What Would You Like To See In A New Station?

[LowTideNumber6]

I've just begun the process of setting up a station on Live365. I won't be on the air for at least 3-4 weeks so consider this your chance to get some suggestions in. First, let me tell you the following:

All songs will be Pre-1970, ripped from my personal CD collection or legally purchased downloads from I-Tunes, Rhapsody, and E-music. In keeping with the what I feel to be the true spirit of oldies, a mix of styles will be featured (pop, rock, C&W, etc.) and all songs will be normalized at 92 db using MP3Gain. The stream will be in 128K stereo, but with mono mixes in 2 channels. Where a song is in stereo, I will remix down to mono using Wavosaur, then reconvert it to 2 channels.

Furthermore, I will be having custom liners done for the station by professional voice-over artists. I will be on the air only in Live mode, and will try to make my station sound as "real" as possible. As I'm based in San Francisco, I'll try to make it sound like a station in this market. I'll do my best to avoid "stiffs", records that are burnt out beyond belief (though I will have to play a few of them now and then), and records that did well when first released but have aged poorly.

So, quickly recapping. No downloads of questionable legality or quality. None of Live365's annoying ads. A style that is tailored to a real city, as opposed to a generic sounding one. No bad records. Sound good?

Now, I need your advice on the following:

One- should songs be equalized flat, or for pop/rock settings, or would you like to hear them equalized using a plug-in to sound like vinyl or high-quality tapes?

Two- Are there any singers or bands you'd like to hear that have for whatever reason have been forgotten by most oldies stations? Or in the same spirit, are there any 45s you'd love to hear again that are available on any of the legal downloading sites? If there's something you know to be available on I-Tunes or Rhapsody and want to hear, let me know and I'll buy it then play it.

Three- if all I can find is the LP version of a song, would you prefer to hear that as opposed to not having the song played at all? (I'm thinking of the Four Seasons catalog, where the single versions are damned near impossible to find, let's all e-mail Rhino about that, shall we?)

And four- do you prefer simple fade outs and fade ins, or cross-fades? I can do either easily, so whichever gets the majority vote will be what I go with.

And, as I said before, looking at an early-to-mid March launch. If you have suggestions, advice or requests, post 'em here or e-mail me at: [email protected]

That is all.

 

[RicoGregg]

I've just begun the process of setting up a station on Live365. I won't be on the air for at least 3-4 weeks so consider this your chance to get some suggestions in. First, let me tell you the following:

All songs will be Pre-1970, ripped from my personal CD collection or legally purchased downloads from I-Tunes, Rhapsody, and E-music. In keeping with the what I feel to be the true spirit of oldies, a mix of styles will be featured (pop, rock, C&W, etc.) and all songs will be normalized at 92 db using MP3Gain. The stream will be in 128K stereo, but with mono mixes in 2 channels. Where a song is in stereo, I will remix down to mono using Wavosaur, then reconvert it to 2 channels.

An advantage AM rockers in the 50s and 60s had was compression. Compression, compression, compression. When times started changing in the 70s and 80s, when a former AM rocker would change it's format, the compression was gone, and the static and spurious sounds would make themselves present. Obviously, you won't have spurious issues on a webcast, but if somehow you could recreate the compression that made bass'es bass and trebles treble, you'd have something.

Furthermore, I will be having custom liners done for the station by professional voice-over artists. I will be on the air only in Live mode, and will try to make my station sound as "real" as possible. As I'm based in San Francisco, I'll try to make it sound like a station in this market. I'll do my best to avoid "stiffs", records that are burnt out beyond belief (though I will have to play a few of them now and then), and records that did well when first released but have aged poorly.

I grew up listening to KMEN and KFXM in San Bernardino (pre-teen years) and KCBQ and KGB in San Diego (teen years). There was definitely a difference in the presentations of the two markets. You could tell. The San Diego stations had a big city, cosmopolitan feel to them. You felt like you were in a metropolitan area. At the same time, Top 40 in markets smaller than San Bernardino, such as Oxnard, Victorville, and such had a more rural feel to them: Announcers stepping on the first singing notes, bad cues, under-leveling of the mic to the point that you couldn't understand what the jock was saying, "B" sides inadvertently played, and so on.

