Turn your PC into a SongCatcher

From...

by Chris Yurko

(IDG) -- Thinking about the future of music? Forget about Napster for a minute, and think about your FM radio. That's right, your FM radio, which now has a route onto your PC.

SongCatcher, a new program from Gotuit Media, blends the old technology of your FM radio with the new technology of your PC.

The program catches songs from your radio and stores them on your PC. Once the songs are there, you can build playlists of your favorite music, legally and without time-consuming downloads.

As a recorder, SongCatcher is not so unlike other PC audio recorders, including the sound recorder program integrated into Windows. Where SongCatcher distinguishes itself, however, is in its capability to split the raw audio into individual songs (eliminating annoying commercials and DJ chatter) and to identify those songs by artist and title.

"With our product, you don't have to think about what songs to download in advance," says Dave Creagh, vice president and general manager of audio products for Gotuit. "It's very efficient in terms of users' time and also bandwidth. The fat pipe here is the air."

All you need is an FM radio, a 1/8-inch stereo cable to plug into your PC, and, of course, the SongCatcher program. A trial version is available as a free download. The upgrade to a premium edition costs $29.95 yearly.

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To record, you can simply hit the record button on the SongCatcher toolbar, or you can preset a recording time the same way you program your VCR.

Grabbing songs in progress

But what happens if you want to record a song that's already playing? You can--you just hit the "catch song" button. This afterthought option is possible because SongCatcher has a five-minute buffer running in the background, allowing you to catch songs in their entirety after they've begun.

"You can be a couple of minutes into a song and it will absolutely catch it," Creagh says. "It's great for people who like to listen while they're doing something else and catch songs as they come by."

The last step in the process is downloading what's called "metadata" from the SongCatcher Web site, after 5 a.m. on the day after you've done your recording. The metadata, which Gotuit purchases from a company called Broadcast Data Systems, contains the information that sorts the songs and identifies them.

As Creagh admits, the process of splitting is not perfect. Each song can contain up to a minute of audio leading into the song--the end of the previous song, DJ introductions--and excess audio at the end.

However, SongCatcher provides editing tools to cut off those annoying headers and footers. Still, the editing process can be tedious and is not always neat, as DJs often like to segue one song right into the next.

The quality of the sound is excellent--as good, in fact, as the reception on the radio station you're tuned in to. The stations you can select from, however, are limited to the ones that share their metadata with Broadcast Data Systems, only about 1100 nationwide. In my area, western Massachusetts, I only had one choice, a commercial rock station to which I would not normally listen.

Perhaps SongCatcher's best feature is the "Not Again" option, which automatically deletes songs you don't like or artists you can't stand. "I think of it as the Neil Diamond filter," Creagh says.

Did anyone say Backstreet Boys?

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Radio giant finally wakes up to the Net
(The Industry Standard)
Two turntables and a microphone
(The Industry Standard)
Web radio copes with paying the piper
(PCWorld.com)
Acer, Sonicbox team to stream Net radio in stereo
(PCWorld.com)
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(The Industry Standard)
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IT personality of the year: Shawn Fanning
(IDG.net)

Gotuit Media
SongCatcher.com

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