This information is for our DJs, and anyone else who might be interested in starting a station of their own, etc.. You’re welcome to ask questions about what is involved, the costs, licensing, and I’ll try to provide links where you can find answers to your questions.

A little background. We’re running our station through LoudCity.net who handles licensing for us. They have some good info there about getting started too for anyone who is interested. Our broadcast stream is being hosted by Fast-Serv.com, who provides us with a 128kbps stream and a 24kbps stream that we mostly use just for testing. There’s plenty of free software available for streaming from your own computer. WinAmp with a plug-in handles this just fine. We’re using something a little more advanced and full-featured called SAM Broadcaster 3 from SpacialAudio.com except for offline streaming. Our server is setup to automatically kick-in when a DJ is not live, and start playing from a large playlist based on songs I have uploaded to the server. It uses a free program called sc_trans to do this.

Shoutcast Tools ( sc_serv, sc_trans )
http://www.shoutcast.com/download/

LoudCity or SWCast for licensing needs
http://www.loudcity.net
http://www.swcast.net

LoudCity – How to be a DJ
http://www.loudcity.net/Resources/HowToSta…23/Default.aspx

Fast Serv shoutcast hosting
http://www.fast-serv.com/

Spacial Audio ( SAM Broadcaster, Simple Cast, etc )
http://www.spacialaudio.com/

Other sites worth looking at
http://www.xiph.org
http://www.icecast.org
http://www.peercast.org

1 Million Free and Legal Music Tracks, Start here:
http://www.redferret.net/pmwiki/

SQL & Our Costs

Someone also expressed concerns on working with SQL. In response to this, SAM Broadcaster 3 will require some kind of database on your machine. Installing MySQL correctly first will help, but can be frustrating.

Concerning how Radio Darkness costs, we had upfront costs (about $450) involved in buying the software. It wasn’t mandatory. We could’ve used a cheaper solution. At the moment, our licensing and hosting is running us about $75 to $100 per month. We could do this cheaper too but at the expense of losing a lot of our flexibility and features. We will have ongoing costs in addition to this for buying music. Then there’s the time involved for our DJs to be LIVE for everyone.

Resources And Tools For Streaming With WinAmp

Also, the WinAmp DSP Plugin is pretty good for DJ’ing with WinAmp. WinAmp is much lighter on the system resources than SAM3 Broadcaster is. This page will show you how simple it is to setup.
http://www.shoutcast.com/download/broadcast.phtml

A cheaper streaming host we’re testing out is ThePureMix at:
http://thepuremix.com

However, ThePureMix is not performing as stable as Fast-Serve on a consistent basis, but at almost 1/2 the cost it’s a consideration. Doing some research I found another really inexpensive shoutcast host. No experience with them. If you try them, let us know.

PristineHost.com – $13.00 / mo.
http://www.pristinehost.com/index.php?page=shoutcast

On the Shoutcast/Winamp forums I found this program in-progress by a coder there:
http://87threads.com/transcoderpanel/

Internet DJ Console for Linux users.
http://linux.softpedia.com/get/Multimedia/…sole-4353.shtml

A little more detail about the Icecast / Oddsock links above. These are also usually updated while the older winamp tools are no longer in development for the past few years.

Icecast has a forum for helpful browsing
http://forum.icecast.org/index.php

Oddsock Tools
http://www.oddsock.org/tools/

Alternative programs or DSPs that I think can be used. Oddcast looks interesting and easy to use microphone with. Has a standalone version. I haven’t tried these yet.
http://www.oddsock.org/tools/oddcastv3/

If you choose to try this Oddcast DSP plugin or program, here’s a How To
http://www.radiovague.com/howtos/broadcast/winamp3/
http://forums.diywebhosting.ca/showthread.php?t=103

MAC OS/X users.. have NiceCast
http://www.rogueamoeba.com/nicecast/

And the rest of the 3rd party tools from Icecast page
http://www.icecast.org/3rdparty.php

Tips For Those Downloading And Working With Oddcast

1. Make sure to install the MP3 encoder! (It’s unchecked by default.) It will warn you about licensing issues, but if you’re using it as a Winamp plugin, it’s not necessary to download the codec.
2. Talking into the mike will stop the music, so don’t expect any voiceovers while the music is playing.

Sources For Those Planning To DJ With Mac OS X

NiceCast & Audio Hijack Pro located here … https://store5.esellerate.net/store/checkou…PageCatalog.htm

NiceCast comes bundled with a slimmed version of Audio Hijack. Audio Hijack literally can take over any application using sound and broadcast it. Wether or not the player supports it. Just have Audio Hijack take it over, and you are set. If its audio it can record it, take it over, etc. Very nice product I think. (I use it to record MySpace songs hehe).

Or if you want get the free Shoutcast server for OS X along with the additional tools. And then go and get Audion X here … http://www.panic.com/audion/download.html.

There are others I could list but the above ones fit nicely with what someone wishes to do.

There is also On Air VRS which can mix and list jingles, time slots, crossfades, etc, like any other radio station online.

http://homepage.sunrise.ch/mysunrise/thhde…creenshots.html

It is competely skinable as well, which I dislike its provided skins. So can always make one you like. It costs $30.

There have been others but for its price and range of features this can do, even if dated. Is worth the price.

Licencing is fairly easy to do. You can be listed with some directories that will do it for you, if you feel you don’t know what exactly to do, or where to go.

Podcasting & Skypecasting

How to create a live online radio show (podcast) using your computer and Skype (skypecasting) that can take live callers from a telephone.
http://www.radiofreefinland.net/2006/02/18…om-a-telephone/

Some interesting bits of info in that article that might prove useful to some of you, especially using SAM Broadcaster.