I remember listening to KFRC when I'd visit San Francisco. I've heard untelescoped airchecks of WABC in it's "Good Guys" days. You very definitely knew that this was big city radio. A good flow of fast, uptempo songs helps to achieve that feeling. I would respectfully suggest changing the tempo gradually, rather than going straight from "Walk, Don't Run" to "Who's Sorry Now?" by Connie Francis. Too abrupt. Too mood-killing.

A list of songs to avoid would take too long to list. Use your instincts, peer opinions, and, once you're up and running, reactions.

So, quickly recapping. No downloads of questionable legality or quality. None of Live365's annoying ads. A style that is tailored to a real city, as opposed to a generic sounding one. No bad records. Sound good?

Now, I need your advice on the following:

One- should songs be equalized flat, or for pop/rock settings, or would you like to hear them equalized using a plug-in to sound like vinyl or high-quality tapes?

See my first paragraph.

Two- Are there any singers or bands you'd like to hear that have for whatever reason have been forgotten by most oldies stations? Or in the same spirit, are there any 45s you'd love to hear again that are available on any of the legal downloading sites? If there's something you know to be available on I-Tunes or Rhapsody and want to hear, let me know and I'll buy it then play it.

There are plenty, but again, too many to list. One thing to possibly consider: Most metro areas back in the day had regional hits. In San Bernardino-Riverside, a local band called The Gestures had a regional hit called "Run, Run, Run", which was a pretty good up tempo production that got plenty of local airplay. A Rialto-based band, The Hysterics, had 2 local hits. The Cascades, who later got some fame with their national hit "Rhythm of the Rain", was a San Diego club band that had a few regional hits before "Rhythm of the Rain" hit it big. If you can get listeners around the nation to send in regional hits, you might have something going.

Another thing to consider: Answer records and "flying saucers". I'll bet most people don't know that "Daddy's Home" by Shep and the Limelights was an answer record to "A Thousand Miles Away." "Duke of Earl" had an answer record in 1962 called "Duchess of Earl" by the Pearlettes. The Isley Bros.' "It's Your Thing" was answered by Marva Whitney in 1969 with "It's My Thing". You don't hear answer records anymore.

"Flying Saucers" were the novelty records where there would be a mock interview going on, the "announcer" would ask a question, and the answer would be a lyric from a hit song. Example: Announcer: "Sir, what did you think of the reports of a flying saucer landing nearby?" Answer: (singing) "Now waaaaait a minute, baby!" (from Shout!) Announcer: "And ma'am, what do you think?" Answer: (singing) "Don't they know, it's the end of the world?" (Skeeter Davis clip).

When I was a kid in the 50s, the radio was chock full of answer records and flying saucers. It was fun to listen to.

Three- if all I can find is the LP version of a song, would you prefer to hear that as opposed to not having the song played at all? (I'm thinking of the Four Seasons catalog, where the single versions are damned near impossible to find, let's all e-mail Rhino about that, shall we?)

In 1965, I bought a copy of the Dave Clark 5's album, The Dave Clark 5 Return, that contained my favorite DC5 title, "Can't You See That She's Mine?" I was anxiously anticipating hearing that greatly-produced mix in stereo. Was I disappointed! Long story short, it was so lame in comparison to the mono single. I was also very pissed.

On the other hand, I often bought albums because too many singles, especially for some reason, Columbia Records songs, were short versions. I hate short versions. With the advent of things like FM radio, MTV, Music Choice, AOL Music, Satellite Radio, and the like, there is virtually no reason anymore for short versions.

And four- do you prefer simple fade outs and fade ins, or cross-fades? I can do either easily, so whichever gets the majority vote will be what I go with.

