How To Record Streaming Audio in Ubuntu Linux

This is a common question asked by many Ubuntu users. How to record Skype call in Ubuntu? How to record music from streaming internet radio in Ubuntu? How to record audio in Ubuntu? In this article, we’ll see a nice app named “Audio Recorder” that you can use to record any sort of audio in Ubuntu 14.04 (and other versions) as well as other distributions such as Linux Mint.

Audio Recorder is the revamped version of Gnome applet ‘Audio Rec’. It is an easy to use but extremely powerful app that caters to all of your audio recording needs in Ubuntu Unity and Gnome 3. Let’s take a look at the features of Audio Recorder.

Features of Audio Recorder:

Records all kind of sound from all kind of sources:

Audio Recorder records all kind of sound your computer makes. It records audio played through your system’s soundcard, microphones, browsers, webcams and more. In other words; it records even if your system sneezes (given that you want to record it). It gives you the option of selecting the recording device such as webcam, microphone, Skype etc.

To record the streaming music, select the appropriate source. For example, if you are playing streaming radio in Rhythmbox then select Rythmbox.

Record at your own convenience:

Audio Recorder also gives you the option of setting timer. You can start, stop or pause recording at a given clock time or at a defined interval of time. You can also set the limit on the recorded file size. Moreover, you can choose to pause (and stop) when their is no audio (or very low sound) and resume it when sound comes back. All you have to do is to edit the text in the Timer panel. Comment out the “rules” that you don’t want to apply and edit the one as per your requirement.

Save the recorded music file in various file format:

Another gem. You can save the recorded file in your favourite file format. Supported type of file format are OGG audio, Flac, MP3, SPX and WAV. You can choose whichever format you prefer. For a good quality recording, MP3 is ideal. The saved files are stored in ~/Audio i.e. Home-><Username> directory.

How to install Audio Recorder in Ubuntu based Linux distributions:

You can use a PPA to install Audio Recorder in Ubuntu and Linux Mint. Use the following commands in terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T):

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:audio-recorder/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install audio-recorder

Alternatively, you can download the source code from launchpad. Once installed, you can start the application from Unity Dash.

How good is Audio Recorder?

I used Audio Recorder in Ubuntu 14.04 to record the music played on YouTube. I saved a 2 minute video in MP3 format that took 934 KB of space. But I must stay I was not expecting the recorded sound quality to be so good. Honestly, I could not distinguish it from the original YouTube song.

So, if you looking for a way to record sound in Ubuntu, Audio Recorder is definitely one of the must-have Linux applications for all your audio recording needs. How do you find Audio Recorder? Do let me know. :)