Recording XM On Tiger
Who Needs A MyFi?
28 July 2005 Justin Williams Skip to comments
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If you are an owner of a satellite radio receiver you may want to record some of your favorite radio shows. Justin Williams shows you how to use Rogue Amoeba's Audio Hijack Pro to record straight from the SkyFi to your Mac.
In my last tutorial, I showed you how you could stream XM Radio from a SkyFi2 to your Mac using a Griffin iMic and Rogue Amoeba’s freeware utility LineIn. At the end of the article, I put an informal survey out to the readers to see if there was interest in writing a continuation of the tutorial to cover how to record audio from the SkyFi2 and save it on your Mac.
I have received several comments on the original article as well as personal e-mails from people asking me to write this. Fear not, loyal reader, I have met your demands. In this tutorial I will show you how to record directly from SkyFi2, encode it as a mp3, export it to iTunes and synchronize it with your iPod. I will also cover how to set up a scheduled recording.
To do all of this we are going to need a few things. The first is Mac OS X Tiger. To export the audio to iTunes when a recording is finished we will be creating an Automator workflow. Automator harnesses the power of AppleScript, a long-standing Mac OS X technology, by making it accessible to all users via a drag-and-drop interface.
The other piece of software we will need is Rogue Amoeba’s Audio Hijack Pro. Audio Hijack Pro takes the hijacking function built into the LineIn tool and adds the ability to record audio from almost any source: iChat, Windows Media Player, Quicktime and, of course, your iMic. You can also use Audio Hijack Pro’s VST plug-ins to enhance your recorded audio. The application cost $32 and is worth every penny.
In terms of hardware, we are going to need our iMic connected to our XM receiver just like we set up in our last tutorial.
The Setup
The first thing we will need to do is create new playlist in iTunes. Open iTunes and go to File > New Playlist. Name the new playlist XM Radio. You can name it whatever you want. I just picked something simple. We can hide iTunes for now.
Next, we are going to open Automator and create our export Workflow. From the Library column on the far left, select iTunes, drag the Add Files to Playlist action to the workflow area. Select Existing Playlist and then pick the playlist you created earlier in iTunes (XM Radio if you are like me). Save the workflow as Add To XM Playlist in ~/Library/Workflows/Applications/Audio Hijack Pro. You will probably have to create those folders. We can now close Automator because the rest of our work will be in Audio Hijack Pro.
In Audio Hijack Pro open the preferences window and select Automatically launch Audio Hijack Pro to perform recordings. You’ll receive a warning that you need to start the application at least once each time you login to your account or restart your computer for the recording functionality to work. Also check Automatically wake From Sleep so that your Mac will wake up to run a scheduled recording.
I have a hard time remembering to launch an application once to be able to get a recording scheduler to register, so let’s automate it. Open the Mac OS X System Preferences and go to the Accounts preference pane. Click the Login Items tab and then add Audio Hijack Pro to the list of applications. Now we don’t have to remember to launch it. Mac OS X will do it for us!
Close out the System Preferences and go back to Audio Hijack Pro. The main window has a simple two-column interface. On the left is a source list with your recording bin, sessions and recording sources. The main area has different configuration options per selected source item. The first thing we will want to do is create a new session. Select Session > New from the menu bar. Select your new session and rename it to XM Radio.
At the bottom of the window, select the Input tab. For the Audio Source select Audio Device. Our input device will be the iMic and the output device will be Default System Output.
Switch to the recording tab and click the Hijack button. If you are hearing audio from your XM receiver, everything is working right so far and we can move on. Click Hijack again to turn off the audio. For audio format select your preferred recording format. I use AAC High, Bookmarkable because I tend to record Opie and Anthony and like to have it remember where I have stopped.
For the When Finished Recording option choose Select Other and navigate to where you saved your Automator workflow and select it. Set your ID3 tags to whatever you feel most comfortable with.
Finally, jump back to the Input tab and select Record. When you are done recording click the button again. Hop into iTunes and make sure you have a new recording in your XM Radio playlist. If you do, you are now capable of manually recording anything you want from XM.
Keep A Schedule
Manually recording is fine, but what if you don’t want to have to sit at the desk and ensure that your recording is going to run? Luckily, Audio Hijack Pro has a built-in scheduler that we can take advantage of. There is a scheduler under the input tab. Setting up a recording is self-explanatory. Pick your date and time.
You can’t have Audio Hijack Pro change the channel on your XM receiver, so if you want to schedule multiple recordings, you will have to remember to change the channel after each recording is over. When you want to record multiple shows, duplicate your XM Radio for each recording you want to schedule. We are duplicating the sessions so that we can manipulate the ID3 tags to meet our needs.
Assuming you have everything configured correctly, you should have fresh XM content ready to sync to your iPod every morning.
What Else?
Audio Hijack Pro can be used for even more than just recording from our XM receiver. If some of your favorite non-XM shows have an Internet audio stream, you can configure it to be recorded as well. For example, I scheduled the Jim Rome show to be recorded every morning through a Windows Media stream.
If you have any questions or other ideas for how to integrate XM and the Mac, leave them in the comments.
Justin Williams is founder and chief author for MacZealots. He switched to the Mac almost five years ago hasn't looked back since. When not blogging or coding, you can find him watching copious amounts of TV. Justin can be reached at
Reader Comments (7)
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#1) On July 29, 2005 12:13 AM
a tremendous tutorial for the pests. you are an asset to the O&A army. however, the genre of the recording really should be ‘cringe radio.’ that is all.
#2) On July 30, 2005 1:27 PM
way too complicated. every XM subscription comes with a free XMOnline account. all you need to do is open the online XM player on your mac and record the mac audio as described in this tutorial. No SkyFi required!!!
#3) On July 30, 2005 3:17 PM
a) how is it anymore complicated than opening the online radio if you have already completed the first tutorial?
b) As I have said before, online doesn’t have all the talk channels because XM isn’t licensed for it.
#4) On August 15, 2005 12:55 AM
Steve, good point about XMO. Justin, cool tip, but good point about talk not available with XMO. Niether are sports (MLB, NASCAR, etc…) . Another thing about XMO, at least for me, is it bumps me off for “not being active”. Not sure how active one’s supposed to get with online radio, but after an hour, XMO craps out. I’ve also noticed that XMO via Safari requires leaving the window open. Hide the window and the stream stops. XMO and Firefox works better. Hiding window is fine but buffering streams can last a lifetime at times. Your milage may vary. So yes, you can just use XMO, but if you’re wanting to listen to everything on XM, and record it, Justin is on to something.
#5) On September 3, 2005 3:32 PM
Does anyone have a way to use automator to automatically splice songs recorded in the manner described in this tutorial and add the song info before storing them individually in itunes? Just started working with automator and XM/Hijack Pro, so I may stumble on a solution myself. Just don’t want to reinvent someone else’s wheel.
#6) On February 23, 2006 12:49 AM
As a pest I have tried desperately to get ahold of O&A XM material without bowing to audiofile or whatever XMs MP3 site is called. I’m a poor college student and this article was extremely helpful. This is the first time I’ve read a MacZealot article. It’s def a must from now on. I will pass on the good word Justin, thanks.
#7) On March 15, 2006 6:47 PM
Why couldnt you just a double male plug out the SKY FY and record it with Garage Band? Then put it in you I tunes?
Ekman