How To Timeshift Tracks From Pandora.com

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Since I recently discovered pandora.com I've been absoluetly amazed by the music collection they play according to your preferences and I've been thinking that it should be possible to timeshift songs for later listening. So I started looking around the Internet and came across 3 major choices:

Manual

3tunes

Audiostream recorders

Manual

The pandora.com app stores the music files in a folder called plugtmp or plugtmp-# where # is a number. The location of the folder depends on where your browser stores its cache. For Firefox user who haven't changed the default setting it would be "C:\Documents and Settings\username\Local Settings\Temp". Just go to Start -> Run type %temp% and hit enter, this will open up the folder.

 

The songs are stored as files with the name access-#, # beeing a number with the second to highest number the currently playing song. All you have to do is copy the file and rename it to yourtitel.mp3 and there you go! You'll have to do this while pandora is open since it automatically empties the plugtmp folder open closing of the application.

 

This method works great if you just want to once-in-a-while save a song, of course manually tagging it can be a real pain if you prefer to more regularly timeshift a few pieces.

 

3tunes

3tunes is an app specifically written for recording tracks of pandora.com. It is still in early stages of development and has a few bugs, although the latest release has made tremendous improvements. If you hear a good song it is easy to just start 3tunes and let the application record and tag the song for you after it finished playing. Although handy for single songs, it's main advantage lies in timeshifting songs in a row. Say you're on dialup and want to listen to pandora: You set pandora to your favorite station before you go to bed, fire up 3tunes and leave both running overnight. In the morning you'll be able to listen to all the songs pandora played without nasty lags interrupting your listening pleasures.

Audiostream recorders

Basically any program which lets you record audistreams in realtime will allow you to record the songs from pandora.com. Their advantage is that they let you record any audiostream, which means they are not limited to pandora but can record virtually everthing which exits your speakers. Good recorders, such as Replay Music (Shareware) will also automatically tag most of your songs if it can identify them.

 

Just my 5 cents on how to get even more out of pandora.com. I hope this helps you and remember if you enjoy their service support them by getting a paid subscription!