Radio Free Porty

Dadaist · Post by **Dadaist** » 22 Sep 2005, 07:56

I'm very happy - and dare I say slightly nervous - to present to you a new collaboration between Bob and myself. Broadcasting a test transmission at the moment is Radio Free Porty - a new community internet radio station where everyone gets to be the DJ.

There is a basic page up at http://www.radiofreeporty.org

The idea is to let music lovers submit music of their choice in "shows" of about an hour to be played on the station - there are at least 4 people working as we speak to bring you a wonderful selection of audio, but that leaves another 20 hours - and that's just one day!!

So if you would like to do a show, PM me in the first instance.

For now, you are invited to listen to our test transmission (which is 90 minutes of music on a loop) by *either* using the link on the front page of the site, *or* by the following method :

Using either Winamp, Windows Media Player or RealOne Player, go to the file menu and select "Open URL"

Then paste the following address into the box which should appear :

http://1.eu.fast-serv.com:8380

...and this should make music come out of your headphones or speakers.

Porty · Post by **Porty** » 22 Sep 2005, 09:16

I'm dying to try it but I hav not got any pc's with sound on at the moment, home or work. I def volunteer for a show, as soon as I have whatevr equipment is required.

How does one bcom a DJ?

Well done to both of you.

Dadaist · Post by **Dadaist** » 22 Sep 2005, 09:29

Cheers Porty. Start thinking of an hour's worth of audio for your show and then we'll speak about how to get it to me.

Maria · Post by **Maria** » 22 Sep 2005, 09:37

I'm trying to cut back on the 3 and a half hours worth that I've intially selected. Guess I've lived through too many decades

bellybabe · Post by **bellybabe** » 22 Sep 2005, 11:18

Dadaist wrote:- there are at least 4 people working as we speak to bring you a wonderful selection of audio,

Er...were you thinking one of those people was me? I thought you were kidding when you told me to get working on my broadcast!

But well done. The first track is one of my all time favourites.

Dadaist · Post by **Dadaist** » 22 Sep 2005, 12:42

Bellybabe wrote:
Dadaist wrote:- there are at least 4 people working as we speak to bring you a wonderful selection of audio,

Er...were you thinking one of those people was me? I thought you were kidding when you told me to get working on my broadcast!

But well done. The first track is one of my all time favourites.

The first track? The seaside one?

It's up to you bb - all you have to do is concatenate an hour's worth of audio and leave the rest to me.

Bob Jefferson · Post by **Bob Jefferson** » 22 Sep 2005, 12:45

Radio Free Porty should be great fun and I'm very grateful to Dada for all the work he is putting into making this happen. It will be linked from the front page of Portobello Online and I will make sure it gets plenty of publicity.

There are endless possibilities with it, including live transmissions, demos and sessions by local musicians, interviews etc, along with DJ slots for anyone who wants one.

Wannabee DJs can rip tracks in mp3 format from their own CD collection or even download them from the internet. Dada - can you confirm what quality we should be aiming for? Is 128 kb/s OK?

Dadaist · Post by **Dadaist** » 22 Sep 2005, 12:53

Bob Jefferson wrote:Radio Free Porty should be great fun and I'm very grateful to Dada for all the work he is putting into making this happen. It will be linked from the front page of Portobello Online and I will make sure it gets plenty of publicity.

There are endless possibilities with it, including live transmissions, demos and sessions by local musicians, interviews etc, along with DJ slots for anyone who wants one.

Wannabee DJs can rip tracks in mp3 format from their own CD collection or even download them from the internet. Dada - can you confirm what quality we should be aiming for? Is 128 kb/s OK?

Any bitrate is fine, from sub-telephone to spanky-DAT. I would say though, that if you are ripping from CD for your own listening pleasure, aim as high as you can (192, say) as disk space will only ever get cheaper and larger.

We are currently broadcasting at 96kbps which means that mp3s ripped at a higher bitrate won't sound any better when we play them, but there's no harm in ripping at a higher bitrate.

If anybody wants to start thinking about broadcasting live themselves, all they will need is winamp with a shoutcast dsp plugin. Plenty of time for that in the future.

