Review: Radio Gaga - Fill your iTunes library for free

If you told there was software that not only allowed you to listen to radio stations from all over the world but also allowed you to not only just record the audio but also schedule recordings (DRM free I may add), would you be interested? I certainly was. I jumped at the chance to review this one. Not being a native to the USA I sometimes miss radio stations and particular shows from the homeland and thought this was going to be the perfect solution to getting my hands on some home content. You can take the girl out of the country but you can't take the country out of the girl, right?


Radio Gaga is developed by GaGa Factory (www.gagafactory.com) and from reading about the application on their website is claims as well as the 10,000 plus stations, the ability to; multi-record dozens of radio stations simultaneously, schedule recordings when you're away, adding your own radio stations and exporting your recorded audio to your iTunes library. 


Using Radio Gaga
The user interface of Radio Gaga is easy to use, I found it uncomplicated and easy to navigate. There are two
 main sections to the screen. On the left is a library where links can be found to the Radio Stations, Tracks Recorded, Schedules, and Recordings. Then there's a Recent Section for finding most and last listened to items. A Radio Section where you can save your own lists of stations and lastly a Tracks section where recordings can be found. The Library is customizable as in that you can add folders and create playlists of songs that you've recorded. Anyone familiar with iTunes will have no problem using this part of Radio Gaga. 


To the right are the stations which are set out by genre, 90's, Country, Classical, Rock, etc. and can be viewed either as buttons or as an album cover style similar to iTunes. To see a list of radio stations within any genre double click on a button. Here again there are two styles of viewing the radio station names. As a list or as badges. Both views allow for a rating system which is a nice feature as there are so many stations in each section it can be hard to keep track of them all so when you come across one you like it's a good idea to mark it for future reference. 

Recording music couldn't be easier, the music controls sit in the bottom left corner of the screen and to record simply press the button with the red dot in it. Radio Gaga also works closely with Growl so you get a few second notice of what song is coming up next. If you forget to press stop at the end of the song it will continue to record but, and this is the best part, it will automatically stop the recording at the end of one song edit out any talking in between and start again at the beginning of the next track. How cool is that? Every now and then there will be some DJ chat mixed in with the audio but remember you are recording a radio station and if you're really picky you can always bring it into Garage Band and edit that out yourself.

Mini Player


Scheduling to record a show to record was just as seamless. It was as easy as choosing the station, date, and time. That's it. But one thing to keep in mind is that you must keep software running in order for it work.

Cool Features
Another feature which sets Radio Gaga apart is Filters. Filters is where you can set alerts on a radio station for a particular Artist or Song and when ever those parameters are met Radio Gaga will automatically start recording. Multiple filters can be set on each station but the developers do warn that this does use a lot of bandwidth so it's something to watch. It took me a while to get these filters to work. At first I was just recording everything but eventually I got them working and let me tell you when they did, wow. I had Radio Gaga working in the background with filters setup on three stations and every now and then I'd notice that it would be recording. After an hour or so I went into 'My Tracks' section and sure enough there were songs from my Filter list all nicely trimmed and ready to send it iTunes.

iTunes
And yes, sending to iTunes was just as easy as everything else, the 'Send to iTunes' button lives in the bottom right corner of the screen and with one click of that button all selected music wings it way to your iTunes Library along with tags if available. I noticed some stations are better than others for providing information with the audio.


Alas,
I found this program to be a little buggy. At times the audio I tried to record would not appear in the Track Library needing a quit and relaunch to solve the program. I later discovered that it didn't like it if I tried to record from more than two stations at once which goes again the 'multi-record dozens of radio stations simultaneously' claim that the developers make on their website.

Filters that are set up on stations cannot be saved and are lost once the program is closed. The ability to save filters would be a nice addition in a future update.

I found adding my own stations impossible and it wasn't it wasn't until a recent update that added drag and drop stations from iTunes into Radio Gaga which has really made this feature possible.

Also Radio Gaga does not currently support internet stations that broadcast in Windows Media or Real Audio formats. At this time, the software only supports MP3 and AAC streams. This is something to keep in mind if you like me are thinking of getting this program for use with particular stations. Unfortunately the Irish stations that I was so excited about being able to schedule and record are broadcast in Real Player so I was out of luck on that one.

The software has some great features and I certainly wouldn't let the odd bug or two which I'm sure will be sorted out in the next update put me off. If you like variety when it comes to your radio choices then the world is at your finger tips with Radio Gaga, quite literally.

Pros: Record live radio and send to iTunes. Quality is very good.

Cons: A little buggy. Cannot record stations that broadcast in Windows Media or Real Audio formats.

Developer: GaGa Factory

Cost $34.04 for 2 Mac License

by Annette Q. Benkie - LearnMacsOnline.com