Running a Game Music Radio Station?

**Zilog Jones** · 01-01-2005

I'm thinking of starting one, if the Computer Society in my univeristy will let me put a SHOUTcast server on their servers (Linux servers which I can access through PuTTY), unless anyone else is willing on running a server? 64kbps mono will be OK.

It'll be strictly old-skool Japanese stuff - any 8 and 16-bit music... well good music, of course! I do have a soft spot for NES/FDS and Konami SCC (used in most of their good MSX games) music, but I'm open to any suggestions. I'm not sure if I'll include more modern stuff - maybe Saturn/PSX, but I'll need help getting Saturn music (all I have now is Sega Rally).

Anyone interested in this?

**XerdoPwerko** · 01-01-2005

I'll help if you permit it.

I used to help run the radio station for my university and I had a japanese music programme once a week.

I have material, also.

The 32 bit era has good soundtracks as well. At least anything with mitsuda or sakimoto on it. Hell, BOF5DQ for the PS2 has a magnificent OST. Just get the plugins to run PSF and SPC files on Winamp and you're set.

**Yakumo** · 01-01-2005

I ran a game music station over Shoutcast a few years ago. It was quite popular too :) Problem came when I started with the FTP stuff though. So I just closed down the station.

Yakumo

**Evangelion-01** · 01-01-2005

JET SET RADIO!!!!!!!!!!!!

**retro** · 01-01-2005

I'd imagine a university would be worried about royalties, as yes they are copyrighted and yes you have to list what you play and pay royalties.

**XerdoPwerko** · 01-01-2005

Mine had no problem whatsoever.

Cultural radio is okay as long as you don't make money off it.

Then again, there are no laws in my country, so I don't know what'd happen in the first world.

AntiPasta · 01-01-2005

Zilog: quite a good idea I'd say :-) And you have my support if you need any Saturn/PSX music! 32 bit era is my favourite, also music-wise.

**Evangelion-01** · 01-01-2005

Originally Posted by XerdoPwerko

Mine had no problem whatsoever.

Cultural radio is okay as long as you don't make money off it.

Then again, there are no laws in my country, so I don't know what'd happen in the first world.

Por eso amo a mi pais :)

**Zilog Jones** · 01-02-2005

Originally Posted by retro

I'd imagine a university would be worried about royalties, as yes they are copyrighted and yes you have to list what you play and pay royalties.

Yeah if I had to actually deal with the university it would be a problem, but the societies are governed by the Students' Union, and I'm doubt I'm gonna even have to speak to anyone outside the CompSoc anyway - it's not like anyone esle would even notice it. Though I've just remembered - being able to send/receive through port 8000 could be a problem due to the university's firewall-o-hell... nuts! So I may have to look elsewhere for a server - only prob is money, as I don't want to pay any! CompSoc costs 4 Euro a year...

Originally Posted by Evangelion-01

JET SET RADIO!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh yeah, I have the soundtrack to that too! OK, maybe I will have some newer stuff.

And I'm quite fimiliar with the goodness of SPC, PSF and NSF files, so getting any music from SNES, NES and some PSX/PS2 games shouldn't be a problem.

**XerdoPwerko** · 01-02-2005

Ask me if you need any help.

Maybe also if you need audio editing and such. Not precisely a pro, but I had some practice.

**Zilog Jones** · 01-14-2005

Sorry for bringing this thread back from the dead, but I think this idea is going to be a lot harder than originally planned.

For starters I thought I would be able source from my PC at home, but I worked out due to the crappy 8GB upload cap. I'd only be able to run the station for about 200 hours a month (taking into account the connection is used for other stuff). And then it appears even I just wanted to serve to 10 listeners a 64kb/s station, I'd need a server capable of handling over 200GB a month! I don't think the Computer Society's server would be able to take that much...

Anyone know how much it would cost to serve a station like this (with at least 20-30 listeners), or who could serve this? Or are there better alternatives to SHOUTcast?

**XerdoPwerko** · 01-14-2005

Yeah, bandwdith was an issue when we started. We did have very few listeners, usually less than thirty.

We also had one dedicated machine to store our music and transmit - and all the audio editing/mixing was actually performed in a traditional radio studio, and sent to the machine's audio input.

