It took me a while to figure it all out but now I can record streaming FM radio off the Internet. Once you get the hang of it, it’s not really that difficult, just a bit confusing. Here’s a step by step on how to do it.
1. Download XMPLAY from here: http://www.un4seen.com/
2. Unzip the XMPLAY folder, preferably onto your desktop. Once you unzip it, you can keep the folder right in front of you on the desktop since XMPLAY doesn’t install itself on your computer. It just runs when you want it. You can actually run two different instances of it at the same time, more on that later.
3. If you want to record the FM stream in MP3 format, you need LAME (Lame Ain’t Another MP3 Encoder). You’re on your own if you want to use another recording format and don’t ask me how to use something else. Internet FM sounds fine in MP3 and that’s what I use on my MP3 player, hence the name.
Get LAME from here : http://support.xmplay.com/file_comment.php?id=478
4. Unzip LAME and take two files out of the folder that pops onto your desktop after you unzip it. You need the lame.exe file and the lame.dll files in the XMPLAY folder so that XMPLAY can record the stream.
5. Find a station that streams FM over the Internet. I like Dainbramage which is available here:http://www.dainbramage.com/listen/listen1.asx
but you can certainly choose any station that you like. You need the url of the feed, not something like dainbramage.com. The link above is for the actual streaming FM so find it copy and paste it into notepad. Then you don’t have to look for it every time you want to listen to that station, right?
6. XMPLAY plays lots of types of music files but what you want it to do now is to play a url so you can listen to FM radio on the Internet. How do you do that? Easy. On the XMPLAY interface (the window that opens up when you doubleclick on xmplay.exe file, look for the button on the main window that is to the right of the radio control buttons at the bottom, the one that looks like an arrowhead pointing up. That will open the Open File window.
7. Remember the url of the radio station that I asked you to copy back in step 5? Paste that link into the space at the bottom of the open file window.
8. Click Open URL just to the right of the space for the url. That’s kind of obvious but this is a step by step, right?
9. XMPLAY will take a few seconds to play, depending on the speed of your Internet connection. There you go! XMPLAY is now streaming FM radio into your computer and, if you have speakers, you can hear it.
10. You can leave it at that or you can record what you are hearing. The next few steps are for recording the stream so stop reading now if you’ve gone far enough.
11. To record, right click on the main window of XMPLAY and choose Options and Stuff. What you are looking for in this window is the last item on the left of the window, Output. Once you click on that, the right window will show Device, second word from the top. Click the down arrow on the right side of that section and choose Encoder Lame.
12. Once you have chosen Encoder Lame, and click Apply, XMPLAY will start to record an MP3 file that will have the name of the station you are recording, dainbramage.mp3 for example. The file will grow in size, depending on how long you are recording. Click the Stop button to stop the recording.
13. Now, as you may have noticed, XMPLAY outputs the stream to LAME and LAME makes an MP3 for you. Cool huh? But wait! Since the stream is going to LAME instead of to your speakers, you can’t listen to the station. Oh woe! What do you do? Next step please.
14. Open up another instance of XMPLAY and listen to the FM station through that one while record your MP3 on the other one.
15. Once you have the recording of what you wanted, you can move it to another folder to listen to or rename it to something else, otherwise XMPLAY will just record over that file the next time you decide to record the FM stream. Rename it or lose it, ok? You’be been warned.
That’s it in 15 very easy steps. If you want to record streaming FM radio from the Internet, I’ve just taught you how to do it….for free! What a guy. Thanks for reading.