Old Duffer Needs Advice For New Station Startup....Please.

[CliveW]

Hi All, After trying for a long time to get access to this forum...I'm finally here.  (Thanks DJ Garybaldy)

Where to begin ? Like so many folks out there I have had a desire to run my own internet radio station for many years but..never found the time/didnt have the resources or simply didnt have a clue where to start.

So..Im here. having purchased a few goody bits that I think I may need and some ancillaries I find that I'm nearly at a point to actually put it all together and get on air.

I have listed below the equipment I have purchased/been given to me/received as a present.

I will be using RadioDJ as my playout software (initially was going to use Competa).

I have 5 x i3 16gb ram with SSD's computers to use, one that is a touchscreen AIO.

OK.. so.. how many PC's does RadioDJ like to use ? Is it 1 for the DB and 1 for the playout software ?

Will I need a third PC for an encoder or utilities ?

I plan to use the touchscreen for the X-Air Edit control software, Why This ? It's free to me as the mixer was my son's cast off.. he has a X32 Rack now...I used the XR18 for my sons band for several years so I am fully up to speed with how that works and its capabilities.

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I understand that most of what I plan to use maybe overkill but figure that it may work in a less stressed way if over specified.

I have no website at present (although I do have a spare Asus Nimbustor 4 AS5304T that I could use to host my own site if need be)
I have no shoutcast/icecast service at present
I have no website built (I would need a plugin to click on for visitors to start streaming)
I do have a Radio Station domain name purchased
I do have the Radio Station specific accounts on Twitter/Facebook

Most of what I have done/purchased is on a tight budget.

I'm stuck about a way to proceed now...

If anyone can suggest a way forward or has useful suggestions please..please.. comment.

My equipment list (so far)...

PC 1
Lenovo M73 Tiny
Intel Core i3-4130T @ 2.90Ghz
16GB Ram
120GB SSD
In-Built Wi-Fi & Bluetooth
Intel HD Graphics 4400
Gigabit Ethernet
3 x USB 2.0 (Rear Panel)
2 x USB 3.0 (Front Panel)
1 x Display Port
1 x VGA
1 x Mic, 1 x Headphone (Front Panel)
Windows 7 Ultimate

PC 2
Lenovo M73 Tiny
Intel Core i3-4160T @ 3.10Ghz
16GB Ram
120GB SSD
USB DVD RW
Intel HD Graphics 4400
Gigabit Ethernet
3 x USB 2.0 (Rear Panel) 2 x USB 2.0 in DVD
2 x USB 3.0 (Front Panel)
1 x Display Port
1 x VGA
1 x Mic, 1 x Headphone (Front Panel)
Windows 10 Home

PC 3
Lenovo M73 Tiny
Intel Core i3-4160T @ 3.10Ghz
16GB Ram
120GB SSD
USB DVD RW
Intel HD Graphics 4400
Gigabit Ethernet
3 x USB 2.0 (Rear Panel) 2 x USB 2.0 in DVD
2 x USB 3.0 (Front Panel)
1 x Display Port
1 x VGA
1 x Mic, 1 x Headphone (Front Panel)
Windows 10 Home

PC 4
Lenovo M93 Tiny
Intel Core i3-4160T @ 3.10Ghz
16GB Ram
240GB SSD
Intel HD Graphics 4400
Gigabit Ethernet
3 x USB 2.0 (Rear Panel)
2 x USB 3.0 (Front Panel)
2 x Display Port
1 x VGA
1 x Mic, 1 x Headphone (Front Panel)
Windows 7 Ultimate

PC 5
Samsung All-in-One DP700A3D-A05UK
23.6" 1920 x 1080 pixels Multi-Touch Touchscreen
Intel Core i3-3220T @ 2.80Ghz
16GB Ram
120GB SSD
DVD SuperMulti DVD±RW (±R DL) / DVD-RAM
In-Built Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n & Bluetooth 4.0
Intel HD Graphics 2500
Gigabit Ethernet
3 x USB 2.0 (Rear Panel)
2 x USB 3.0 (Side Panel)
2 x HDMI
1 x VGA
1 x Mic, 1 x Headphone (Side Panel)
Memory Card Slot: SD, SDHC, SDXC (Side Panel)
Web-Cam
Windows 7 Ultimate


