Creating your own Streaming Audio studio has never been easier. There are so many great products around today that will allow you to produce high-quality streaming audio for a fraction of the price it used to cost.
HARDWARE
The first thing you will need is a compatible computer. A basic sound card with a mic and line-in jack. If you do not have a sound card, they are very cheap, and you can get a good one from any standard computer shop.
Next, you will need a good mic. These come in all sizes and shapes with different configurations, however, a general all-around mic like the Logitech Noise-canceling microphone is fine for beginners. I suggest you get a desktop one to start with, as you may want to move into video later and so you won't want a headset in your videos.
Of course, you could go up to a stage and get a preamp with a professional mic, but this will start running into dollars and the whole aim of this article is to help you get started.
Next, you will want to get some cables to connect up your tape recorder and other audio equipment. Again, the computer stores now have packs that will connect up pretty well any device into your computer to digitalize your sound. You want to record directly onto your computer, however, you can get those old tapes and Vinyl records into a digital format also.
SOFTWARE – RECORDING
Recording your audio is probably one of the most critical parts of this process, and again you can get software that ranges from free to many thousands of dollars. For this exercise, I suggest you download the free copy of Audacity. This is an excellent free software package that will allow you to record from your microphone or any equipment you have.
It provides excellent editing capabilities and also will allow you to edit multiple tracks and then combine them into one single track. For a quick overview of how to do this, you can watch this video and also download the software.
SOFTWARE – CONVERTING
The next piece of software you will need for your studio is a converting program that will allow you to convert different formats. For example, you may have a real audio file, and you want to convert it to mp3. The dB power amp is like the Swiss army knife for the audio industry and will convert just about any file to any other file format.
Convert from one format to another, just about every audio type is supported: mp3, mp4, Windows Media Audio Ogg V Orbs, AAC, Monkeys Audio, FLAC, and many others whilst preserving ID Tags. It will also rip CDs for you.
SOFTWARE – REDUCTION
If you are going to stream a mp3 direct, then you may want to recompile the file to a smaller format. Razor lames is a so-called “front-end” for use with LAME. LAME is a great MP3-Encoder, it’s very fast, it produces high-quality files, has many advanced features (like Variable Bit rates and Joint-Stereo), and it’s open-source. Unfortunately, it is a command-line utility, and that is where Razorlames comes in: It provides an easy-to-use graphical user interface which makes MP3-encoding even easier!
The best way to use this software is to get one file and compile it in several formats to test the size against quality.
SOFTWARE – STREAMING
There are a few different ways of streaming your new audio files. If you have Macro media products you can simply organize this your self, however there are some great third-party programs around that will do it all for you at a fraction of the cost.
MP3 SOUND STREAM
This is a simple piece of software that takes any mp3 or WAV audio and converts the whole file, into an SWF file and then attaches a button so that viewers can listen on a web page without needing to download any extra software. This is because the flash plugin is on 98% of computes, and if not it will automatically detect and load the small plugin. This is great for anyone not wanting to get into all the technical aspects of streaming audio.
You will not need to reduce your files at all with this program, as it does it all for you. This is perfect for anyone wanting to stream one file, at a time, and who wants to do it quickly and efficiently. It will stream, even over most modem connections.
For people wanting to stream, several files, then Jukebox is a great alternative. This software lets you choose any number of mp3 files, and then organizes them using an XML file. By using the above free programs, you can significantly reduce the size of these files to save on bandwidth.
Because Jukebox streams the actual mp3, you can also have a lot higher quality playback, including stereo files. This is much better for those wanting to stream several very high-quality mp3 files.
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