Note: In my previous version of these instructions I included a link to a "mp3 joiner" which combined all of the files into large (and thus less) files. As many iPod users have discovered over the last few years, ipod (and most other portable audio players) have a longer battery life when they play small files, rather than large files, so I have decided to no longer include this software, nor the instructions on how to join the files (proof) -- Plus it will save you a LOT of time!
Why Download And Not Record Directly From The Show?
I will address this only briefly... it seems a lot of people want to argue with me about this... and I'm not going to argue this anymore... you can either believe me or not believe me... but regardless, I'm right :-pA lot of people seem to be hung-up on using real-time recording programs, thinking it is the best methods to acquire wma (and other formats of audio) from the internet.
Here are the two biggest reasons that I state this is not an acceptable method:
- Quality Loss. Each time audio get's (re)recorded you are going to have audio-loss (even if you claim to be an audiophile who has exceptional hearing).
- Time Management. Using the methods I explain below you will have your audio in a matter of minutes, rather then waiting for the entire program/show to play in real-time.
I have yet to come across an internet audio feed I could not download or record in such a way as to force me to download and/or buy any other programs then the ones listed on this website page.
STEP #1: GETTING THE AUDIO FILES:
First you will need to be a Streamlink member. If you are a C2C fan, there is no reason you shouldn't be a Streamlink member!Once you are logged into the website as a Streamlink member you can begin the process of this whole process.
What we first need to do (once you are logged into the website) is to acquire the audio file from within Internet Explorer via NetTransport.
These audio files automatically get downloaded to your computer (and thus should not be a violation of the Privacy Policy or ToS, as best as I can tell) when you first click on the "Full Show Streams" link for "Win" streaming, when viewing any C2C Website Classic Show page.
However, we do not want to listen to them.... we want to download them to listen to later. To acquire these audio file (without listening to them, and then digging through thousands and thousands of "temporary" files stored on our computer you probably didn't even know existed) we will use "NetTransport".
Once NetTransport is properly installed all you need to do is right-hand-mouse-click on the "Win" link for the given Classic Show streaming file, as shown in the screen shot below.
This will automatically open NetTransport with a screen that looks something like the below screen shot:
The best thing to do is to press "Ok" and keep everything as default.
IF you would like to save the files somewhere other than your desktop -- a folder on your desktop for instance, simply change the "directory" path.
As soon as you press the "OK" button, the files will begin to download to your computer.
At this point press the NetTransport icon in your windows taskbar (it looks like this:
) and a window will open showing the details of the audio files being downloaded.
It should look something like the below screen shot.
At this point, go take the trash out and feed the cats... it's going to take awhile to download all of these audio files!
When all of the files are finished downloading, it will look something like this:
Once all of the audio files are downloaded, right-mouse-click (for you windows users, that is) on the NetTransport icon in the taskbar and press "Exit".
Now minimize all the other programs you have open (if any) until you are back at your desktop.
You will see something that looks like this, except you will probably have a LOT more icons on your desktop than what shows here:
STEP #2: CONVERTING THE AUDIO FILES TO .mp3
Now open iTunes. I really like iTunes (even on my Windows PC's) and it's the only audio program I use anymore.One of the nice things about iTunes (at least for the situation we are presently working on) is that iTunes can automatically convert .wma files to .mp3 files. It is super-easy and really fast. (Note: I do NOT know what affect converting the files has on the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) part of the .wma files after conversion, in relationship to the Clear Channel Privacy Policy. I've never really cared enough to open the .mp3 files and look. You can if it makes you feel better.)
The very first thing you will want to do once you have iTunes open is to change the "Importing Bitrate" details. At this point you should decide if you want to have your audio files in .mp3 format, or something else, like .aac (which produces just as good as quality audio files, and end up being much smaller in file size, but... will probably not play in your not Apple-based product like iTunes/iPod/iPhone/etc.) Because I know most people will want to use .mp3, I will base the rest of these instructions on the .mp3 file format. I, however, have switched over to using .aac due to their smaller file-size.
If you want the files to be as close to possible (as best as I can figure out) as what you get when you download them directly from the website or Podcast, set your settings to match the below screen shot:
(you'll find the below options by clicking on "Edit" then "Preferences" then "Advanced" within iTunes)
This would produce files with the following values:
Here is the screen-shot of how I setup my .aac files, for anybody that might want to go that route:
You can change and play with these values as much as you want. I actually use a slightly lower quality and still find myself happy with it. However, the above setting will make your files as close to what I can get to what Clear Channel makes their file quality.
(Note: Do not forget to change this back to your normal conversion settings after you convert your C2C files... you don't want your music cd's being burned at this low of a quality.)
Once you have changed the audio quality settings, it is time to add the .wma files.