And, as I said before, looking at an early-to-mid March launch. If you have suggestions, advice or requests, post 'em here or e-mail me at: [email protected]

That is all.

No opinions on the fades.

Good luck to you.

 

[FRR]

XM had a nice feature called the Top Six on Six. It played the top 6 songs from that given week for every year of the decade randomly during the day. Nice feature. Now it's gone, and nobody seems to know why. I think you should try it, or some variation of it. As a listener, one thing that Boss Radio used were those great fade in and at the end, depending on the songs and their combinations. For instance, Will You be Staying After Sunday fading into Sara by Fleetwood Mac is done well.... Just an idea.

 

[LowTideNumber6]

Thanks for some good suggestions, folks. First off, I'm already testing various compression levels and reverb settings to try for a genuine "AM" sound. I have a copy of "San Francisco Nuggets" for some area local/regional records. I also have a fair amount of "answer" records and follow-ups, one example being "And Get Away" which, I believe, was the Esquire's followup release to "Get On Up". I also have all of Dickie Goodman's "cut-in" records off a greatest hits CD, including the very first of the genre which was Buchanan and Goodman doing "Flying Saucer Rock And Roll". Doing a "Top Six On Six" type thing is something I've never heard of but I think it's a great idea, so I'll do that or some variation thereof as well.

And I really appreciate the advice on the tempo of the music. If I recall correctly, the Top 40 standard practice was to always have a faster upbeat record coming out of commercial then ease into a mid-tempo number, then spin a slower record. I'm not really a fan of cross-fades for music but will probably do them into PSAs and voice-overs. Besides, most of the music I'll be playing has nice natural fade outs to them, and I can do fade-ins with Wavosaur.

On the progress chart, I'm about 15% done in terms of prepping for day one. Twenty percent of the songs have been equalized, I have several PSAs downloaded from Radiospace, and I'm shopping for a better microphone later today. The lead time of close to a month is being used for one simple reason. I want to hit the ground running and sound great from the get-go. I have a good amount of announcing experience, so that part will be smooth from the beginning for sure.

As I see it, there's a major need for a really great 60s-oriented station on Live365, a need I'm trying to fill. There are some fine 40s-based, 50s-based and 70s-based stations there I love listening to, but I find it kind of weird that the 60s seem to be badly under served. Maybe it's a case of everyone assuming that someone else is already doing it and thus, deciding to focus on other decades.

Anyhow, again, thanks for all the good advice, and I'll post an update in a week or so.

 

[Tom Wells]

EQ some songs and see how they sound on a stream before you process them all. Be ready to work on individual "problem" tracks.
Get a real reverb tank instead of a digital version, and spend the money for Breakaway Broadcast Processor.
1 second fades with 1 second overlap on crossfades sounds like 1965 major market radio.
Songs with long long fades need to be tail clipped before it sounds like the "board op" isn't paying attention.
Leave absolutely NO space at beginning of each audio file.
Let the next song step on the last little bit of other elements, legal ids, etc.
Genuine AM has vinyl grunge at least some of the time.
Carefully listen to what the stereo downmixes to mono sound like, there are still many recordings out there with phasing issues.
If it sounds awful find a true original mono mix if you can. Nothing wrong with playing some stiffs and some overburned tracks, if
you can keep them under control. Album versions are OK if you can't find the 45s, but many modern release remixes sound nothing
like the original did on air from the 45 release. Many Beatles songs have been turned inside out somehow, for instance.

"Walk like a Man" by the Four Seasons is so hot on the 45 I almost can't stand it.

Occaisional tempo train wrecks can be fun.
I like to play side one of Johnny Standleys "Little Bo Peep" into something really LOUD, say "Revolution" by the Beatles...
Johnny recites, slowly "Little Bo Peep" (the poem ) along with analysis, in the manner of an evangelist at a tent revival meeting.
At the end, he says " Now, if you will, kindly, pick up your books, and turn to page two hundred and twenty-two, we'll ask you all to sing...
you'll find your books on the backs of your seats....are we ready?" Then, BAM!

