Tuesday, December 26, 2006

iSound WMA/MP3 Recorder Professional - an alternative to Total Recorder?


Mark Connelly, well-known DXer in the Northeast US, recently posed a question on one of the MW DX email lists wondering if anyone had ever used the iSound recording software from Abyss Media for radio recording. I had never heard of it, so I downloaded WMA/MP3 Rec Pro yesterday and did a quick test drive. I find it to be very similar to Total Recorder, with an updated user interface. The scheduler works in a very similar manner as TR's. One slight difference is that the interface of WMA/MP3 Rec Pro displays the line in audio level all the time, as opposed to TR which only shows line levels while recording. WMA/MP3 Rec Pro did not require configuring MP3 recording, so that made installing a bit easier.

BTW, Corey Deitz reviewed Total Recorder Pro at http://radio.about.com/library/weekly/aa012103a.htm
as well as iSound at http://radio.about.com/od/reviewsofpcsoftware/a/aa052404a.htm

I'd say WMA/MP3 Recorder Pro a reasonable alternative to Total Recorder, and they both have a reasonable registration fee ($18 for TR vs. $30 for iSound). I did not try to configure iSound to record from multiple simulatneous sources so I cannot vouch for whether it's as flexible as TR in that regard. But, it appears to be worth trying out the free demo version.

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