Music Recorder by Leawo Review:

Do you remember in the 1980s when you would spend hours waiting for your favorite song to come on the radio just so you could record it on cassette? Now, in the world of streaming audio, it’s nearly impossible to capture those popular tunes unless you have the help of certain apps like Music Recorder by Leawo.

Music Recorder is an audio recorder designed to easily record computer sound streams through microphone audio and audio input devices so that you have high-quality recordings of any audio that comes from your Mac. You can record audio of any length, capture voice memos, or even sound effects for any project. Leawo labels this app, “The missing recorder for your Mac.”

But, is it?

After I installed the app, I started it up and found a very familiar interface. It does look a bit like iTunes, but with different controls. At first, I didn’t understand why my recordings were kicking out after a few seconds. As it turns out, there is a setting in the preferences menu under control that, by default, automatically splits tracks when there is silence for more than a predetermined amount of time. I would suggest unchecking that box so that your recordings continue until you manually tell it to stop.

To test the recording quality, I started up a stream from iTunes Radio and started a recording. When I played the recording back, I noticed the recording sounds muffled. Now, this is because I’m using the internal, built-in microphone and the program only records what it can hear. Based off of the instructions provided and the tutorials online the process I followed was correct.

I was actually a little disappointed to find that the version I have is different from the version being sold through the developer’s website. The developer’s website shows that users should have access to choose either Built-in Audio or to Record Computer Audio. If I had the Record Computer Audio option, I could record the audio streaming from my computer more clearly and without any distortion.

Aside from this difference, the program works pretty well as described by the developer. The key features include:

1. Record computer sound stream (microphone audio and audio input device).
2. Playback your recording.
3. Edit your own recording audio information (such as adding album cover, artist)
4. Support to set a recording schedule.
5. Support one-click operation to add recorded audios to iTunes.

Despite the issues I had with this app, I like the concept of it and think that if the developer can align the two versions better, it would be a wonderful addition to my software library.

Music Recorder for Mac retails for $19.99.

For more information, visit leawo.org/music-recorder-mac.

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Originally published at www.macsources.com on April 13, 2015.