Adding an Internet Radio Station to Foobar2000
You may mainly use Foobar2000 to play music from your personal music library, but it's also capable of streaming audio from Internet radio.
This is one of the advantages of using a PC based music server which is Internet connected.
Some stations broadcast but only allow access using a custom 'player' application.
But others broadcast using standard protocols and on published Internet addresses without requiring you to have a custom player app, and so can be accessed using Foobar2000.
See 'shoutcast' as one source for lists of Internet radio stations and their broadcasting addresses, which you can then add to your Foobar2000 setup. Or even easier, see 'xatworld radio search', based on shoutcast, which allows you to perform searches and find internet radio addresses.
To add an Internet radio streaming channel to a playlist, select the 'File>Add location' option in Foobar2000, then enter the radio station's Internet streaming address.
For example, in the above figure of the XatWorld radio search website, to add the Jazz and lounge station to Foobar2000, after tapping on its Get IP button, type the displayed address http://listen.shoutcast.com/jazzandloungestation into Foobar2000.
Since for an Internet radio streaming channel, there likely is no defined 'track length' (it's just streaming), if you start playback of one of those stations in Foobar2000 Copilot, the 'track position' slider control will not be visible on the 'Now Playing' screen.
In place of the 'track position' slider, you will see large digits displayed of elapsed seconds of play time as well the outline of a radio. Pressing the 'play/pause' button in Foobar2000 Copilot will start and stop streaming.
On Listening to Vinyl... some thoughts
Though I mostly play music thru my Foobar2000 PC based systems, I still have completely analog, turntable setups as well.
I think this gets back to my general belief that there often isn't just one 'answer', or only one way to approach or see things.
So I still listen to vinyl, but sometimes I do look at it as a high maintenance sort of relationship, but I maintain that relationship since when it is good, the positives outweigh the negatives.
When I listen to vinyl, there is just something about its 'clunky', slow interface that makes me slow down and put everything else in life on hold and eventually relax and unwind. Going thru the process of spinning up vinyl is like a ritual of sorts -like a therapeutic meditation...
With digital computer based systems, with search access to thousands of tracks, I can have a tendency to 'channel check' or bounce around, shift my focus...
With vinyl, it's more like I have to have a block of time to sit and enjoy an album in its entirety. I'm not going to go thru the hassle of picking up and setting down a turntable needle to bounce around tracks of an album... I'll accept it on its terms...
I'll sit and listen to an entire album, often just closing my eyes and feeling the music.
I'll commit my focus to just this one thing and nothing else...
I'll play an album from start to finish as the artist originally intended it to be heard, knowing that the artist or artists had taken care and thought in what tracks to place next to each other and how they wanted you to hear the entire album.
That it isn't just about one track but the totality of an album, more like listening to an entire concert versus a single song.
In an era where we are so 'instant' and so much in a hurry and can't focus more than 20 seconds, I find going thru the vinyl ritual, reprograms me to see life differently, to slow down and savor the moments more. It's a little like meeting a good friend for lunch, putting all calls on hold, and giving them your total undivided attention...