Simian automation system questions

[gophergirl]

I am buying a station that runs Simian 1.7.9 automation and considering upgrading the computer. Do I really need an ASI 6000 series sound card or will a soundblaster consumer market card work? My computer guy says the soundblaster is fine. However, we're going to do a lot more with the system than it has been doing on the current studio computer. A friend running the same software at his station says I need the ASI card. I am also running Natural Log and Natural Music, Adobe Audition 1.5 and Airlink receiver and Airlink Transmitter.
This is my first venture into ownership, moving over from on air. Any advice is appreciated.

 

[OKCRadioGuy]

The quality of a sound blaster, because it's unbalanced audio, might not be the best option for you. I'd invest in a pro audio card as there is less opportunity for crap to creep up in your audio from an unbalanced audio source. BTW, Simian isn't exactly the best when it comes to customer support. If you can afford it consider Nexgen or BE Audiovault or Enco as they offer real support opposed to partial support from Simian (even if paid).

 

[bilco]

If portions of your day will be satelite automated, you need either a sound card that takes trigger inputs or an external box to do so that communicates via RS232 or USB with the computer. I'm not that familiar with SImian, but it may need some other method of accepting triggers. The ASI card is more expensive but many have the trigger input capability and multiple audio outs for such things as audition and cue channels while on the air with the main outputs. Quality wise a lot depends on your needs. For a small AM, the sound blaster may be OK, but for a seriuos FM, especially HD but even conventional you will need a higher quality card.
Bill

 

[bradgoehl]

The short answer is yes you need the good sound card, remember that this is where most of the audio your listeners will hear comes from. And shouldn't be skimped on.
As to Simian, as I understand it will take triggers from a variety of 3rd party devices for satellite show switching and console triggers ect..

If you have not yet, you should contract a good broadcast engineer to help you retrofit and check out all the station systems.
If you post your general area, I'm sure the folks on here can recommend a local or simi-local person.

 

[ABQRADIO]

Actually, most of the onboard sound in computers is quite good! Unbalanced, indeed... but most consoles easily interface with unbalanced sources. And Simian is a very good product - as you are entering ownership, take it from someone in ownership - every dollar you don't spend is several dollars you don't have to bring in. I use Dell 2400's from Craigslist ($25 - $50) throughout my stations - for sales, on-air, traffic, music, production. Notice which one I put first. Every day when you go into work, job 1 is "how am I going to put more business on the station today". Everything else is down the list. Best of success!

 

[xmusicmatt]

I am buying a station that runs Simian 1.7.9 automation and considering upgrading the computer. Do I really need an ASI 6000 series sound card or will a soundblaster consumer market card work? My computer guy says the soundblaster is fine. However, we're going to do a lot more with the system than it has been doing on the current studio computer. A friend running the same software at his station says I need the ASI card. I am also running Natural Log and Natural Music, Adobe Audition 1.5 and Airlink receiver and Airlink Transmitter.
This is my first venture into ownership, moving over from on air. Any advice is appreciated.

Don't skimp on your stations sound quality with a SB Card.. For advanced features like overlapping, multiple outputs mixing etc.. a ASI Card is the way to go... Could you make simian (or any other automation work on a cheap SB -- likely but it won't sound pretty or be as reliable).

Best wishes with your new adventure -- Oh yeah -- Simian will work just fine for most radio operations -- no need to upgrade to a expensive automation system if your running mostly automated to begin with. Simian isn't pretty but will get the job done. -- (Never understood the need for a pretty automation system when the studio sits empty in most cases 21 hours a day).

 

[TomT]

I own three stations, use Simian at all three. Two are satellite, one is live/music on hard drive.

You do not need the expensive ASI card, but you should get an ASI sound card. The reason is that the ASI series of sound cards comes with a virtual mixer in its software that Simian uses to make smooth transitions from audio file to audio file. There are two inexpensive cards that will work: the ASI 5111, which is a PCI card that runs around $450, and the ASI 5211, which is the PCI express card, which is about $550.

You mentioned that you plan to upgrade the computer--you will find most computers no longer have PCI slots, so plan on buying the ASI5211. We just upgraded our production room computer--found a off-lease Dell at Microcenter for $400 with a big hard drive. Important things to look for:

*Lots of RAM, Simian looks ahead and loads the upcoming items to be played into RAM, so if you are using music from hard drive, you will need the RAM;
*Satellite or Music on HD?--determines the size of the drive. We have a terrabyte hard drive on a machine used on the live music station;
*Note that Simian will not run on a 64 bit Windows 7 installation. There is a free download from Microsoft that creates a virtual 32 bit operating system for Windows 7; or you may be able to find an XP pro install. I have my doubts that Windows 8 could run a lemonade stand.

Satellite fed formats: BSI will sell you a little blue 24 trigger USB device--it is made by Measurement Computing. It's USB 1024 LS, controlled off the USB bus. I use these devices instead:

http://www.mccdaq.com/usb-data-acquisition/USB-DIO24-Series.aspx

Which is the same device, but with a 37 pin connector you can use to connect your incoming trigger lines ("net cues" or "relays") from the satellite receiver. I buy a plastic Hammond box from Mouser and mount the card inside the box--makes for a much more stable installation.

