Every now and then some of the people I follow on Soundcloud will upload a track that will never be officially released as a free or purchasable download, and my Interent streaming isn't always reliable (I'm thinking of when I'm at work, grrr). This means that best option for audio playback will come from a downloaded version of the source.
So, I figured that anything that streams through my web browser must be downloaded or cached somewhere on my machine, meaning that if I can find the data, then I should be able to save that track. This post will be a little tutorial showing you how to do the same using nothing other than Firefox 4 and Finder on my Mac (I'm sure Windows Explorer will do much the same job).
1 - Prep work
First thing to do, in order to make this easy, is I recommend emptying your Firefox browser cache:
2 - Pick your tune
Navigate your way to the appropriate tune you are after on Soundcloud and play it. Your browser will cache the data.
3 - Locate the cache
Open another Tab (ctrl/cmd+T) and in the URL field type: about:cache and hit enter. Under the header "Disk cache device" you should see your Cache Directory where the streamed tune will have been cached. Navigate your way to the cache folders with Finder/Explorer (Mac tip: copy the text and in Finder hit shift+cmd+g and paste the text to get there direct).
4 - Find the recently used folders
Sort your folders by the date they were last modified and then check each of the subfolders within the cache for data files. Some of the cache folders will be empty thanks to the prep work we did in step 1, making this a relatively quick exercise. Providing you haven't used your browser to do lots of searches, you should see very few files, but their filenames will all be a mixture of random numbers and letters. The largest one you find is likely to be the file you are after. Highlight it, and copy the file your desktop
5 - Convert the file
What you need to do now is merely alter the file extension to include .mp3 and you should be done. You can also rename the file to something more memorable.
What you should be left with is a 128 kbps mp3 file of the tune that the SoundCloud artist didn't want you to have. If you can live with this ethical quandary then fine. If not, please delete the tune and wait for the day it is officially released. Obviously, 128 kbps is a terribly low bitrate and should never be played through a decent audio setup for fear of compression shame, but it will be okay for most portable media players until an official release becomes available (which you should buy if you love it so much).
#nb This should be achievable in other browsers like Google Chrome too.
So, I figured that anything that streams through my web browser must be downloaded or cached somewhere on my machine, meaning that if I can find the data, then I should be able to save that track. This post will be a little tutorial showing you how to do the same using nothing other than Firefox 4 and Finder on my Mac (I'm sure Windows Explorer will do much the same job).
1 - Prep work
First thing to do, in order to make this easy, is I recommend emptying your Firefox browser cache:
Firefox -> Preferences -> Advanced -> Network -> Offline Storage -> Clear Now
Navigate your way to the appropriate tune you are after on Soundcloud and play it. Your browser will cache the data.
3 - Locate the cache
Open another Tab (ctrl/cmd+T) and in the URL field type: about:cache and hit enter. Under the header "Disk cache device" you should see your Cache Directory where the streamed tune will have been cached. Navigate your way to the cache folders with Finder/Explorer (Mac tip: copy the text and in Finder hit shift+cmd+g and paste the text to get there direct).
4 - Find the recently used folders
Sort your folders by the date they were last modified and then check each of the subfolders within the cache for data files. Some of the cache folders will be empty thanks to the prep work we did in step 1, making this a relatively quick exercise. Providing you haven't used your browser to do lots of searches, you should see very few files, but their filenames will all be a mixture of random numbers and letters. The largest one you find is likely to be the file you are after. Highlight it, and copy the file your desktop
5 - Convert the file
What you need to do now is merely alter the file extension to include .mp3 and you should be done. You can also rename the file to something more memorable.
What you should be left with is a 128 kbps mp3 file of the tune that the SoundCloud artist didn't want you to have. If you can live with this ethical quandary then fine. If not, please delete the tune and wait for the day it is officially released. Obviously, 128 kbps is a terribly low bitrate and should never be played through a decent audio setup for fear of compression shame, but it will be okay for most portable media players until an official release becomes available (which you should buy if you love it so much).
#nb This should be achievable in other browsers like Google Chrome too.
