01-03-2017, 12:22 PM
(Disclaimer: I am NOT affiliated with this product in any way, I just found it to be excellent)
RadioDJ is a free, open source automation software that I have been using to run a small radio stream from my garage for the last few months.
It's incredibly stable and runs very smoothly on my Win7 Pro Lenovo T420 (8GB i5).
I have been in the radio industry for around 8 - 10 years on and off, and this system is by FAR the easiest I have ever used.
Dalet was the first system I used as a spotty panel tech in my teens, and then Airwaves came about. I HATE airwaves, it's terrible and crashes all the time.
Both are proprietary systems (or were, rather, Dalet disappeared sometime in the mid 2000s).
Setting up the system was very easy for me as a (comparatively) novice user, I found the instructions provided and had the system set up and humming along in minutes.
The lead developer and owner was ALL OVER their support forums, and also active in their reddit community which was a huge confidence booster, offering loads of helpful free advice and even builds to people struggling with weird problems or issues.
Adding music to the playlists, I quickly learned the control panel and threw my own rotations together, grouping genres and tracks.
Using the ID3 tags was a massive pain, so I eventually scrubbed them from the whole database and renamed them according to their folder structure.
Setting linkers and station IDs was actually fun and exciting, I'd never run MY OWN station before, so hearing my own station ID on my playlist made me slightly giddy.
I linked up LAME using another fantastic tutorial from the user forums, and found myself a free Icecast server host (caster.fm - once again no affiliation, just impressive free service)
My final test was to setup a timed event to trigger a live cross to another webstream. I was running a show on a local radio station, so I set my channel to automatically simulcast their stream on my own site. It worked without a hitch, seamlessly crossing beneath another special linker.
All in all, the software and support was FANTASTIC, and far above anything I have ever experienced in the proprietary radio industry. It almost makes me angry that I went so long using substandard software, and I have to bite my tongue when I see other struggling radio stations paying a monthly fee to use it [edit: Airwaves, that is, or other proprietary trash. RadioDJ is fully functional, their licence is a support model as far as I can tell].
Since I have been on air, I have interviewed friends and locals and started teaching other people how to set up their own channels. A DJ friend in melbourne recently started a caster.fm account to stream his DnB mixes live, and before I knew it we were excitedly setting up his own small RadioDJ setup
Radio stations take a fair amount of curating and tinkering, and can get VERY addictive for people like me (especially late at night, creating show rotations or new linkers)
So far, I've found it a whole lot of fun, and I just bought a transmitter from Aliexpress so I can broadcast live FM from my mobile camper while I'm on the road at festivals for the summer.
My next step is to hopefully move this setup to a hosted VPS so it can run by itself 24/7, which is why I'm here!
If you're interested or want to know anything, drop me a message or reply This is only my second post ever, so I hope I'm not flooding
Thanks for listening!
FFF
RadioDJ is a free, open source automation software that I have been using to run a small radio stream from my garage for the last few months.
It's incredibly stable and runs very smoothly on my Win7 Pro Lenovo T420 (8GB i5).
I have been in the radio industry for around 8 - 10 years on and off, and this system is by FAR the easiest I have ever used.
Dalet was the first system I used as a spotty panel tech in my teens, and then Airwaves came about. I HATE airwaves, it's terrible and crashes all the time.
Both are proprietary systems (or were, rather, Dalet disappeared sometime in the mid 2000s).
Setting up the system was very easy for me as a (comparatively) novice user, I found the instructions provided and had the system set up and humming along in minutes.
The lead developer and owner was ALL OVER their support forums, and also active in their reddit community which was a huge confidence booster, offering loads of helpful free advice and even builds to people struggling with weird problems or issues.
Adding music to the playlists, I quickly learned the control panel and threw my own rotations together, grouping genres and tracks.
Using the ID3 tags was a massive pain, so I eventually scrubbed them from the whole database and renamed them according to their folder structure.
Setting linkers and station IDs was actually fun and exciting, I'd never run MY OWN station before, so hearing my own station ID on my playlist made me slightly giddy.
I linked up LAME using another fantastic tutorial from the user forums, and found myself a free Icecast server host (caster.fm - once again no affiliation, just impressive free service)
My final test was to setup a timed event to trigger a live cross to another webstream. I was running a show on a local radio station, so I set my channel to automatically simulcast their stream on my own site. It worked without a hitch, seamlessly crossing beneath another special linker.
All in all, the software and support was FANTASTIC, and far above anything I have ever experienced in the proprietary radio industry. It almost makes me angry that I went so long using substandard software, and I have to bite my tongue when I see other struggling radio stations paying a monthly fee to use it [edit: Airwaves, that is, or other proprietary trash. RadioDJ is fully functional, their licence is a support model as far as I can tell].
Since I have been on air, I have interviewed friends and locals and started teaching other people how to set up their own channels. A DJ friend in melbourne recently started a caster.fm account to stream his DnB mixes live, and before I knew it we were excitedly setting up his own small RadioDJ setup
Radio stations take a fair amount of curating and tinkering, and can get VERY addictive for people like me (especially late at night, creating show rotations or new linkers)
So far, I've found it a whole lot of fun, and I just bought a transmitter from Aliexpress so I can broadcast live FM from my mobile camper while I'm on the road at festivals for the summer.
My next step is to hopefully move this setup to a hosted VPS so it can run by itself 24/7, which is why I'm here!
If you're interested or want to know anything, drop me a message or reply
This is only my second post ever, so I hope I'm not flooding Thanks for listening!
FFF