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Okay guys, here is a serious question and I need a method that works.
I have seen that most Internet radio stations use an automated software package and have a computer hard drive filled with music files, to which the automated program plays random songs, or the ‘on air’ DJ selects and plays the songs directly off a hard drive through the manual setting of the automated software.
I do not wish to do things this way.
I want my music, which will be played off of vinyl records or cassettes, to pass through my hardware audio processing equipment and feed into a computer’s line in or microphone jack and then have that digital audio stream feed to an on-line Internet radio station server such as myradiostream.com.
Everything I hear about Internet radio is either Icecast or nextcast etc. But those require software like SAM or Radio DJ ect. which brings me back to being stuck playing music files off of my computer hard drive again.
I want to be able to use automation software when the studio is unmanned, however, I also want to be able to stream the music right off a vinyl record and have my live on mic announcements to come from the microphone hooked up to my mixer board, not a microphone hooked up to the computer.
If my question is confusing anyone with the way I have worded it, please ask me for more details.
The last piece of equipment that would be in my audio feed would be a Behringer Untramizer Pro DSP1424P, that output would most likely be fed into the computer’s Line In-put or mic input of the sound card. That computer would be the one that would be putting the audio on the Internet to a server. I have an account already set up for MyRadioStream.com I just need some advice on how to get my audio on line without having to resort to using programs such as SAM or Radio DJ ect. and being stuck using music files stored on a hard drive.
Bruce.
Total posts : 45366Winamp has a “line In” plug in if you surf around you can find it. Then use the DSP for streaming. Another soulution is RadioBoss software. Does about everything including Line In. Lastly Good Old Live365 software allows Live Broadcasting as well.
Total posts : 45366I’m not sure if you’re asking how to get the audio onto a stream or how to get the record player into the computer to stream.
If everything is running through your mixer; microphones, record player, cd player, etc. then all you need to do is, as you said, feed your mixer output into either the mic or line input of your sound card. Using the mic input you may have to pad the signal as it may be to hot for the mic input.
From there, I use BUTT and Shoutcast server. With this I can host the stream myself. I also use BUTT and a free host called Listen2MyRadio.com. I’m playing Indie on my personal station so I don’t have to worry about royalties. Our LPFM is covered for royalties and is streaming on the free host at WCFI FM 96.1 if you’d like to hear the result.
This setup works live off the board or you can run automation. I use ZaraRadio.
So what’s BUTT – a simple little streaming source program. It picks up the audio from the soundcard input and generates the source stream. From there the Shoutcast server (be it my local Shoutcast server or the free host) sends it on its way over the Internet.
BUTT is a free download, just Google “Broadcast Using This Tool” and it should come up.
Total posts : 45366Note: If you want the display of the listener’s player or if your worried about copyright (which My Radio Stream’s Server is Outside the USA and may not fall into the copyright cops) you would have to sit there and type each song in as it plays. Like AC/DC – Highway to Hell as soon as the song plays. Otherwise your listeners won’t see the song playing and if your using StreamLicensing they can’t get the metadata to make you legal. If you only have a few listeners on MyRadioStream or Listen2MyRadio you may be ok so long as you chose the UK servers sine the RIAA has no jurisdiction in the UK or outside the USA. I know plenty who do this and who have been happily broadcasting for years without any hassle. Its still a little gray in that area. If you want to automate your metadata you have no other choice but to use a USB turntable and digitize every song one by one and then you have to use a tagging tool or Winamp, but you’ll have the task of tagging each song you digitize. Track number, Song Name, Artist Name, Album, Genre. Even NextKast has the line in for a mixer as well but to get the metadata you would need to type each song, or using the USB turntable digitize every song and tag it (get ready for 6-8 months of sun up to sun down work to get this done). If you still want to go the turntable route I guess you could just not worry about the metadata and go with an off shore server like Listen2MyRadio or My Radio Stream as that is why a lot of Internet Radio broadcasters use it and have for many years to avoid the USA’s sheer greed and the technical abuse it would take to follow every USA law on the net.