4 x Dell P2217Hc 22' Monitors (with quad monitor arm to hang these from)
4x4 USB Switch (controls 4 PC's with one keyboard and 1 mouse)
Wireless Keyboard and Mouse
Elgato Stream Deck Mk2
2 x Behringer C-1 Mic's
2 x Samson SP01 Shock Mounts
2 x 512 Audio BBA Adjustable Microphone Boom Arms
2 x dB Technologies K 70 active studio monitors
2 x Beyerdynamic DT 770 Pro Headphones (1 still to purchase)


960gb SSD to use for Mp3 storage ? maybe put this in the PC that will run the database


Behringer X Air XR18 Digital Mixer
(X-Air Edit control software will be used on the Samsung touchscreen)
18 input Channels
18 x 18 USB interface

18Tb USB Backup

Domain Name (Now Purchased)

38,000 Mp3's fully edited with MP3 tags. (including many duplicates..what do I do about these )

PPL & PRS Licenses will be applied for when ready to launch.

Thanks for reading this. Clive.

[CliveW]

OK. So moving on, I just downloaded AllDup 4.5.48 to try and strip the duplicate MP3 files out of my collection and then i'm going to use MP3Gain to level the volumes.

I'm being bombarded with emails by Radio.co at the moment, I think they use online storage for their members and deal with all the streaming stuff ?  I dont think they would be any use to me firstly because I want all my tracks local and dont want to have to upload a show to them and secondly the rather large cost of their services, I nearly fell off my chair when I saw the monthly fee  i'm sure they would be of value to some folks but for the likes of myself who is trying to do this hobby on a budget I dont think it would fit in with either of the 2 things mentioned.

As a few members have read my first post but no one has formulated a reply yet I had a look at the pole running on this forum concerning who runs what hardware and software etc etc.. It seems I am still none the wiser as some folk run 1 PC and some run up to 6...so I still have to look into that.

If any of you have experience with Radio.co Good or Bad it would be great if you could share it with me/us. Cheers.

[Vanlen]

@CliveW
Welcome to the forums.
Wow, seems you've got all the goodies to get you going. 

RE:

OK.. so.. how many PC's does RadioDJ like to use ? Is it 1 for the DB and 1 for the playout software ? Will I need a third PC for an encoder or utilities ?

With RadioDJ you can easily run it on a single PC, with an Encoder of your choice like Butt encoder, Soundcaster etc, and the database on the same dedicated unit as well.

Since you've got a few computers ready to go you could have one for on air and one for production pointing to the db on your main system and a dedicated PC for encoder and web related stuff so if one of your playback systems is funky then you could switch the audio to another PC you have at the ready. 

I suggest that you have your music library set up with all the tags, album art etc and folders with the various Categories and Genres and trimmed and normalized in advance so you can then just pull the library INFO directly into RadioDJ via its Directory Import or individually which will save you headaches down the road.

Also the latest Beta (The free version 2.0.4.3) would be where to start with RadioDJ.

I'm getting ahead of myself here as there are sooo many tips in the forum as well as a few video tutorial Channels of various older to new versions on RadioDJ that covers most of what you need to know.

Here are a couple of resources to get you going.
The Radio DJ Tutorials here :  [url="https://www.radiodj.ro/tutorials"[/url]
On the Manual front a nice compilation by forum member Jhonny below:

  [url="https://www.mediafire.com/file/nk7fo40yglq698x/RadioDJ_v_2.0.3.9_operation_manual.pdf/file"[/url]


On tutorials there is on YouTube just search for these

Roderick's RadioDJ Tutorials and RadioDJ Dude Channels


Hope this helps.

Cheers

[CliveW]

@CliveW
Welcome to the forums.
Wow, seems you've got all the goodies to get you going. 

@Vanlen

Thanks sooooo much for the reply, it is sincerely appreciated.