1960's radio did dig into what was oldies then, will you reach back into the 50's for Link Wray and other truly great rock that fits?

Rico,
I just put "Run, Run, Run" into the auto system last week. I have the 45 somewhere but dubbed it from a reel to reel tape, and I don't think it was by the Gestures. Maybe some midwestern group covered it....

Quite a few songs I prefer the 45 mix ( for audio )...Shakin all Over by the Guess Who smoked on 45, but the album version sounds
pretty bad. Same with Pushin too Hard by The Seeds.

Still happy I started collecting 45s at age 3 and never stopped.

 

[LowTideNumber6]

In regards to your response, Tom...let me run through things one at a time.

First off, I have neither the space to install a reverb tank nor the money to buy one. Having tried various digital effects and liking none of them so far, I'm leaning towards not using reverb at all. As regards Breakaway, I'm not at all sure my computer can handle it, but if there's a free trial, I'll give it a try then purchase the program if I can use it. I've downloaded and am testing the MBL4 free processing software, so if I can't manage to run Breakaway on my computer, I think that would be an acceptable compromise.


All songs are being auto-trimmed with Wavosaur, which does a perfect job of eliminating silence at the start of a track. Your advice on fades is much appreciated and will be implemented.

Next, rest assured, every stereo track that is mixed down to mono will be listened to completely all the way through before being aired (or I may very well limit myself to songs that are already in mono). Any songs that are too "hot" (I agree with you on "Walk Like A Man") won't get played. My attitude is that it's better to air fewer records that sound as good as they can rather than focus on sheer numbers. In fact, I'm leaning towards having a weekly chart of just 40 songs that air each week, with no other ones being used at all- in effect, my own weekly Top 40.

Also, I may very well decide to use no digitally remixed versions of songs at all, which makes me grateful I still have my old Beatles LPs from when I was a kid, as well as several early CD releases that were done when analog was still being used on most compact discs. (Rule #1 of record collecting- never throw anything out...some of the 45s and tapes I bought as much as twenty years ago are still in my possession).

Speaking of 45s, I found some good used ones at a thrift store today, they have a few minor scratches but should clean up just fine using Audacity. It's a great thing that more and more single versions of songs are becoming available on CD or by download- the Motown Complete series is an absolute godsend in this area. Comparing the 45 mixes to what has been the commonly available album versions is a real revelation, and a bonus is that every single one I might air is in the original mono.

One question. Do you mean to suggest that I stream a few different songs with different equalization curves as sort of a test run? And if anyone has suggestions for a good microphone in the $30-50 range, please let me know.

Oh yes, and as regards the early rockers, I have tons of Elvis, Buddy Holly, Bo Diddley, Link Wray, etc. to spin- the focus of the station I think is going to be 1955 to 1965 with enough tracks from '66-'69 to add a little spice.

And just one more thing. I may ease off on the local San Francisco connection and try for a slightly more "generic" big city sound. Having a real hard time finding enough regional/local hits to play to make that part of things work right...and if there's one thing I very badly want to do, it's get this all as right as right can be.

In closing, again, many thanks for everyone's time in reading all this and for the great suggestions. I know enough to know that I'm nowhere close to knowing it all.

 

[johnbasalla]

Sounds exciting. Might I suggest that you consider going into the early 1970s, no farther then 1973. There's lots of good stuff that still has that '60s feel.
The "Run Run Run" song I remember was by Jo Jo Gunne (in the 1970s). See how much early 1970s stuff is actually played on the '70s stations. I remember a broadcaster of a major market station saying for their '70s shows, that the 1970s start in 1974. With regional hits, you might want to do a weekly specialty show with hits from different areas, if you obtain enough. In Cleveland, Ohio one of those would be "Stop, Wait and Listen" by Circus (Metromedia Records).
Here's a tough one to find in good shape... "Color Him Father" by The Winstons "(1969). The follow-up single is one of my all-time favorite records... "Love of The Common People". Both songs made powerful and positive statements.

