Chris Gohlke
11-24-2006, 04:00 PM
<img src="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/images/ads-RDX-155w.jpg" /><br /><br /><b>Product Category:</b> USB Radio<br /><b>Manufacturer:</b> <a href="http://www.adstech.com/products/RDX-155-EF/intro/RDX-155-EF_intro.asp?pid=RDX-155-EF">ADS Tech</a><br /><b>Where to Buy:</b> <a href="http://thoughtsmedia.pricegrabber.com/search_getprod.php/masterid=28360192/search=ADS+Instant+FM+Music">Low Price Search</a><br /><b>Price:</b> $35 to $50 USD<br /><b>System Requirements:</b> Microsoft Windows XP or Windows XP Media Center Edition Service Pack 2 or later, available USB 1.1 or USB 2.0 port, minimum of 1GB (5GB recommended) of free disk space, 1GHz CPU, 256MB RAM (512MB recommended), Windows Media Player 10.0 or higher, and an Internet connection for Web Radio, Song identification and other information (e.g., album art, reviews, etc.).<br /><br /><b>Pros:</b><li>Software does an outstanding job of identifying, tagging and creating MP3s from songs broadcast over FM radio;<br /><li>Recordings sound as good as original broadcast;<br /><li>Software/Hardware combo a great value.<b>Cons:</b><li>No AM radio;<br /><li>RDS does not appear to be widely used by radio stations;<br /><li>Potential quality issue with antenna.<b>Summary:</b><br />Remember making mix tapes of the radio back in the day? Well even if you don't, ADS has a great product that allows you to automate most of the process of recording music broadcast over FM. If you are interested a device that will listen to the radio, identify the songs, and make MP3s of them for you, then this is a product for you.<br /><br />Read on for the full review!<!><br /><PAGEBREAK><br /><span><b>Getting Started</b></span><br />The <a href="http://www.adstech.com/products/RDX-155-EF/intro/RDX-155-EF_intro.asp?pid=RDX-155-EF">ADS InstantFM Music</a> is a combination hardware and software solution that is composed of a USB FM tuner and software package that allows your PC to record FM broadcasts, automatically identify the songs, and convert them to MP3s. The software can also be programmed like a DVR to record specific stations at specific times, in essence allowing you to create your own podcasts of any radio show you like.<br /><br />To start with, let's look at what comes in the box. The USB tuner is a bit larger than even a large USB memory key. You can plug the key directly into a USB 2.0 port or use the included dongle. There is an additional dongle with a retractable antenna. Unfortunately, mine refused to lock in the open position. A carrying pouch, software/driver CD, manual, and product registration card round out the package.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/images/instantfminbox.jpg" /><br /><br />Installation went off without a hitch. There are two main software components: Instant Radio and Snaptune One. Instant radio is a basic radio interface while Snaptune One is a much more full featured product. Let's start off with a quick look at the Instant Radio software. <br /><br /><img src="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/images/instantfm4.jpg" /><br /><br />As you can see from the above screen capture, this is your basic radio software. As the product name states, this is an FM device, so you can't tune any AM stations. The first of two notable features is the fact that the hardware is capable of receiving RDS/RDBS data. What this means is that if your favorite radio station broadcasts this data, you will see additional information such as the station name or song name in the display. Unfortunately, only one local station here appears to broadcast this information and they only broadcast their station name. The other notable feature is the record button. It does just what you would expect, press it and it starts recording the station. Now for the bad part. It only records to a .wav file and then only at an absurdly high 3072 kbs bitrate. I searched, but could not find a way to adjust this. But, not to worry, other than just plain listening, you probably won't be using Instant Radio since Snaptune One is a much better recording application. <br /><br />Snaptune One has some basic recording features that will allow it to act like a DVR for radio. It performs this function fine, but that is not where it really shines. Here is Snaptune One's killer feature in a nutshell. You pick a station and let it record it for a couple of days. It will then give you a fairly comprehensive listing of the songs played during that time period. You can then play any song or convert it into an MP3. Let's take a closer look at how it does this by looking at some of the main Snaptune One screens.<br /><br />Below is the radio tab. When you first launch the application, the program will scan for available stations. You should note that Snaptune One is a fully independent product from the hardware tuner. In fact, Snaptune One is a free software product that you can get from <a href="http://www.snaptune.com/download/default.aspx">here</a>. Snaptune One will work with any tuner or line in as well as with Web radio stations. Since this hardware is FM only, selecting the AM radio button gets you nowhere. From this screen, you can choose the station you want to listen to and set it to start recording. <br /><PAGEBREAK><br /><span><b>Recording Radio Made Easy</b></span><br /><br /><img src="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/images/instantfm1.jpg" /><br /><br />Once you've started recording, you have to be patient and wait for the magic to begin. Click over to the playlist tab and after about 8 hours it will begin to be populated with a chronological playlist for that station. The software warns you that it will be slow at first and that you won't see much, but that it will pick up speed as it starts to identify patterns. Even with this warning, I was pretty disappointed at first. After 8 hours it had identified one whole song and it still had not figured out the ID tag for it. After a day, I was up to 10 songs. Then things started picking up. After four days, I am up to over 200 songs, most of which have been tagged. I was really kind of surprised here since I would have guessed that the playlist for this station was quite a bit smaller. I clicked through a sample of songs and they were all tagged properly and edited as well as could be expected for the start and stop of the song. There is some DJ talk over on some songs, but the software documentation indicates that this will improve over time because it will continuously look for a better version of the song. Below is a sample of the playlist tab. On the left, you will see the chronological listing of what the station played. Once you select a song, it will automatically start playing as well as pull up additional information about the song and artist in the right pane. <br /><br /><img src="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/images/instantfm2.jpg" /><br /><br />Clicking over to the songs tab gives you a sortable listing of all the songs Snaptune One has recorded. Clicking on a song in the left pane gives you the same information in the right pane that you saw on the playlist tab. From here, you can right click on any song and have it converted to an unprotected 128kbps MP3. The MP3 is tagged with the song and artist name, but Snaptune is substituted for the album name. Unfortunately, you must do this for each song as there is no bulk convert function. <br /><br /><img src="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/images/instantfm3.jpg" /><br /><br />So the big question is: how is the sound quality? Well, you are recording radio, so obviously it is not going to be any better than the source material. So, for comparison purposes, I loaded some songs up on my Samsung YP-U2J. Since this device has an FM tuner, I figured listening to the recorded songs versus a live FM broadcast would be a good test. The results were great, granted I am not an audiophile, but I could not tell a difference between the live broadcast and the recording. There was definitely a difference between recordings and a CD ripped at the same bitrate, but after some tweaks to the equalizer, I was able to get a very satisfactory level of sound from the recordings. <br /><br />Don't take my word for it though, here is a <img src="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/assets/common/FileObject/mp3.gif" /> <a href="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/media/users/11/sample.mp3">sample.mp3</a> (Size: <b>154.5 KB</b>).<br /><br />I think Snaptune One is really cool. It totally digitizes the time-honored tradition of making radio mix tapes like I'm sure lots of us did in our younger days. If anything, it makes the process too easy, so hopefully it doesn't raise the ire of the powers that be. Even without it, the InstantFM Music package is an easy way to add FM music to your PC.<br /><br /><i>Chris Gohlke is a Contributing Editor for Digital Media Thoughts. He loves Sci-Fi and loves to get his hands on real-life tech gadgets. He lives in Tallahassee, Florida, USA with his wife and three cats.</i>