You can also connect these devices to a relay panel (also made by Measurement Computing) for various switching functions. On one station we have a console where channels can be turned on and off remotely. We have 5 different satellite feeds which we run into five different channels (leaving the faders up), and use a relay board to turn channels on and off as needed. This simplifies, for example, switching between our Dial Global AC feed to Delilah from Premier Satellite. This is the "relay rack" function of Simian, you program macros to turn on or off the particular relays, or use the time command functions (we use this to join Fox News TOH).

Broadcast Tools makes a device that will accept triggers and issue relay commands, this is a serial device (you can use a USB to serial adapter to control it, since serial connections have vanished from most computers). If you have very complex programming, they also make a 32 line trigger input device. Somewhat more tricky to get to work, but the current version of Simian supports it. I have one on my AC station, with all 32 trigger lines in use.

You will find that Natural Log and Natural Music work great with Simian. We have two different locations, the logs are just e-mailed from the main office to the other station, where the afternoon guy loads it in for the next day.

 

[Groove1670]

I guess the question is why are you running so many tasks on one computer. Maybe I'm reading the post wrong.

If the Soundblaster is running and sounds okay. I would add additional cards of the same type if needed.

unless you are running HD. I don't see the need for a expensive card. Save your money for those lean months.

 

[TomT]

Yes--no need to run either Natural Log or Natural Music on the air computer; just network another computer into the air machine. Though not sure that is what is proposed. Either logging program will work fine on a simple computer--I just bought a couple off-lease computers (for internet/word processing workstations) for $129 that would be adequate for those programs. Although, of course, one would want a better, newer box for the billing!

But the ASI card is needed for Simian. One will become painfully aware of this if any kind of serious programming is attempted using the built in sound card or some simple cheap card. As I described, not just an issue of sound quality but one of the proper functioning of the system.

 

[Dale H. Cook]

Do I really need an ASI 6000 series sound card ...

At the very least you need a professtional grade sound card with multiple internal virtual cards to do smooth crossfades. For a few years I took care of a pair of stations which each had three Soundblaster Audigy cards to do crossfades. Those machines never performed as well as the machines in two other stations that used ASI cards. Note that the deck Vu meters in Simian will likely work only with the cards that BSI specifies for use with Simian. If you plan to download and run syndicated programs in MP3 format consumer cards may not handle that well as they generally lack the on-board MP3 decoding found in the pro audio cards designed for broadcast use (such as the ASI 6000 series).

I am also running ...

Do not run any software on your automation system other than the automation suite. Automation is very intensive, and other programs' use of the CPU and other resources is likely to interfere with the automation system. There can also be clashes between the automation system and Audition.

Someone downstream mentioned triggers. If you need triggers you will need to provide for those as even the pro audio cards such as the ASI cards do not provide triggers.

 

[chriscollins]

By all means, go ASI... You will have a much better system. ASI makes good drivers and beyond sound quality, that is what will keep you from crashing or having other trouble.

 

[wrsg915fm]

Do yourself a HUGE favor, and take Tom T's advice. Along with the stations he runs, he also mentors our high school radio station, WRSG. We use Simian, and it really delivers for us-no complaints at all.

 

[Dale H. Cook]

Do yourself a HUGE favor, and take Tom T's advice

I will second that. From his post it is obvious that he has extensive experience with Simian. I have quite a bit myself, including the time with its predecessor, Wavestation. 11 years ago. I've worked with Simian at eight stations since it was first released. All automation systems have requirements if you want them to work properly and be reliable. Pay attention to what BSI says you need. Trying to cut corners by, say, cheaping out on the sound card, will cause headaches in the long run. I know - I had one owner who insisted Sound Blaster Audigy cards were good enough, but they weren't. Fortunately he soon sold those ststions to my current employer, who installed AudioVaults.

 

[chriscollins]

Do yourself a HUGE favor, and take Tom T's advice

I will second that. From his post it is obvious that he has extensive experience with Simian. I have quite a bit myself, including the time with its predecessor, Wavestation. 11 years ago. I've worked with Simian at eight stations since it was first released. All automation systems have requirements if you want them to work properly and be reliable. Pay attention to what BSI says you need. Trying to cut corners by, say, cheaping out on the sound card, will cause headaches in the long run. I know - I had one owner who insisted Sound Blaster Audigy cards were good enough, but they weren't. Fortunately he soon sold those ststions to my current employer, who installed AudioVaults.

I love my AudioVAULT's

 

[gophergirl]

Thanks for all of the insight. Simian comes with the purchase and we may be able to get a deal to upgrade to the newest version. Our tech guy knows it, so we are sticking with it. You've all given me a lot to think about in putting together the best configuration for the air studio.

 

[WNTIRadio]

I'll toss in another recommendation on the ASI cards. You'll be a lot happier, it WILL sound better and the full functionality of the program will be there.

 

[radiorob2.0]

If you are not asking Simian to do much then a standard audio card will work. But if you want to voicetrack or anything beyond that go with the better sound card.

 

[wrsg915fm]

We just set WRSG's programming to begin holiday programming at 12:01 a.m. on Black Friday. It was so simple with Simian. I will still air syndicated programs as per usual, so we will not go exclusively Christmas this time around.

Again, listen to Tom T and do as advised. If I can do this, anyone can.

 

[Kent T]

Go ASI for the best reliable and stable operation and for better station audio. BSI recommends these cards for very good reasons.

 

[gophergirl]

The new computer was installed today with the ASI sound card, the audio quality is noticeably better. Thanks again for all of the advice.