 

[LowTideNumber6]

Sounds exciting. Might I suggest that you consider going into the early 1970s, no farther then 1973. There's lots of good stuff that still has that '60s feel.
The "Run Run Run" song I remember was by Jo Jo Gunne (in the 1970s). See how much early 1970s stuff is actually played on the '70s stations. I remember a broadcaster of a major market station saying for their '70s shows, that the 1970s start in 1974. With regional hits, you might want to do a weekly specialty show with hits from different areas, if you obtain enough. In Cleveland, Ohio one of those would be "Stop, Wait and Listen" by Circus (Metromedia Records).
Here's a tough one to find in good shape... "Color Him Father" by The Winstons "(1969). The follow-up single is one of my all-time favorite records... "Love of The Common People". Both songs made powerful and positive statements.

Funny you should mention "Color Him Father". I have the stereo single version on one of Dick Bartley's "On The Radio" series and plan on playing it in semi-regular rotation. Regional hits are still being a pain to find, but, I do have a ton of soul records and some good beach music, so I may go with a sound from someplace like Myrtle Beach or something like that. Just a thought I'm thinking.

 

[RicoGregg]

Rico,
I just put "Run, Run, Run" into the auto system last week. I have the 45 somewhere but dubbed it from a reel to reel tape, and I don't think it was by the Gestures. Maybe some midwestern group covered it....

Tom, It's all good.

A quick Google search reveals that there were many different songs that were titled "Run, Run, Run", including renditions by The Who, Velvet Underground, and the Gestures, amongst a host of others.

A Wikipedia check reveals that the Gestures' "Run, Run, Run" (1964) started as a regional midwestern hit (they were based out of Minnesota), and nationally, it peaked at #44.

As per an earlier post of mine, this would indicate that my memory is playing tricks on me. I would have sworn that 1) The Gestures were a local (San Bernardino-Riverside) band, 2) they spelled their name that way so's not to get confused with another local band, The Jesters, and 3) that "Run, Run, Run" was a regional hit heard on Inland Empire stations only. Nopers on all three.

I hope my memory's ok about USC beating Notre Dame 55-24 in 1974, UCLA winning 7 straight national basketball titles between 1967 and 1973, and Ann Margaret wowing me and other males in "Viva Las Vegas" in 1964.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gestures

 

[Tom Wells]

A 4 spring Hammond reverb tank is very reasonably priced @ Antique Electronic Supply in Tempe, AZ.
You'll only have to add a little side amp to drive it and a pre-amp feed it back into the mix.
If kept at just low enough levels, there is no detrimental "sproinging" effect.
If the main audio is too high, there isn't any "room" to hear the reverb "in".

I googled and a bunch of them turned up, too.

Thumbs up on the Bo Diddley!

Is "The Perfect Boy" by Annette Funicello a stiff or a cool obscurity? I can't tell yet, that's what some "stiffs" ought to go in there.
Someone will love the oddball stuff, and that will make them return to see what else you have in the future.

Yes, you should do some test runs to make sure you're hitting the mark on audio before processing everything.
I sometimes like the mix when I'm doing the editing, but on-air, in context of other songs, one may be too bright, etc.
So be ready to revisit some tracks for a tune-up.
Your audiofile graph wave forms should be "full" but not "too full" or there will be no dynamics to give the music punch.

Breakaway does have a free demo, and since I bought my copy, there have been more improvements on CPU usage.
It has 2 modes, audio optimized or CPU optimized. Mono mode saves even more CPU.
If that's still too much there's a Breakaway Personal version that sounds darn near as good, using even less CPU.
The broadcast version runs just fine on an old IBM thinkpad laptop, along with Zara automation, and it never seems to
hang up or misbehave in any way.

A google on Run, Run, Run turned up a clip that shows that my record is a completely different song, not a cover of the song by the Gestures.
Now I'm gonna have to dig for the 45 to find out who exactly it is on my record.

