Total Newbie Seeks Advice On Basics: Mac-based Internet Radio

B

bulbulamir

New Member
Dear All,

I am so impressed with this site and the knowledge the users have. The information is clear and concise, unlike other sites I've looked at so far. So I'm hoping you can help a total newcomer to internet radio - me.

I want to set up an internet radio station using a Mac as my main computer. I want to start small, just playing automated playlists, probably on iTunes, then build up to a proper station with live presenters, music and speech content which has been pre-recorded. My need right now is to know how and where to start.

As I understand it, I can use my computer's iTunes library (or a device with my playlists on it connected to my Mac) as the source. I will need Nicecast connected to either Icecast or Shoutcast servers. I can use those servers set up directly on my Mac or buy bandwidth from a third party who takes care of that side for me.

Questions: do I need a website to broadcast from? How do I connect Nicecast to Shoutcast? Can I change hosting providers easily? What hardware do I need (apart from the Mac, which is a recent one and easily capable of handling the job) just to get started? And how much bandwidth is sensible if I want to stream at a decent bitrate - I don't expect listeners to exceed 100 at the beginning but I think that will increase dramatically once we are online.

I know this is ABC stuff but the more I read on various sites, the more confusing it gets! Any help you can offer would be greatly appreciated.
:think:
 
bulbulamir said:
Questions: do I need a website to broadcast from? How do I connect Nicecast to Shoutcast? Can I change hosting providers easily? What hardware do I need (apart from the Mac, which is a recent one and easily capable of handling the job) just to get started? And how much bandwidth is sensible if I want to stream at a decent bitrate - I don't expect listeners to exceed 100 at the beginning but I think that will increase dramatically once we are online.
Click to expand...
Okay, I am going to answer these questions for you one at a time so that it's clear and easy to understand. I don't mean to sound patronizing, so if it comes across that way please accept my apologies.

1. Do you need a website? Not really, you can use many different methods for your listeners to tune in. Of course, for you to get the most out of your radio stream, it's good for you to have your own space online.

2. How do I connect Nicecast to SHOUTcast? You enter the ip, port and password into Nicecast, and then hit the connect button to stream to the server.

3. Can you change hosting providers easily? It is very easy to change, but some companies offer different facilities, and different control panels that may offer different auto dj settings and the like.

4. What hardware do you need other than your Mac? None really, you don't even need your mac to stream to the server because you could use the internal auto dj feature, just upload the music and then build a playlist. There is a 1 week free trial on here if you want to try before you buy also!!

5. How much bandwidth? I opened mine with 10GB a fair while ago, and have been streaming at 128kb/s and haven't made another payment as yet, so I'd say just get 10GB (£5 worth) to start with and see what happens!!

I hope that helps, and if you have any other questions then feel free to come back and ask them, always here to help you out and get your started!!
 
Many thanks, reading your reply and digesting ...

Hi Ben

Thanks so much for your response, which I have only just picked up. I will read and get back to you later today if you don't mind. It is much appreciated, however, so thanks again.

Salim (bulbulamir):)
 
Total Newbie Seeks Advice

OK Ben, I have read your response - for which I would like to thank you - and it sounds easy enough! Famous last words ...

I don't feel patronized at all, I admit to being totally new to this, although I have been in old-tech radio for many years. I could buy the tech help in but want to learn how to do the basics for myself first - just stubbornness, I guess.

So having my hand held while I learn how this all works is fine by me, and I am not too stubborn to know what I don't know and ask for help; I'm just glad there are people out there prepared to help.

I am going to try and get a signal transmitting today and if I can manage that reliably, I will build up the programming loop - I won't be playing that much music, more speech programming but I suppose that can be loaded as files in the same way as music ...

Will keep posting re progress, but many thanks once again.
Salim (bulbulamir)
 
That's fine!! I have only ever broadcasted Online, and using computers, and have been doing it for more than 5 years now so I have a brain that is experienced (don't mean to be big headed) so any questions you want to ask, just ask!!

I feel it feels so much better if you learn it and do it yourself, with help where needed. More rewarding in the long run!! I have taught myself to build websites in PHP/MySQL and also HTML/CSS with bits of JavaScript, and I feel I can always better myself and build a much better site, I'm very much a perfectionist (which can't be a bad thing, can it?!)!!

If you need any help what so ever, no matter how basic it may sound, just ask. I will always be popping on the board when work and hobbies permit me to. If I don't know an answer, I will tell you I don't know and I will see what I can find out for you!!
 
Total Newbie - Phase 1 complete!

Hi All, esp Ben who was very helpful indeed.

To update, I was starting from scratch and knew nothing so I asked for help on this site. Thanks to the advice I received, I now have a reliable stream up and running, a link to that stream from a website, and a loop of pre-recorded programmes with idents as content.

I now need to move to the next stage: adding live presenters and music to the stream. I'm using Nicecast linked to a streaming server provided by internet-radio.org.uk. From what I can see, Nicecast has only basic controls for mixing from live sources, so how do I add 3 mics (for a presenter and guests) plus 2 x CD players reliably and controllably?

Over to you guys, I know you can and will help!

bulbulamir:)
 
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