Total posts : 45366BUTT will send the metadata but as you stated it would need to be input manually.
BUTT will accomodate both automatic and manual updating.
Running ZaraRadio, the stream on Listen2MyRadio will display the song info.
Total posts : 45366Many good suggestions have been made in this thread, among those was John Druid Hills WDCX mention of Winamp LineIn Plugin.
http://home.hccnet.nl/th.v.d.gronde/
I use the LineIn Plugin to feed Zara through Winamp to take advantage of all the DSP Plugins that Winamp handles.
LineIn Plugin can also accept the Line In from your soundcard and feed the vinyl record signal right on through from analog to digital to stream.
Total posts : 45366I’ve heard a lot of good things about this tool. It may be easier if it works with ZaraRadio which is FREE. The question is how to set it up to take the audio and metadata from it. If you don’t have the money for NextKast it could be the next best thing for some of you who want to stream over the Internet as well as run part 15 FM or AM.
Total posts : 45366I assume that you want to send the analog output from your turntable directly to your over-the-air transmitter as well, avoiding the intermediate digitizing and un-digitizing of using a computer and automation program.
But if all you do is want to stream, with no over-the-air broadcast, then there’s really no point in using the turntable directly. Whether you digitize the tracks off-the air and play them later through automation, or digitize them automatically by using another program on-the-fly, the end result is the same – you get a digital stream.
There’re a lot of advantges in doing it off-the-air, such as the metadata being mentioned earlier, as well as having the ability to edit the data to potentially clean it up, and cut off extraneous dead air at the start and stop of the track.
But perhaps I’m missing something?
Total posts : 45366I think what you may be missing is that like the old days, one would drop the needle on the LP and let the good times roll gaps between songs and all. The old album days on FM radio before it got hijacked by 30 commercials per hour.
Total posts : 45366It is legally possible to stream music without metadata. The commercial station I work for does it all day every day. We play records, CD’s, tapes, and songs off the hard drive. Their does indeed exist a streaming license that lets you run raw audio into a compute rand stream it, and covers you for all the music licenses necessary. For the life of me I can’t remember the name of the streaming service we use but when setting up the license there was an option to not provide playlist info. As a 75% of our broadcast day is completely live spontaneous radio, which generally includes local sports broadcasts, remote broadcasts, DJ blabber, me playing old records, etc it was the only way to go for us. the license does indeed cost more. But it wasn’t like double or anything like that. And I imagine there are discounts for already being a commercial broadcast station that pays tens of thousands yearly for the music rights for broadcasting already. But yes, it can in fact be done.
OK, LOL. Just looked it up. We use http://www.securenetsystems.com. It’s not a cheap way to stream, that’s for sure. It’s completely designed for a commercial operation, so it’s not cheap. But they have a licensing plan that lets us provide NO song data for the streams for two commercial stations.
Tim in Bovey
Total posts : 45366Playing vinyl records direct to an internet stream is the same as “going live” on the internet, and it’s amazing how little of that is done.
I think one thing that has increased live broadcasts are real-time U-stream feeds that can be viewed as video or heard as audio.
In the early experimental days back in 2007 on Shoutcast I did a few live broadcasts, and if you have callers you really need to be live or people will call in to your show while you’re in bed sleeping.
The one thing that always scared me about being able to “go live” is the fear that my mic might be left open without my realizing, and I’d be saying something embarrassing that would get picked up all over the world.
Total posts : 45366Oh, I understand why you might want to do it. I just wanted to point out that you end up with the same digitized stream no matter how you get there (unless, of course, you’re also simulcasting over the air, and route the analog output of your audio chain directly to the transmitter to get that true vinyl sound).
Total posts : 45366The way the radio stations used to do it was the DJ had two or three turntables in on air studio and while one song was playing he or she positioned the other record on the other turntable so it would be ready to play at a certain track instantly. Like the movie American Graffiti where you see Wolfman Jack in the studio doing just this. With records you have to sit with it and be constantly doing this.
