14 DAY TRIAL // TapinRadio is no ordinary radio player. What makes it stand apart is the huge collection of radio stations from all over the world neatly categorized by region, genre or radio network and its recording capabilities.
Radio is the media technology that has adapted very well to the Internet and benefited from it as sound no longer traveled as much as the frequency permitted, but went further, wherever the Internet connection took it.
Installing TapinRadio was uneventful in our case and no pushing of unwanted software hindered the process. Main application window is as simple as can be, presenting only the essential options to the user, meaning play, stop, record buttons and a search function to find the radio station you want. Volume can also be adjusted or cut off completely from the main view.
In order to start listening to a station you have to tap into the presets section and pick your sound. Another way to start the music is to punch in a query in the search field. This does not have to be a specific radio station name as the application will also return results for typing in genre or country.
Once you start playing a radio station TapinRadio automatically displays specific information on it: genre, stream link, sound quality, name of the playing song and its duration (if sent by the station). You can start taping the song at any time by hitting the “Record” button available in the main screen.
The best part is that you do not have to keep track of the amount of time the program spends recording as it will automatically split the songs as they change. This way you don’t have to trim the audio files for loose ends.
In the lower right hand part of the application window TapinRadio displays the amount of time it has been playing the current radio station as well as the time the current song has been playing (when a new song starts this timer will reset itself).
By default all recordings are being stored in the “Music” folder, but you can change this location to one you feel more comfortable with. TapinRadio makes it easy for you to keep tabs on the taped songs and the radios they’ve been snatched from by placing them in folders named by the radio station and naming them as they are streamed online.
At the moment of the review the list of presets is quite large, exceeding 600, with new entries being added every day. These make for a humongous number of radio stations; to get an idea on the amount, only America and Europe alone add some 12,408 stations. Not all of them work, but you’ve got plenty to choose from.
You can increase their number by adding your own radio URLs. Amazingly enough, with the plethora of stations available, we still managed to find some international radios that were not available among the presets.
On the downside, navigating the presets is not a comfortable activity. In plenty of cases the list of radios would take over the entire desktop screen making returning to a different choice impossible.
The features of TapinRadio do not end with the huge number of radio stations provided. The application comes with a sleep timer function which allows you to stop it after a user-defined period of time and trigger an action such as computer shutdown, putting it to sleep, or hibernate.
Configuration panel is not a tough one, making available easy to understand options, for any sort of user. General settings section lets you control the balloon tips (they show the name of the artist and the song as they change), define the interval for automatic check for new presets.
However, you get your say about how the application records the music for you as well. You can change the storage folder, the encoding bitrate or define the stream types you want recorded in raw format (MP3, WMA, AAC or OGG). Additionally, there is an option to split the tracks after a user defined number of minutes. It is recommended to use the song buffer for recording.
Under “Advanced” tab there is the possibility to adjust the buffer size and the number of retries in case of connection timeouts.
Lack of hotkey support could also improve the way TapinRadio is controlled, especially when it is minimized to tray. Browsing the presets is not a pleasant task as in some cases the amount of radio stations available in a preset covers the entire desktop screen. Presets are not comfortable to browse and there is no documentation to appeal to for answers to any sort of question you may have. However, despite these small snags, TapinRadio is a pretty cool application that will offer access to thousands of radio stations.
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