Internet radio production - advice needed

Partizan

Dear all,

I hope I am in the right place so I would be grateful for any advice. I run an internet radio station, Radio DBSC - http://www.ustream.tv/channel/radio-dbsc

We provide livestream radio match commentary of Waterford United (League of Ireland) games and we have had an amazing response so far. For the 2013 season which begins in March, we intend to expand and improve both the frequency and quality of our coverage. We intend to improve sound quality as well play music during intervals in order to kill dead time that occurs during half time which can cause listeners to switch off. For music I have downloaded Zara Radio software and have transfered my music files over, however I just cannot play music over my ustream broadcast. A friend of mine has recommended that I get the Novation Nio mixer which would enable me to 'hijack' the ustream signal in playing my music and providing better quality sound - http://www.musicradar.com/gear/tech/computers-software/peripherals/input-devices/audio-interfaces/nio-2l4-121832

I am not a music producer myself. We are just a couple of amateurs providing a much needed service for football fans who cant make our games but we would be grateful for any advice that would improve both quantity and quality of our service. Any music/tech engineers out there who can help?

Cheers.

maccored

web radio is usually run on shoutcast (http://www.shoutcast.com/broadcast-tools) or some such similar server software connected to using a client such as SAM broadcaster or Nicecast.

Partizan

maccored wrote: »

web radio is usually run on shoutcast (http://www.shoutcast.com/broadcast-tools) or some such similar server software connected to using a client such as SAM broadcaster or Nicecast.

Thanks.

I will be doing live broadcasts so there should be no problem with this? So there is no need to buy a mixer to broadcast music and improve sound quality?

maccored

In SAM broadcaster you generally dont need a mixer as you can lined up music and cut to live radio (and also to things like skype). Nicecast just does broadcasting so if Im using that, I normally run a mixer with adverts and music coming from separate sources mixed with with the mic and then all running to nicecast. You need to run a shoutcast server though, or pay money to rent usage on someone elses shoutcast server.

Partizan

maccored wrote: »

In SAM broadcaster you generally dont need a mixer as you can lined up music and cut to live radio (and also to things like skype). Nicecast just does broadcasting so if Im using that, I normally run a mixer with adverts and music coming from separate sources mixed with with the mic and then all running to nicecast. You need to run a shoutcast server though, or pay money to rent usage on someone elses shoutcast server.

Thanks a mill for advice. I will be meeting some lads on Friday night who are sound engineers and work on a radio station and will show them this thread for their input.

GTE

Hello,

I ran an Icecast and SAM based internet radio station for a year and a half at University. The simplest way to do things is to modularise the internet radio broadcast machine.

This post is more orientated you moving from ustream to an internet radio provider like I am more used to but the principles of steps 1 through to 5 are the same however you will be using the Ustream server when you reach step 3 so you can ignore the rest really.


Modules of an internet radio setup
Presenter & Music ---> Mixer ---> Encoder ---> Server ---> Listener

1) Presenter and Music

Presenter and music are two separate sources which could be routed into a small mixer. You will need a computer to host the music software. SAM is great however you can get away with a playlist on Windows Media Player, Mediamonkey or iTunes for a nice simple operation like your own. I have not used what you have downloaded, it could be quite good.

SAM allows you to add jingles, adverts and also bed music in a much more presenter friendly format. SAM allows you to program when you want a jingle or advert (for the next match or even local businesses if you start kicking booty). SAM can also be programmed to play files at specific times so if you ever wanted to create a pre-recorded show like a weekly league review you could do that and then tell SAM to play it at a certain time.

You can see how powerful things can get here.

2) Mixer
Regardless of what your music sources are, the music computer and any presenter microphones can be run into a small mixer. This allows you to have direct physical control when doing a live broadcast. You can play some music and have that as backing music to you speaking at certain times for instance (bed music).

Little fellows similar to the below would be able to take the stereo music computer signal on channel 5/6 and 4 presenter microphones on channels 1 - 4 (possible expansion of live or pre-recorded presenters/guests).


3) Encoder PC
This is a computer which runs software which takes the audio coming from the mixer and then sends it out via the internet to an Icecast or Shoutcast server or in your case, ustream.
I have never used ustream but it looks like its fairly simple and runs in a similar way.

All the encoder PC is doing is taking something and directing it somewhere else so you can get away with a cheap or free Pentium 4 Windows XP machine for instance.


4) Server
This is the bit you can have little control over. The server is what people actually log on to to listen. People go to your ustream page to listen and listen off ustream servers.

The station I worked at was lucky as we had our University host our stream which gave us huge potential for listeners with no limits. Ustream is a third party server which could have some sort of limits in terms of max listener count. That is a consideration for the future though you know more about ustream than I.

5) Then the listener hears your stream. This is handled by Ustream.

studiorat

Check this out : http://www.mixxx.org/download/

This can connect to a Shoutcast or Icecast server. Set up playlists or broadcast live...

Partizan

Many thanks to all for contributing. I have lots of different ideas to show the engineers tonight.

Partizan

Hi all,

Just an update. I bought a USB 4 channel mixer for €80 along with the adapters. http://www.alesis.com/multimix4usb

I hooked everything up and ran a test broadcast on Ustream. However the quality of sound was bad and the annoying ads every 15 minutes has persuaded me to go for shoutcast. I will run the mixer through shoutcast instead of ustream. It costs about €30 a month but I think its worth it. For music I downloaded Zara Radio which is very similar to SAM.

DT100

What about the free shoutcast????

Partizan

DT100 wrote: »

What about the free shoutcast????

where?

DT100

go to listen2myradio.com and sign up for free shoutcast account..

studiorat

That has Ads also.

You could look at hosting your own server but you'll still end up paying fees to someone to have your address forwarded to your server.

Partizan

studiorat wrote: »

That has Ads also.

You could look at hosting your own server but you'll still end up paying fees to someone to have your address forwarded to your server.

I got a quote for €30 a month from shoutcast. First month is half price.