I'm looking forward to hearing this stream. Are you considering Part 15 AM for the benefit of your neighbors?
Once up and running, it is more or less free, and you can monitor your stream anywhere in the near vicinity.

 

[deltas69]

my comments are on the technical side..i've wanted to throw up a station for a long time and have looked at live 365..i'd be interested in knowing which level you go with..and just how many listeners you can have..i have all the music, a dedicated pc, etc..but not sure on what software to run with.. i have an ots audio program that runs great as far as crossfading atomatically or you can do it manually..but not sure if it works with 365..i would want to go live on weekend nights as i have the equipment to do so..i'm just not sure what software i need to get from hard drive to the web..at a economical cost..i don't fully understand the numbers on 365 and how they relate to number of listeners..i don't want to go through the expense and prep time just to do shows for a half dozen people..i'd like to reach at minimum 500 or so 24/7 whether i'm live or not..what am i looking at ? i'm an old rock jock from the 60's/70's and would like to play around on the web..and do it my way..not some CLUELESS station owners way..thanks for any input..chuck lundi

 

[Tom Wells]

Recorded today 2:00 to 3:30 AM 1620 off the 1962 Plymouth radio.
Not happy about the bitrate, downgraded by Podomatic to 96k.

Contains "Run, Run, Run" from still unknown.
Not happy with everything here, but it's a new method.
http://thomasjwells.podOmatic.com/entry/2009-02-14T15_39_45-08_00

 

[LowTideNumber6]

Okay- running through these in order...first Tom's post, then Chuck's.

Not to sound stupid, but how much space would a reverb tank take up? And yes, I agree there can be a fine line between an obscurity and a "stiff". I make the call based on whether or not the record sounds good to me, I have several cuts that in my opinion are just as good as anything that ever became a hit. Will do on testing a few various equalization curves before doing all the music. And yes, I do plan on setting up a Part 15 outlet to cover my building at some point in the future. Oh yeah, about Breakaway, I'll definitely see if my computer can handle it. If it can, at least I know my budget can afford my buying it.

Live365 is not perfect but I think it's far better than most of the legal alternatives. The cheapest package starts at $14.95 a month. That gets you five listeners in basic mode and three in live, but, VIP listeners can tune in without being affected by those limits. Pro packages start at around $107 or so a month and come with a $199 set up fee, a fee that does get waived from time to time, and may be waived if you sign up for one of the larger packages. So if you do indeed want to reach several hundred listeners from the get-go, a pro package is the only way to do it. And of course, as a pro broadcaster you can sell air time in your broadcast.

As far as using any kind of program to run in live mode, Live365 is pretty flexible- all you need is to make sure that title/artist/album is sent with each song, or to insert those manually for each song.

You can use the free program Live365 provides. I know you can also use Winamp, and SAM broadcaster and a few other programs as well. You can pre-record voice overs or use your microphone to talk live or even run line-in from another source (which of course, would require manual input of tag information for each song). Honestly, I don't yet know a lot about all the details of how things work, but it is free to register at the site, so you can read the posts on their "Want To Broadcast?" forum and ask whatever questions you have.

One more thing. I want to thank everyone once more for their suggestions and advice. I'm getting a sense that if I can do this right, a lot of people will give my station a fair chance and like what they hear. This is by far the most work I've put into a project of any sort in a long time, and I'm having a lot of fun with it, fun that should only increase once I'm actually on the air.

 

[LowTideNumber6]

Recorded today 2:00 to 3:30 AM 1620 off the 1962 Plymouth radio.
Not happy about the bitrate, downgraded by Podomatic to 96k.

Contains "Run, Run, Run" from still unknown.
Not happy with everything here, but it's a new method.
http://thomasjwells.podOmatic.com/entry/2009-02-14T15_39_45-08_00

Just wanted to let you know I think your podcast is very cool. Not everything you play is to my liking, but you have enough that I do like to make sitting through a few minutes of something I don't care for worthwhile.