If you are planning on ripping from vinyl, I would suggest not going straight to mp3 but first ripping to a lossless format designed for such a purpose, like FLAC (i think) - but I'm not an expert. All I know is that with vinyl it's better to get a good copy first and make mp3s from that.

ecm · Post by **ecm** » 22 Sep 2005, 13:26

I can't listen just now as I'm at work.
Is there a track list available for what's being broadcast just now so I can imagine it???

Marya, you could shave the odd couple of hours of your playlist by dropping the Genesis and ELP tracks.

Dadaist · Post by **Dadaist** » 22 Sep 2005, 13:33

ecm wrote:I can't listen just now as I'm at work.
Is there a track list available for what's being broadcast just now so I can imagine it???

Marya, you could shave the odd couple of hours of your playlist by dropping the Genesis and ELP tracks.

I will try and knock up a playlist. In the meantime, just imagine a selection of popular music from a variety of genres, artistes and eras, interspersed with custom station idents.

ecm · Post by **ecm** » 22 Sep 2005, 13:36

Dadaist wrote: In the meantime, just imagine a selection of popular music from a variety of genres, artistes and eras, interspersed with custom station idents.

Custom station idents -- d'ya mean jingles?

I want to write/record a jingle please. Can I? Oh, go on, please.

Maria · Post by **Maria** » 22 Sep 2005, 13:50

ecm wrote:Marya, you could shave the odd couple of hours of your playlist by dropping the Genesis and ELP tracks.

Oooh! Wait till I see you on Friday night my girl

I can't listen just now as I'm at work.
Is there a track list available for what's being broadcast just now so I can imagine it???

There's a distinct POL flavour to it. I've just listened to "The Revolution will not be televised" and "Just say no!"

followed by a very sexy female voice informing us that we're listening to the test transmission of Radio Free Porty. The current one is some sort of mix that goes on about people and their names.

I've now cut my selection down to 1 hr...and a weird and varied list it is indeed

Dadaist · Post by **Dadaist** » 22 Sep 2005, 13:53

ecm wrote:
Dadaist wrote: In the meantime, just imagine a selection of popular music from a variety of genres, artistes and eras, interspersed with custom station idents.
Custom station idents -- d'ya mean jingles?

I want to write/record a jingle please. Can I? Oh, go on, please.

Yes. Any and all audio will be considered for transmission on this station - it only has to be within the audible human range.

Actually if somebody presented me with an hour of dog whistles I'd probably give them a slot too.

Bob is under orders that anyone who he gets audio off from now on has to say "my name is xxx and you're listening to Radio Free Porty"

Ed · Post by Ed » 22 Sep 2005, 13:59

It works through iTunes for me and I can loudly hear what sounds like "Do The Hustle"

Maria · Post by **Maria** » 22 Sep 2005, 14:10

Ed wrote:It works through iTunes for me and I can loudly hear what sounds like "Do The Hustle"

.....Diamond life by Sade now.

how did you get it working through itunes Ed? When I try, it says that it's connecting but it never does!

Ed · Post by Ed » 22 Sep 2005, 14:15

Marya wrote: how did you get it working through itunes Ed? When I try, it says that it's connecting but it never does!

When I went to the basic site, there was a link to LISTEN I think. I clicked that and Windows suggested I open the PLS file, it offered iTunes so I said OK.

Music is not bad but I have to take issue with PJ & Duncan - My Radio Rocks

Dadaist · Post by **Dadaist** » 22 Sep 2005, 14:59

[quote="Ed
Music is not bad but I have to take issue with PJ & Duncan - My Radio Rocks

[/quote]

For that, "Let's Get Ready To Rhumble" is going to get some heavy rotation.

Ed · Post by Ed » 22 Sep 2005, 15:00

I can lend you the CD!

Dadaist · Post by **Dadaist** » 22 Sep 2005, 15:10

Ed wrote:I can lend you the CD!

psyche!

rathbone · Post by **rathbone** » 22 Sep 2005, 17:54

Well done guys, this is great.

Marya:

If you're working on a mac, go to the basic site, click on LISTEN and download it on to your desktop. Then go in to iTunes and create a New Playlist from the File menu. Call the new playlist Radio Free Porty and import the icon from the desktop by dragging it into the new playlist. Then click on the playlist as normal and you should be up and running.
(well, it worked for me!!)

