Guide to AirPlay Recorder for Android

The doubleTwist AirPlay Recorder app allows you to save songs from an AirPlay streaming source for offline listening. The basic app is free and you can upgrade via an in-app purchase to get the best recording quality.

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1. Installation
2. Upgrading
3. Using AirPlay Recorder
4. Reinstalling and Misc Notes
5. Troubleshooting

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1. To install, launch the Play Store app on your Android device and search for "doubleTwist recorder". Tap on "INSTALL" and then "ACCEPT".

After installation, tap on "OPEN" to launch the app.


2. The basic app is free to use and will record in low quality 32 KBit/sec mode. To upgrade to high quality AAC VBR recording mode, you can tap the red or blue buttons to purchase an in-app upgrade.

After upgrading, the red and blue buttons will disappear and you will be recording in high quality mode.


3. To enter recording mode, tap on the big red circle and it will change to a white square to indicate that it's ready to record. Tap on the white square to exit recording mode.

Next, with the app in recording mode, please go to iTunes on your computer and click on the speaker selection icon next to the volume control. A list of Airplay devices will appear. If you do not want to listen on your computer while you are recording, you can select "dT Recorder ([DEVICE_NAME])". In this example, there are three available dT Recorders on the local network. Please note that the Recorder app does not provide a preview of what's being recorded so if you select this mode, there will be no audio on either the computer or the Android device.


To record on multiple devices or to listen while recording, please click on "Multiple" and activate the appropriate devices. While in this mode, if you leave the computer selected, you can listen to the song being streamed. The Recorder app will remain silent while recording.


Then with the devices selected, you can start streaming items from iTunes.


When AirPlay Recorder detects an incoming stream, it will display artwork and artist/song information while recording.


Songs are saved to the "Music" folder on your device, inside the "Recorder" folder. At this time, SD card support is not available. We are working to add this in a future release. Also, please note that only complete songs with 0% packet loss are saved. If the stream experiences any problems during recording, the song being recorded will be skipped and not saved to this folder.


The Music folder is automatically indexed by the Android Media Scan service so all of these files will added to the doubleTwist Music Player media library. You can then sync these files back to computers using AirSync.


4. As the high quality recording upgrade is an in-app purchase, it will not appear in the history of purchased apps in Google Play Store due to limitations in the Google Play Store infrastructure. To review your order history for in-app purchases, please visit the Google Wallet transaction log.

To reinstall after a factory reset or to install on another device, make sure that you are using the same account used to purchase the upgrade. Then install the app and it will automatically authenticate with our servers. Once authenticated, the high quality upgrade will automatically unlock. Make sure that your device has internet access.

Additional Notes:


1. Due to the nature of Airplay, recording are done in real time. A 4 minute song will take 4 minutes to record.
2. AirPlay Recorder listens for specific metadata that iTunes send over AirPlay before it starts recording. If you use another AirPlay app that doesn't send the appropriate metadata over AirPlay, AirPlay Recorder app will not start recording.
3. To ensure maximum WiFi performance, your device's screen will left on. We recommend recording with your device connected to a power source.
4. The minimum length of a recording is 45 seconds. Anything shorter will be skipped. A "Skipping (too short)" message will be shown.
5. Recordings can not start in the middle of a song nor can recordings be resumed. Pausing a song will cause the song to be skipped. A "Skipping (mid track)" message will be shown.
6. Duplicate detection is done by filename. A "Skipping (file exists)" message will be shown if the app detects a duplicate file.
7. Only sources that send the correct start time and stop time metadata information over AirPlay are supported. If the source does not send this needed information, a "Skipping (too short)" message will be displayed and the stream will not be saved. The QA/Dev team is investigating workarounds for sources that do not need the needed metadata information.
8. If you quit iTunes or stop streaming before the track is completed, the incomplete recording will be deleted. A "Skipping (cancelled)" message will be shown.

5. As Airplay uses WiFi, you will want to ensure that your Android device has a strong and stable connection to your wireless router. The best results will be obtained if your Android device is connected to your wireless router with a "Signal strength" of "Excellent" or "Very Good" and a "Link speed" of at least 30Mbps.

If possible, use a tool like WiFi Analyzer to view the wireless signals in your area. This will allow you to see sources of interference so you can set your wireless network to utilize the least used bands and channels (e.g. 5Ghz band and channels 136+140 when 2.4Ghz is crowded and channels below 100 are used by other 5Ghz devices).

If an intermittent or bad wireless connection causes missing/dropped packets, you can see a variety of status messages including:



1. Skipping (missing start): The beginning of the track was not detected.
2. Skipping (missing metadata): The name of the artist or song was not detected in the stream. Without proper metadata, the song will not be recorded.
3. Skipping (bad length): The duration of the track was not detected in the stream. Without knowing how long a track is, the recording can not be stopped properly.
4. Skipping (bad WiFi signal): Dropped packets were detected during the recording.