I dont know what goodies I really needed and my spending just seemed to take over  ...but I think I have got most of what I need to make a reliable station, and I will be looking for a kind soul or two to do their own shows on the station eventually.

So what I gather from your answer is that I could use 1 PC but it may be better to utlise more than that considering I have them already...Cool..thanks.

"one for on air and one for production pointing to the db on your main system" i'm confused here ? are they not the same PC ? what is "one for production" ? what exactly would I be doing on the Production machine... please explain it to me as though I havent a clue (which I havent) 

I will absolutely look at the references you posted. Thank You... its hard to find people who really know their stuff when it comes to RadioDJ.

Once again... Thank you so much.

Clive.

[CliveW]

So, Im STILL running AllDup and so far it is 6 hours 50 mins in and 567 million file comparisons performed  I kid you not! 42,000+ files to check I thought I only had 38k but apparently not, I hope this time to check is normal. so far found 8,569 dupes. I think its all the compilation albums I have. I have all the Now Thats What I Call Music (crap I know but I have them) albums from 1 to 116 each is a double album so 232 of these to search through I guess, and all the other 157 special NOW albums... maybe thats whats doing it And its onto normalising each file after this.

When it took me nearly 3 weeks solid to Tag them all I thought that would be that, how wrong I was. 

I am doing all this following advice from youtube, hope i'm doing the right thing and not wasting my time.

Does/did anyone else go through this pain ?

YAY.. just finished
27/07/2023 2:10:13 - Files filtered: 4,317
27/07/2023 2:10:13 - Found 8,719 duplicates with a total of 50.37 GB inside folder 'E:\Edited Music By Album (Completed) - Copy'
27/07/2023 2:10:13 - Scanned files: 42,127
27/07/2023 2:10:13 - Groups: 3,408
27/07/2023 2:10:13 - File comparison count: 584,199,533
27/07/2023 2:10:13 - Checksums created: 37,810
27/07/2023 2:10:13 - Duplicates: 8,719 (20%) (50.37 GB)
27/07/2023 2:10:13 - Elapsed time: 07:01:32

[CliveW]

It seems I may be leaning towards Live365 with no ads to start my station @ $149 per month. I haven't been able to find out much about people's experiences apart from a few feedbacks.

Can anyone share their experiences good or bad with me please ?


I would have hosted it myself but cannot get the advice or help needed to do that so it's Live365 I think.

Looking forward to reading all your replies .

Cheers.

[RadioPatrick]

Jeez, I didn't realize that some of these internet radio hosting sites could cost that much! I have everything but my website running self-hosted on my laptop, and the hardest part about that was web certifications so my website could play the station stream.

I don't have the specs for my laptop offhand, but it's pretty lightweight and can manage RadioDJ, SE Caster, a MySQL database instance, Voicemeeter Banana, Icecast, and a custom web API I've been putting together to give myself some extra features, all without missing a beat.

If you just want to stream your website and aren't trying to push for having your links work with "https" at the front (as opposed to just "http"), then IceCast and SE Caster are as much as you'll need beyond the basic RDJ + MySQL/MariaDB. It's a little more complicated to self-host and allow for secure connections, as well as if you wanted to self-host a website.

[CliveW]

Hi All,

Im back and just about ready to get this thing off the ground, after having been more than brutal with my MP3's and duplicates and live versions etc etc.. I have 35,254 tracks ready to populate the database with.

Can anyone advise if I should jump in and have the database register all these at once or load a few thousand at a time, I curious if I may get database errors if dumping them all in at once.

Cheers.

Clive.

[RadioPatrick]

You'll probably be okay having the database import everything at once, though there's no way that doesn't take a considerable amount of time as an operation 

That said, it might be better to import in chunks for a library of that dimension, if only so you can have an easier time keeping an eye on things and ensuring all the data is imported correctly.

 -- Patrick

[DJ Garybaldy]

I wish I had a Music 🎵 🎵 🎶 library as big as Clive's

I've sorted the duplicates out on my drive and and my collection dwindled <10000 tracks

Mind I only tend to listen to one genre 80s music that has 2k tracks in the folder