You might need to get your own dedicated hosting somehow - though I have no idea how or what you need.
Sorry if this doesn't help that much... But I'll ask around. My girlfriend is still an operator at the radio-station and she might be able to get me some information about the requisites.

**blackzc** · 01-15-2005

Originally Posted by XerdoPwerko

Mine had no problem whatsoever.

Cultural radio is okay as long as you don't make money off it.

Then again, there are no laws in my country, so I don't know what'd happen in the first world.

This is a bit OT but i talk on CB radio from time to time and i can hear mexico CBers in louisville KY!!!, those guys run 10s of thousands of watts, when here in the US the legal limit is 4 watts, but i get away with 250 :smt083

**Zilog Jones** · 01-15-2005

Hey maybe I should just do the station on good ol' shortwave! I doubt ComReg (the Commission for Communications Regulation) care much about that band any more anyway. Setting up real radio stations here is a big scam - it's illegal to broadcast on commercial bands here without a license, but you have to have been broadcasting for a few months to get a license or something stupid like that...

Anyway, I'm still waiting for a response from the Computer Society, to see if it will be possible with them. Even if it is possible, I'm probably going to add another PC to their servers as they don't have anything that will be able to run Winamp or XMMS - all they have are Linux servers devoid of any GUIs.

**XerdoPwerko** · 01-15-2005

Whoa, Shortwave is extremely cool! I remember listening to NHK or BBC or DW, back in '89 - '92, until the frequencies became somewhat difficult to tune into (someone installed a huge, like 20 m huge, antenna near my house. Sometimes, the lights from the tip of it are aimed straight at my old bedroom window)

If you could get a Shortwave Radio station running, it would be brutally retro-chic. Unfortunately, almost nobody would be able to tune in, and you'd probably have a hard time knowing your basic stats (how many listeners, broadcast quality). I almost realise you're joking about Shortwave, but it brings back really great memories. Like huge blackouts where the only thing in the house that works is a lamp and the shortwave radio - or learning chinese (I think I know like two words) from a radio-station that spoke like a drunk spaniard. Hell, reading the frequencies booklet! (which is painfully outdated now. There's a lot of radio-stations from the Soviet Union, like Radio Peace and Progress). Ah, shortwave...
Those were the days...

Then again, there airwaves are no longer that congested... you know... that "internet" thing.

**Zilog Jones** · 01-15-2005

I used to listen to shortwave too over the last few years, with a truly awful radio - the whole SW band was on the one band, so tuning anything in was near impossible! It was really hard to get NHK (even though it's relayed from England - only about 300-600km away from me), but I still listened to it whenever there was an English or Japanese language broadcast on it - and not forgetting the singing contest thing (i forget the name) on sundays!

NHK have Radio Japan Online, but it sucks compared to the proper shortwave RJ - it's pretty much just news all day long! There were actual music shows and stuff on shortwave.

By the way, http://www.ilgradio.com/ has a good online guide of what's on shortwave if you're still interested.

Doing a SW radio station would be "retro-chic" as you said, but these days there's a hell of a lot more people in the world with broadband than there is with SW radios. Plus it'd probably cost a lot to get a decent transmitter, and I'd most certainly kill myself putting up a mast :-D.

UPDATE: I just got a response from the CompSoc guys. It turns out I will have to do things *legally*, so I'll have to see about getting rights and shit. Aaarrrrg! :angry

**WolverineDK** · 01-15-2005

Zilog Jones:
the comsoc is helping the antipirate things(they are fighting piracy) that is maybe why they told you to do the legal and shit

or am i wrong when University Of Limerick is in peerguardians blocklist ?

**Zilog Jones** · 01-15-2005

Well, it's kinda THE LAW in Ireland to have permission from the copyright holders to use their property - I think that's their main concern. That and their servers have to go through the ITD (IT Department of UL) and HEAnet (the ISPs of the univeristy) before reaching the internet, and I don't think they would like the idea of illegal internet radio sourced from within their networks.

**XerdoPwerko** · 01-16-2005

Must be a difference in legislation, or something.

Ever listened to an online radio-station called Big Mog? I don't know how he did it (he used shoutcast, and had downloads available and a continuous automatic stream)

When it existed, it was really cool, it transmitted videogame music and some anime intros and such. It was probably back in 99 or 2000, though.