You can’t, as I can see, have your station playing with everything at random while unattended, including the voice tracks. One drawback.
If you want to stay anologue you could use a reel to reel tape recorder…..you can put a lot on 3600 ft of tape.
Mark
Total posts : 45366Okay here’s the deal.
I contacted the person who bought my radio station equipment from me and bought it all back.
My studio has not been fully put back together again, I am working on that slowly.
I have bought an extra piece of equipment I did not originally own but always wanted, which is the Behringer DSP1424P.
I have two turntables, two reel to reel recorders, several cassette recorders, one is a dual deck, one of my dual CD decks is out of commission while I wait for a replacement lens assembly. I have a computer which ran my original automated programming for WXTZ, it has tons of music files on it in MP3 format at 320kps. I mostly used Zara radio which had 3157 music files programmed into it, which were recorded off of media such as CDs, vinyl records and cassettes. I used Zara radio because I liked the layout of it and I used MP3s because they were easy to add tags to for group name and song name.
I do have Radio DJ installed on that computer as well as SAM and Stereo Tool as a DSP.
SAM was a bit time consuming to use because of the scripts that had to be used to get things done and scripts for the station rotation rules, IDs etc. Made it confusing to setup.
All these units are hooked up to my original mixer board, which is a Behringer VMX1000 mixer. The price of those better mixer boards are still out of my price range at $15,000 and up!
I strictly only use the XLR ports. The mixer’s main output goes via XLR to a Behringer Ultra-Dyne Pro DSP9024, multiband processor, the output of the DSP9024 goes to the Behringer Ultramizer Pro DSP 1424P.
In the old days of WXTZ, I used Barix exstreamers and Instreamers to get my audio to the various transmitter locations on a private feed.
I am looking at putting the stream on a public stream, which is different from my original way of doing things.
In days gone by, the DSP9024 feed the Instreamer and went out over the Internet.
I originally used an Behringer Autocom Pro-XL MDX1600, I bought that back as well, but I am replacing that with the DSP1424P. I can’t see having 3 audio processors in the same audio chain.
I suppose if I am going to feed the DSP1424P into several devices, I’ll have to figure out a way to split the audio stream, but right now, a transmitter is not what I intend to feed. I still have to decide whether I am ready to have those trolls harassing me again and I am not ready for AM as of yet because I have to figure out what to do about an AM broadcast antenna.
Originally, my automated computer only played music while the station was unmanned, the audio feed from the computer sound card feed into channel 5 of the VMX1000 mixer.
Now, I’d need that same computer to send the stream out to an Internet radio station server at the same time. I am not even sure that can be done without feed back during automated programming hours. It may come down to me using two separate computers, one to play the automated programming and one to get the audio feed and send it out over the Internet.
All my equipment that produces sound, such as Turntables, Cassette decks and CD decks and computer feed into the VMX1000 mixer, then into the audio processing equipment.
Hopefully you have a better idea of how things will be hooked up, I just need to get that live feed (if you’ll allow me to call it that) on the Internet.
Bruce.
Total posts : 45366ZaraRadio creates a file named “CurrentSong.txt”. The later versions of Zara let you specify where that file is placed. Older versions simply drop it in the Zara program folder.
Each time a new file is played, Zara writes a new “CurrentSong” file with the info of the currently playing file and BUTT passes this along.
When you setup BUTT, you can specify whether to update the stream info automatically or manually. If you choose automatic you simply specify where the “CurrentSong” file is found. If you specify manual, you type it in with each new file.
I suppose if you are running live off the board with vinyl, cd’s or other sources you could simply type it in with each item played.
There is also a stand-alone utility called ZaraWebRDS which works with ZaraRadio. This little gem will keep track of info for the currently playing file plus the last 9. The utility creates an HTML file which it uploads to your web server and can be embeded in a webpage where it can be viewed.
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