Record Tons of Free Music for Your IPod or MP3 Player

Internet radio stations are nothing new. If you like 80s music, jazz, the latest hits, or techno there are stations that cater to your tastes. Of course, the downside is you have to be at your computer to listen, right? Well, perhaps not. Experienced iPod and MP3 player users have long used a variety of techniques to record Internet radio so they can play it back in the car, while jogging, or at work where streaming audio isn't allowed.

There's plenty of software to accomplish this recording, but it does take some effort on your part to record stations. In addition, you computer has to be on for the duration of the recording and you consume your precious disk space. A new Web service that is currently in beta testing aims to change all that. The site is Chilirec and it touts itself as "Your Free Internet Recorder."

The Chilirec site allows you to create the usual user name and password. You select from their list of radio stations (unfortunately, you can't add your own stations) and that's it. Chilirec records every song on all the stations and makes them visible from your home page. And it will continue to do so until you tell it to stop (even if you log off Chilirec and shut your computer down). There are dozens of stations to choose from including well known Internet radio staples such as Club .977 and Sky.FM. There are also highly specialized channels like bluegrass, techno, and more.

Chilirec automatically trims the clips into individual tracks (like all programs that do this, you may have a little bit of overlap with the previous and/or next song) and tags them. Chilirec's slick flash-based interface lets you view your recordings by channel, artist, or create play lists. You can even play music right from your browser (or, since you can log on anywhere, any browser). Chilirec automatically hides duplicates on a particular channel. Of course, unless you download music, there's no space used on your PC's hard drive.

When you move a song to a play list, you can right click on the file and save it as an MP3. From there you can transfer it to a CD or your favorite iPod or music player. The Swedish-based company that created Chilirec asserts that Chilirec is legal since it is acting as a recording device. After all, if you keep your computer on you could do the same thing -- although recording 50 or 60 channels at once might overburden your Internet connection and PC.

The service is in beta testing, but what's not to like? The flash player works well and is intuitive. There's no software to install, update, or configure. Just pick your channels and then drop in from time to time to see what music is waiting for you to listen to or download.