Important Note: there is an issue that really annoys me about iTunes... in order to convert .wma files, the newer versions of iTunes will only convert files that have the file-extension (.wma)... but Clear Channel has the files as (.WMA) --- notice the capitalization difference -- so IF your files are in UPPER-CASE, you'll have to change the file-extensions to lowercase (.wma) --- don't ask me why... I honestly do not know, and it annoys me just as much as it does/will you!)
Ok, so if your audio files have the extension (.wma) and not (.WMA) let's move ahead....
Click on iTunes "File" than "Add Folder To Library" as is shown below:
Then locate your Desktop (or where ever you placed the downloaded audio files), and press "Ok", such as:
Next iTunes will display a message asking you if you really want to convert the (.wma) files to (.mp3) files.
Just press "Convert".
A little window will pop-up showing you that the files are being added, like this:
Just let it do it's thing!!
The next thing that will happen is a new feature will be displayed under the "Playlists" on the left-side of itunes. It will be called ""Converting WMA Songs".
Go ahead and click on that (it will have an orange icon next to it), and you will be presented with a screen that looks like this:
Now would be a good time to go feed the dogs, fish, snake, rabbits, kids, maybe even take a shower, go work out, play a game of golf, go shoot some dinner, pick up the latest Tony Hillerman or Clive Cussler book you have sitting around, go throw some New Mexico Piņon Coffee into your Coffee Press... or just about anything else that will consume a bit of your time..........
Ok, welcome back!
So, iTunes has finish converting your audio files! See, that wasn't so hard. Now let's do a little cleaning up and we will almost be done!
Click on the "Recently Added" feature inside of iTunes, such as this:
Let's go ahead and make all of these ugly and hard-to-remember names "friendly"...
Inside of iTunes select all of the Coast To Coast AM files that were just added (newbies: mouse-click the top one, hold down 'shift' and then press your down-arrow-button a bunch of times -- uber-newbie: or, if they are the only files listed, click on one of them and press 'ctrl+a' to highlight all of them quickly).
Once you have selected/highlighted all of the new C2C files, right-hand-mouse-click any of the files and you will see a little box pop-up. Press the "Get Info" option.
That will present us a new window that looks like this, most of which we are going to need to fill-in. (uggh, here comes the tedious part of all of this)
Now go back to your browser (if you closed it, reopen it and go back to the page were we started all of this) and there are two things we are going to need to grab:
(1) The Date of the show
(2) The Title of the show
For times stake (mostly mine) I am going to skip explaining ALL of those fields, and just show you a screen-shot of what it should look like:
Ok, here is my advice:
Artist: Coast To Coast AM
Album Artist: Host for the show (ie: Art, George, Ian, etc)
Album: Date of show, plus title of show
Year: Year of show
Track OF Number: however many files make up the show -- this is usually between 14 and 21 files. Only put this into the second "Track Number" field.
Disk Number: 1 of 1
Genre: Speech (you can use something else, but "Speech" is considered the industry standard for talk-shows)
Remember Position: Yes
Skip When Shuffling: Yes
Comments: The URL of the page at C2C website. (totally optional)
Ok, got all that filled out... good!
Now press the "OK" button! iTunes will now proceed to update all of these files!
If all went well (and as expected) you should see something like this:
Ok, now the only major thing left to do is update the actual "Name" of each of our files. This will take a bit of manual labor...
First find the file that does not include a "_CLIP0X" in it - "X" being a number. This file is the very FIRST file of the show, so we will start with that one.
Right-mouse-click on it and press "Get Info", such as this:
What we need to do is change the title of this indivdual file, and the individual track number:
To something like this:
When you are all done with this... for all the files... it should look something like this:
Wow, guess what! You have now completed 99% of the work!!
The only thing left to do is a little house-cleaning...
Once again minimize all of your programs until you get back to your Desktop (or find the folder where you downloaded the .wma files at).
Highlight all of the .wma files and press "Delete" on your keyboard, and press the "Yes" button. This will delete the files you downloaded from C2C, which you no longer need!
IN CLOSING:
All right, you can now say you've completed the process! It's only taken about an hour of your life, but hey, you now have the Classic Shows in .mp3 format, with bumper music and all that good stuff! If you have any questions or problems just contact me.This methods also work on the daily .mp3 downloads, if you really, really feel like wasting your time -- just to get the bumper music. ;)
Likewise, the above work for nearly all of the talk show hosts that Clear Channel owns that offer mp3 downloads. (Rush Limbuagh, for example)
Sorry if there are major spelling errors or anything really screwed up in my instructions. Coast To Coast AM, is after all, life radio on reeaaallllly late at night, and I was tired when I started this.
If you found this helpful, please drop me a few bucks to show your thanks... the first edition of this tutorial took me 10 hours, this second version took me about 3 hours... and countless hours helping folks out!