 

[LowTideNumber6]

As if I need to, let me pose one more question. Is 128K a good rate to stream oldies at, or would a lower rate fit what I'm trying to do better?

 

[LowTideNumber6]

Quick update for everyone- half the music is prepped, I've found an equalizer setting I think works well. I've found a compression level I think works well, also. Have decided that 128K will indeed be the stream rate. Couldn't get Breakaway to run on this older computer but I think I've found a good setting in the MBL4 program. The new microphone was bought two days ago and is a major improvement over the old one. So things are progressing quite well and an early-to-mid March launch is almost certain. Now, just one more question to ask.

For a real AM radio sound, I can run the signal through my Ramsey transmitter and then through a good quality transistor radio into a separate computer (cheap used laptop bought off Craigslist). Do you folks think this is a good or a bad idea? Personally, the test I've run gives a sound I really like, but if the listeners aren't going to like it, then I'll nix the idea.

 

[Tom Wells]

I do like the idea of streaming everything through an actual radio first. That's why the podcasts I post are actual off-the-air
recordings. Make sure the radio is not getting overloaded or it will "clump up" the audio.
It will add a whole extra set of things to give headaches, though.
The trip through the radio will soften the highs out a bit, so that your 128k stream will be silky-smooth.
128k is really about the minimum that people accustomed to radio will find "transparent", if full range audio is encoded.
Anything less starts to sound smeary. That's why I'm kinda honked off about my podcasts being downgraded to 96k.

I realize reverb was never a big thing on the west coast. We had a party last weekend, and one of the guests (about my age)
who had grown up in the SF Bay area was listening to the music here, and he realy liked the sound, but said he never heard reverb on
AMs out there when he was young, so if you keep the sound "dry", you'll be in keeping with the California sound.

Is there someplace you can post samples of what is sounds like?

 

[SuperRadioFan]

I realize reverb was never a big thing on the west coast. We had a party last weekend, and one of the guests (about my age) who had grown up in the SF Bay area was listening to the music here, and he realy liked the sound, but said he never heard reverb on AMs out there when he was young, so if you keep the sound "dry", you'll be in keeping with the California sound.

Tom, I grew up in Central Jersey and I hated hated hated hated the reverb on WABC! Did I mention I dislike reverb? To me it was just annoying. I listened to WIBG where there was no reverb. Now living in Orange County, CA since 1985... When I went back to visit family I hated the reverb on CBS-FM as well. I guess its one of those things... You love it or you hate it?

To LowTide, WHY would you want "a real AM radio sound"? For a great sounding oldies Internet station, if you haven't already sampled it, listen to RichBroRadio.com.

 

[LowTideNumber6]

Tom- Yes, I can post a few samples as small files on Rapidshare or someplace like that, and will do so later today. And just to let everyone know, I'm not, repeat, not using any reverb on the music. And I agree that 128K seems to be just the bare minimum for a really good sound. If I could go higher on Live365, I would.

SuperRadioFan- It's just an idea I'm considering, and as I said, if enough people tell me they think it's a bad idea, then I won't do it. I've not ever sampled RichBroRadio, but will give it a listen when I get a chance.

 

[LowTideNumber6]

I have 3 different songs done to give an idea of what the finished mp3s sound like when ready to stream, complete with fade outs at the end of each song. Anyone who wants to hear the finished version and offer his or her opinion may e-mail me at [email protected] and I will send you a link to download them.

Please bear in mind these are songs that are processed with the MBL4 software, then run through a Ramsey AM transmitter into a transistor radio, then fed back into a laptop via line-in for recording. I think they sound pretty good, but suggestions are always welcomed. Remember, I'm still very much in testing phase, so now's the time to suggest changes.

Oh yeah, one more thing. All 3 songs are the original mono mixes. I may mono down a stereo recording then reconvert it into 2 channels just to see how that comes out. Will advise on that as I go along.