Live broadcasts

I'm glad you asked about something I've been wondering about. It is my impression there's a lot of automation wherein pre-recorded material is scheduled for streaming and broadcasting.

I've rigged my system during experiments so that live streaming was achieved, but then I reverted to the playlist so that I could be free to do something else.

The only "live" programming I carry comes from ruleoflawradio.com where the folks in Austin,Texas, put out mostly live programs except for re-runs on holidays.

Other programs are available live, but the times don't match with my convenience, so I use their podcasts later during the day.

The only "live" at the station audio I do is very infrequent, the occasional comment or PSA. The closest I've been to a live show was recent experiments with HamSphere. Since it was on the fly, I wasn't using automation and had to announce. It was great fun because I could "see" who was listening and direct my comments to each person.

I do carry two "live streams", The Radio Dan show and The Kevin Smith Show. Zara Radio automation picks them up on a schedule.

As a one man station, I have tested broadcasting from the field using streaming over the internet. Zara Radio automation is setup for the scheduled live stream. Using a laptop where an internet connection is available I plug my audio into it and using ShoutCast stream it back to the station. If you are behind a firewall that you can't open, ShoutCast can't "see" you but the stream still goes out.

Personally, I think if a phone line were available I'd setup a phone-patch. There's no latency or drop-out problems. Without using a CODEC the frequency response wouldn't be great but most AM radios have limited response anyway. And, with a little assistance music could be played at the station using the phone line for voice only.

Ok, Ok, I felt guilty about not doing enough live stuf. So, tonight-I went live Coast to Coast and World Wide.

I carry the RADIO DAN SHOW and tonight, I called in and spoke with Dan and Intern Jessica. I even recorded it for proof.

Radio Dan is LIVE Sunday through Thursday at 8:00 pm Eastern time. You can find him at The Radio Dan Show. I am ID'd as an affiliate on his show.

I actually use the internet all the time anyway, because I have a real studio that won't fit on my boat, where (most of ya'all know) the TX is.

I was wondering because I do quite a bit of live and live-remote work. I pretty much handle it the same way I would do a live recording session, except for the broadcaster/internet connection (I use Clearwire wireless) ... for rock music I bring a few studio mics for guitar cabs, drum overheads, and the rest from whatever mixer is on stage channels routed to subgroups so I can have my own mix. For other stuff I like my Tascam DP-008 because the stereo mics sound so good.

What I'm looking for, though, is a really good quality portable (battery-powered) multi-channel mixer. I've done my homework, but I'm not very happy with what I've seen and heard so far. Any pointers?

I'm looking forward to even more live stuff ... events and interviews, call-in shows, etc.

Ken, during the recent past I also worked in professional audio and my biggest peeve was the lack of what I prefer to call a "minimal" mixer, that simply mixed. The only add-ons I wanted were at the front end, adjustable pads to compensate for the wide output velocities of different microphones and different applications (i.e., brass is loud, maybe a flute might be very soft). Also balanced in and out was desired. But ALL the mixers are crammed with all kinds of EQ knobs that mostly get mis-set by accident or by an operator who wants all bass. I did not find the right mixer at that time.

Now in my truly minimalist radio station I have a Radio Shack 32-2056 Mixer ($40) which is very basic. four-channels mono and two channels stereo, unbalanced. I added my own pads and matching transformers and love it for voice. It would sound good for music too, but it would take an active engineer to carefully watch input velocities and clipping. It also mixes line levels.

If Radio Shack knew it, they could promote this mixer for on-line radio and probably part 15 stations too, but I think their focus is on tiny telephone devices.

I'm not seeing good reviews about the RatShack unit. Seem to be complaints about noise. Also, I don't see any XLR inputs ... I don't own any viable hiZ mics, The lowend mics I have are Shure SM57s and SM58s, except for a trio of AT condensers I got on sale, which make good drum OHs. The rest are higher-end ribbons and condensers. All are lowZ. I have both types of transformers, but they'e bulky and involve extra connections, which I avoid like a plague in the field.

I might settle for a Soundcraft Notepad 102, about $100 at any of the usual outlets, which is in the ballpark, I think. But I have yet to hear one ...

Ken, the reviews are about right and so are you. By adding my own XLR and matching transformers I indeed have a batch of junk plus little boxes with level pads. Since I'm mono AM voice only I forget that with music the mixer noise level would show up.

But I stand by my belief that this mixer is good for simple streaming and broadcasting where audiophile quality isn't the objective.

A lot of the top engineers build low-noise pre-amps and I knew one who designed and built his own mixer, but that's a huge long-lasting project that cannot be done in one night.

It is peculiar that with so much good equipment out there it's so hard to find the right mixer.

I have a ratshack 4 channel stereo mixer with a XLR input for the mic and a phono input for a 2nd mic, it works pretty good, havent had too many problems with it,
occasionally the right side of the audio will drop out, but its not that frequent.
Its a pretty good mixer, at least I think so. http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=3497025

I do a LOT of live sports broadcasting online ...

I use a phone patch into a third-party vendor, which creates the web stream (my gear: JK Audio Remote Mix 4, which has both landline support and a Bluetooth connection to the cell phone if I need it; or JK Audio RemoteMix 3, which can handle analong landlines only).

There are a few other ways around it. A cheap Behringer mixer with a JK Audio Daptor Three (for Bluetooth) also works for cellular voice.

For data, there's a lot of ways you can go. Run your board (again, cheap Behringer mixer would do) into your Internet-connected computer, use streaming software, and then put the URL into Zara or your automation software into your TX.

I use a Behringer Eurorack UB802. It has 2 mono inputs that support 1/4" plugs or XLR with phantom power, 2 stereo line level inputs, effects loop, tape in/out, control room feed, headphone and main L/R outs. All four channels have 3 band parametric eq , L/R pan, level and effects loop send.

Sounds like a lot in a little box but I bought it at Amazon on sale for $30. For a portable mixer it sounds OK.

As for the phone-patch, KDX Radio asked if I would like to be on the next Low Power Hour show. So that I could send decent audio along with some of my station audio, I cobbled together a make-shift phone-patch.

The basic component required for that is a hybrid transformer. That device (which can be a transformer or the electronic equivalent) allows converting the 2 wire telephone line into a 4 wire connection which separates the audio into outgoing and incomming. This makes it much easier to hear the caller and your program while wearing headphones plugged into the mixer.

Since every telephone already has a hybrid circuit in it, it is simple enough to feed program audio to the handset microphone connection and the callers audio into a mixer input using the handset connection.

The handset is disconnected from the telephone and using 1:1 audio isolation transformers the mixer input and output are connected to the appropriate earphone/microphone wires of the handset cord. Careful level adjustment prevents feedback.

That's a really low budget phone-patch. We'll find out how it works when KDX Radio makes the CALL!

There certainly are a bunch of solutions, and I thank everyone for comments.

"It is peculiar that with so much good equipment out there it's so hard to find the right mixer."

Not really. When I do live broadcasts of music, I also usually record ... so it has to be high quality for several reasons. For announcing sports by myself, I generally just plug a headset/mic into the computer and run it at 64kbps. But for music, I double the bit rate at least for archiving, and sometimes I take the audio out from a separate recorder, which gets its input from another mixer. That 'other mixer' has to be compact, battery powered, and highest quality I can afford.