monday.
Type your
arecord -f cd -d NumberOfSecondsToRecordFor -t raw | lame -r - out.mp3
and hit return again.
Then hit Control-D - it will exit and give you a one line confirmation
of when the job will run.

If you want to see what you've got scheduled already, type atq (at,queue
- - get it?)
If you want to delete a scheduled job use atrm.

Note of course your computer has to be on for the recording to run. I
don't think you need to be logged in though (untested)

Let me know how you make out, I'm sure it seems like a lot all at once.

Brian