Courtesy of PopCatcher

You tune in to your favourite oldies radio station and hear them playing Solomon King’s When We Were Young. You love this song because it brings back sweet memories, but not many people are still familiar with it and it is rarely played on the radio.

You want to record the song, so you quickly grab your MP3 recorder. You switch it on and press the record button. By the time it starts recording around 30 seconds have elapsed. You also record the noises you make when you press the buttons and place the recorder in front of the speakers.

And then, before the song is over, there comes the announcer’s blabber. Using a regular voice recorder is likely to result in too much garbage both at the beginning and end of a song. Audio editing software can help clip the beginning and ending of our recordings (if we still want to keep them), but this process can be tedious when more than one file is involved.

But now comes PopCatcher, an innovative company from Sweden led by CEO Jakob Berg. Last December, when attending a business event organised by the Swedish Trade Commission in Jakarta, in my goodie bag I was given a device called The Ripper - one of PopCatcher’s main products.

Too bad the name inevitably reminds us of the mysterious devil in London back in the late 19th century.

In computer lingo, to “rip” simply means to copy a piece of music and convert it to another format at the same time, most likely MP3.

The Ripper is a stereo radio receiver that looks similar to a clock radio we might find on our night table.

But this gadget is more than just a radio. It has the ability to recognise the announcer’s voice that is not part of a song and then automatically cuts it out. It also has the ability to differentiate between commercials and songs, too, editing out commercials and recording only music.

How does it do it? First, PopCatcher listens to the radio broadcast. A broadcast often consists of advertisements, announcements and music. PopCatcher learns to detect each of these types of audio. Then it skips the commercials and the announcements, and then saves the music in MP3 format. It is that simple.

To be able to distinguish between the unwanted commercials, dialogue and songs, we must first let PopCatcher spend between 12 and 48 hours listening to the radio station we have selected. During this learning phase, we should not change the station. If we do, the process will start over and the device will need another 12 to 48 hours to familiarise itself with a new station.

Once learning phase is complete, PopCatcher will begin recording all music played by the station and save it in its internal memory. It also adds fade-outs at the end of every song, so tracks do not end abruptly.

Now, what about the quality of the recordings? In my experience, while it was not exactly CD-quality, the resulting MP3 tracks are quite acceptable. It really depends on the quality of the FM reception in your area. The good news is that The Ripper can also be connected to Internet radio or an external music source via its line-in port.

When I tested The Ripper, however, some DJ voices still crept in. There is no way to adjust the sensitivity of the system, so we just have to erase tracks if we cannot tolerate chatter. On the other hand, the software is smart enough not to re-record songs that have already been captured.

The sound produced by the two stereo speakers is pleasant and strong enough. The biggest design flaw I have found with this device is the placement of the on-off switch, the headphone and line-in ports, which are all in the rear panel. I think these should have been put on the front or side panels. Also, the FM antenna cord is permanently fixed to the unit.

On top there are ports to dock a USB device, MP3 players, MicroSD and Memory Stick Pro. Plug them in, and the MP3 files will be transferred automatically. If we want to copy these files to an iPod, we need an adapter.

The internal memory is enough to store only up to 40 songs, after which it will record and erase tracks as it goes - a process it calls FIFO (first in, first out). To record song no. 41, for example, song no. 1 is erased. Another shortcoming is the fact the music files are named sequentially according to the order they are recorded in. It would be nice if PopCatcher was complemented with an Internet-based song identification service that could automatically give its files actual song names. Furthermore, since the device is designed specifically to rip music, we cannot use it to record talkshows or the like.

The Ripper is not likely to be available at any stores in Jakarta, but you could perhaps ask your relative or a friend in Europe to buy one for you. The price of the unit is around 100 euros ($124).

Most important is the innovation that has gone into The Ripper. The technology it uses, based on frequency analysis, can be licensed by other device makers. It can be embedded into gadgets such as mobile phones, GPS devices, microsystems and even car stereos.

PopCatcher also offers a Radio Ripping module that can be integrated into its devices. This Swedish company may eventually earn a lot just from royalties - a model Indonesia would benefit from: Invent technology, patent it in your name, license it out and enjoy healthy passive income.