Recording FM radio

[scowl]

This seems to be a common Android question but with no answer yet: does any Android FM radio application allow you to record the audio? I have found several possible solutions involving using sound recorders but I haven't found one that works on the Galaxy yet.

This is an issue because my Samsung P3 and even my ancient Creative Zen can record FM radio so it's not a revolutionary feature. I always record the in-arena radio broadcast at basketball games.

[CrowdAds]

[tcat]

You could always play the station (whether FM, or the station found in a radio app like TuneIn), then turn on the "Voice Recorder", and record the program or whatever. I just tried it (not tasker), and it works. I would guess you could set up an app like Tasker to turn stuff on and off at the right time for future "unmanned" recordings. It would be nice if there was something "internal" that would record in stereo. I would guess you would fill your card up fast for anything longer than 10 minutes.

TuneIn Pro lets you record. Should have your local station.

[scowl]

"Voice Recorder" records from the microphone.

My old Creative Zen recorded in LPCM and the file sizes were no problem.

[scowl]

Originally Posted by tcat

TuneIn Pro lets you record. Should have your local station.

This is not a local station. This is an in-arena sports broadcast.

[Olley]

RIAA, and the threat of law suits is why Android devices won't record from FM. When foreign companies used their own UIs/firmware they didn't worry about US threats and added things like FM recording to stay competitive. The threat with "smart" connected devices is that it would be easy for an app to be written to DAR (Digitally Audio Record) radio content on schedule just like you can record TV with a DVR. Much nicer and no doubt more likely to be used than the odds that anyone ever new when to hit the record button to make a perfect capture of a song being played on the radio.

[scowl]

But there's nothing preventing foreign programmers from creating an app that records FM. There's nothing in the API that prevents it. Google doesn't own all Android applications.

[Blackdog]

My Sansa Fuze records off the FM radio as well. Pretty cool when traveling abroad...recording sound clips from FM radio. I know, you can get almost anything around the world streaming on-line...still, it is kind of cool. I realize this was a more useful feature before widespread podcasts and streaming.

I'd like a recording app that has the ability to select "microphone front/rear" or "internal"...Essentially anything hitting the "sound card".

TapeMachine is a great app, recording to FLAC, Mp3, ogg and WAV...with some editing....but does not have this "internal" input function.

[scowl]

Since the battery in my Samsung P3 won't last two hours, I guess I'll have to bring my old Creative Zen (which is on its third replaceable battery) to games then.

That thing has outlived two players and I'm still finding uses for it!

[Daniel644]

Originally Posted by tcat

You could always play the station (whether FM, or the station found in a radio app like TuneIn), then turn on the "Voice Recorder", and record the program or whatever. I just tried it (not tasker), and it works. I would guess you could set up an app like Tasker to turn stuff on and off at the right time for future "unmanned" recordings. It would be nice if there was something "internal" that would record in stereo. I would guess you would fill your card up fast for anything longer than 10 minutes.

TuneIn Pro lets you record. Should have your local station.

tunein doesn't use the FM radio it streams over wifi.

[Alan2012]

Has anyone being able to record FM yet ?

[scowl]

Nope! I'm actually carrying my ancient Creative Zen to basketball games.

[zacp2]

You could buy the spirit radio unlocked app but it costs 10$...

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk HD

[scowl]

Spirit FM is a very advanced FM app with lots of features including recording but it doesn't support the receiver in the Galaxy Player 4.0 and 5.0 models with the stock ROMs yet. You can't tune it with the 4.2.

WAIT! A reboot suddenly caused it to work on the 4.2. Great!

BUT! Recording has been disabled. The author says it's pretty much impossible. As explained by the author:

If you tried earlier versions you may have noticed a record option. I was able to record from the microphone, but while doing so the FM audio switched off.

Basically, the hardware has to support this or it is impossible. And since no phone offers this with the stock FM app (AFAIK), I think it's unlikely the hardware was designed to allow this.

[zacp2]

Originally Posted by scowl

Spirit FM is a very advanced FM app with lots of features including recording but it doesn't support the receiver in the Galaxy Player 4.0 and 5.0 models with the stock ROMs yet. You can't tune it with the 4.2.

WAIT! A reboot suddenly caused it to work on the 4.2. Great!

BUT! Recording has been disabled. The author says it's pretty much impossible. As explained by the author:

That post is almost 2 years old... the new version of the app should be able to make it record if you're in digital mode. However digital mode uses a lot of power and I don't gurantee it will work on your device.

[scowl]

Originally Posted by zacp2

That post is almost 2 years old... the new version of the app should be able to make it record if you're in digital mode.

Nope. Just bought it yesterday. The hardware in our players hasn't changed in the past two years.

If you read the entire thread, you'll see that he was able to get limited to complete recording support for certain popular models starting a few months ago but since there is no Android API for this, it's all specific to hardware. You'll find no such support for Galaxy Player models and you'll find no record button after you install it.

You can try "Record" in the test menu. You'll end up with a 40 byte mp4 file.

This more recent post tells the tale on recording FM with Galaxy Player:

For record or digital on Galaxy S/Player you need a kernel with Voodoo sound. And even then there have been more problems than I had hoped. Unlike GS2 and higher, the GS was not design with FM recording in mind. It was a pleasant surprise I found I could make it work. Sometimes. I've found the Semaphore kernel has a crash when I leave digital running for 15 minutes. Stock CM kernel doesn't have that problem. Galaxy S just barely has enough CPU power to comfortably use digital, particularly with visualizer, equalizer/effects and bluetooth running. Throw record in and it get's trickier. A shame because I think digital resolves the speaker damage problem a few have had.

The developer has done a heroic job supporting FM recording in various popular models but this was one he couldn't manage.