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SEPTEMBER 17, 2003
By Alex Salkever Audio Hijack Pro Hits the Jackpot This nifty program grabs streaming audio off your Mac and records it as an MP3, letting you listen to what you want when you want About a year ago, I began to hate watching CNN Headline News while running on the treadmill. As a news junkie, I can't handle hearing old news, let alone the same news over and over every 15 minutes. This set me off on a search for viable audio alternatives. I knew I couldn't wipe the talking heads from the glowing boxes at my local Y, but I figured I could listen to something more interesting on my iPod. That's when I started looking into applications for my Apple (AAPL ) Macintosh that would rip streaming audio broadcasts from the Net to my hard drive and, ultimately, onto my iPod. Unfortunately, I couldn't find any, aside from a few plug-in modules that could be used in conjunction with some desktop music players running on OS 9. Since I had long ago crossed the Rubicon to the land of OS X, I wanted an X-compatible piece of software. HIDDEN POWER. Around that time a small company with the catchy name of Rogue Amoeba released a shareware sound utility called Audio Hijack. (It was originally called iPirate but, as the company admits on its Weblog, the new tag might be slightly less likely to attract a subpoena from the Recording Industry Association of America.) I played around with it and liked the demo. But at that point, I was reluctant to pay for a service I could find free elsewhere, like the nifty program called Wiretap from Ambrosia Software. I still like Wiretap. But a week ago I tried the new version of Audio Hijack Pro, which sells for $30, as opposed to the standard version, Audio Hijack 2, which goes for $16. And I'm happy to report that this upgraded version is definitely worth the $30 shareware fee. What's more, Audio Hijack Pro hits that sweet spot in audio software by being easy to use but packing hidden power that gives it extra appeal for hardcore sound junkies. Audio Hijack can grab the audio output of any programming that runs on the Mac. You just choose the application or point Audio Hijack to a specific URL. At first, its interface and settings seemed a little complicated compared to Wiretap's simple toggle button that starts and stops recording. But I soon discovered that to go beyond Wiretap's shortcomings, Audio Hijack's added complexity was necessary. EASY LISTENING. First, Wiretap gives you no way to time recordings (you can use a bundled AppleScript to do that, but most Mac users don't deal with that Mac-only programming language). That's a pain because if you forget to stop the recording, you end up with a very big file with lots of silence at the end. And Wiretap doesn't provide any way to edit it down. Even Audio Hijack's standard version has a timer that lets you specify the recording's length. In the new version, that feature has been beefed up. I can set Audio Hijack Pro to automatically launch at any time and grab any application or streaming audio link I choose. For example, if I want it to record the streaming version of National Public Radio's Marketplace each day, I just set the date, time, and duration of the recording and save the file as a preset called Marketplace. After the recording is finished, Audio Hijack Pro can dump that file in any folder or location of my choosing. I can also tell it to add a date suffix to each file, a handy innovation if you're recording the same program each day and want to keep the dates straight. The only problem with this system is that it relies on static file names for regular recordings. DO YOUR HOMEWORK. Since most regular radio programs streamed over the Web change their streaming file name weekly or daily, a regular download is more difficult because you need to manually change the preset to the new file name. Fortunately, Marketplace is one of those that use the same file name each day. I hope more Net broadcasters join that trend since it makes recording a daily program much easier. Another thing I disliked about Wiretap was that it saves only in the cumbersome AIFF format, meaning an extra step to encode its files in the much more compact MP3 format. The older versions of Audio Hijack also encoded to AIFF. Audio Hijack Pro allows you to grab a stream and encode it as an MP3 file, eliminating the time-consuming middle step. And Audio Hijack Pro lets you really play with a sound file, with multiple panes controlling different aspects of the recording process. Included are loads of nice features, such as a "split" button that lets you start a new audio file midstream (perfect if you want to slice up a concert into individual songs or chop newscasts into segments that you want to archive). Be forewarned: It's not complicated to learn this program, but reading the manual and mucking about on the screens to get the right setup finalized does take some time. SPECIAL FX. The setup options are extremely flexible compared to Wiretap's. You can record at a slow bit-rate setting for talk radio or as high as 320 bits per second for music recordings. And Audio Hijack Pro has also thrown in a host of special studio effects for enhancing the sound of music streams you grab. True, most Web music broadcasts put out sound that remains well below CD quality. But in this case, that's probably a good thing since it should keep Rogue Amoeba off the RIAA's subpoena radar. Should you be worried about ripping streaming audio of the Web? I personally think the answer is no. It's really the same as taping a radio show, and no court is going to prosecute you for that. Think of Audio Hijack Pro as the digital equivalent of a cassette recorder. And a much improved one, at that.  Salkever, Technology editor for BusinessWeek Online, is alternating with Charles Haddad on Byte of the Apple Edited by B. Kite
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