Maria · Post by **Maria** » 22 Sep 2005, 18:11

What do you mean by the 'basic site' Rathbone? I went to this one http://www.apple.com/support/itunes/ but couldn't see what you meant.
PS
I've got itunes 5.01 which should allow me to connect to an Internet Broadcast simply by choosing "Open stream' from the advanced setting and entering the URL

Dadaist · Post by **Dadaist** » 22 Sep 2005, 20:45

Marya wrote:What do you mean by the 'basic site' Rathbone? I went to this one http://www.apple.com/support/itunes/ but couldn't see what you meant.
PS
I've got itunes 5.01 which should allow me to connect to an Internet Broadcast simply by choosing "Open stream' from the advanced setting and entering the URL

I had a quick look online for you Marya - try this one "MacAmp" ->

http://www.mp3-mac.com/AppsDload/MacAMP.html

Epykat · Post by **Epykat** » 22 Sep 2005, 20:53

I was well chuffed coz I thought I'd got it but then it turned out to be Margaret Thatcher over and over and over - did I do it wrong?

bearcub · Post by **bearcub** » 22 Sep 2005, 21:26

Love it!!

Will need to start working on a 'Bearcub feat. DJ Sandra(

)' hour soon.

Maria · Post by **Maria** » 22 Sep 2005, 21:37

Dadaist wrote:
Marya wrote:What do you mean by the 'basic site' Rathbone? I went to this one http://www.apple.com/support/itunes/ but couldn't see what you meant.
PS
I've got itunes 5.01 which should allow me to connect to an Internet Broadcast simply by choosing "Open stream' from the advanced setting and entering the URL

I had a quick look online for you Marya - try this one "MacAmp" ->

http://www.mp3-mac.com/AppsDload/MacAMP.html

Thanks Dada! I'll have a look. It's not a problem in that I'm able to listen fine using RealOne Player, but I was just puzzled as to why I couldn't use iTunes if Ed and Rathbone had managed it. Cheers though!

EDIT

Guess what? I repeated my previous attempt to connect using iTunes and it's working perfectly now. **@! technology

bearcub · Post by **bearcub** » 22 Sep 2005, 21:40

Dadaist wrote: Bob is under orders that anyone who he gets audio off from now on has to say "my name is xxx and you're listening to Radio Free Porty"

I think Bob should bring his "equipment" along tomorrow for a few 'quotes' and 'endorsements'

Dadaist · Post by **Dadaist** » 22 Sep 2005, 21:51

I have now updated the radiofreeporty.org homepage to show whether the server is broadcasting, and what the track name is.

Sandra · Post by **Sandra** » 22 Sep 2005, 22:21

BRILLIANT!!!!

Dadaist · Post by **Dadaist** » 22 Sep 2005, 22:26

Sandra wrote:BRILLIANT!!!!

shucks

Bob Jefferson · Post by **Bob Jefferson** » 22 Sep 2005, 22:34

I'm finding it's cutting out after a few secs. How many listeners are currently online? Have we maxed out?

Maria · Post by **Maria** » 22 Sep 2005, 22:37

I'm rebuffering (whatever that is

) a lot too Bob. Looks like it's only the two of us listening at the mo

Bob Jefferson · Post by **Bob Jefferson** » 22 Sep 2005, 22:37

Seems OK again - probably just my connection.

Dadaist · Post by **Dadaist** » 22 Sep 2005, 22:51

We had 5 listeners at once, which at this bitrate is probably why it got choppy. I've already cut it down from 128 to 96, but am starting to wonder if we may need to move to a (sharp intake of breath) commercial shoutcast server company. ($$$)

Bob Jefferson · Post by **Bob Jefferson** » 22 Sep 2005, 22:56

Probably - pm me some costs and I'll see what I've got under the bed.

Dadaist · Post by **Dadaist** » 22 Sep 2005, 23:29

Bob Jefferson wrote:Probably - pm me some costs and I'll see what I've got under the bed.

Nah, wait til we've had a couple of jars tomorrow. And I've cut down the frequency and bitrate again (it's definitely starting to sound like radio now) so we'll see how it goes tomorrow.

New bitrate, new songs for "test transmission #2".

Feedback appreciated.

Talk Porty ~ Portobello

Radio Free Porty

Radio Free Porty

Re: Radio Free Porty

Re: Radio Free Porty