Beatstrab

Beatstrab is an audio recorder for music albums, providing you with a simple method of creating digital copies of your old cassettes, vinyl discs or audio CDs. Relying on a powerful silence detection algorithm, it can automatically identify pauses between tracks and start recording to a new output file, so as to create an exact copy of the music album.

Using Beatstrab is not difficult at all, especially since there are clear instructions available. You start by searching for the desired artist using the dedicated field in the main window of the application. Select the artist name and a list of all the available albums is displayed, while the tracklist is shown in a separate pane.

In order for Beatstrab to be able to correctly record each track, it is important that you change the order of the songs and their lengths to match the ones on your album. Silence between tracks tells the application that a new track is about to begin.

To start recording, you only have to press the designated button and then start playing your album. The recording status of each song is displayed in the main window and Beatstrab enables you to listen to the recordings before actually creating the backup. It is advisable that you disable the system sounds before recording.

There are multiple file formats Beatstrab can record to, such as WAV, OGG, MP3 or WAVPACK. The output songs are automatically saved to a user-defined location, having the track number, artist and title included in their name. The tags are downloaded from an online source, so it is unlikely that they are incorrect.

Beatstrab is an interesting album recording application that can help you create copies of your albums to enjoy on your computer. It is capable of automatically detecting song shifts, so you don't have to record a song at a time. Unfortunately, it cannot recognize a playing song, so it is very important that you specify the correct playback order and duration.