And now for something completely different...
Almost no one knows about this, but on the weekends I do some hobbyist level radio streaming. Nothing major, and no, no links to it will be posted. It's not that I am not proud of it, it's mainly because the stream I rent is very, very tiny from a listener limit standpoint, and posting a random link online might end in me being overloaded. Maybe someday I will do a large-scale broadcast. You know, when the lotto money comes in...
But more seriously, when I started, I wanted a premiere software to do this with. I tried out Winamp as a solution for free, but it was atrocious, and very difficult to set up. After asking around and a few searches, I found Spacial's SAM Broadcaster. The software looked great, complex for me at the time, but great. I downloaded the trial, found it met my needs, and went to for it.
The software, at the time, cost $300 and change.
Now, to ease the pain, I did it in payments. It was no worse than buying some games or any other hobby at that point. My first misgivings happened at the third payment. For some reason, they didn't attempt to pass it, and at one of my attempted streams, with people waiting on me to stream, my software stopped working due to an expired licence. I had to call it off, and contact Spacial. It's then that I found out $300 doesn't buy you shit these days.
Their support, what little of it there was, utterly sucked. They were unresponsive, took forever to actually fix the issue, and in general it was a pain even finding how to get support in the first place. It should also be noted that, at this time, they announced that their software was getting a new version... which I could get for $50 for a limited time!
Given that I was already having issues, and the only bonus I saw was Windows 8 compatibility, I passed. I was not about to get suckered in for more cash when they had shown a blatantly bad amount of service thus far.
Flash forward to present day.
I just bought myself a fancy new rig... with Windows 8. Now, I had thought that they would at least patch or give a work around for their software to run under Windows 8. I tried contacting their support to see what, if anything, they would do. Shockingly, their support had gotten WORSE. Before, you could chat live with them. Now, it just drops you into creating a service ticket. However, nowhere on their site can you view the ticket. It just goes off into the ether, never to be seen again... until they email you a survey about how you liked the service you didn't receive.
On top of this, that $50 offer was gone like smoke. Instead, now they ask a whopping $179 for the same patch to Windows 8. Not anywhere have I seen it have a single new feature that is not already in the software, this is strictly compatibility.
Fed up, I tweeted at a DJ resource twitter account if they had heard good things about Virtual DJ. VDJ is a far more complex remix software. It is software I'd love to know how to use someday, but it vastly outstrips my basic knowledge today. It, like SAM, costs $300 In way of reply, a follower of the same account, Gary, tweeted that I should check out RadioDJ instead.
It was uncertain of this, some random twitter person linking me to some odd domain, but I went anyway. I am so glad I did. What I found is a software I wish I had found 2 years ago. RadioDJ is, in essence, SAM 2.0. It has more powerful automation features, a much more reliable stream management software that allows for dead air (something SAM most assuredly does not), it's light, fast, powerful... All the things SAM is not. The best news: It's free. That's right, 100% no charge, zip, zero, nada. There is a donate button (which I happily used once I had full knowledge the software worked), but aside from that, no money is required at all.
And the support, my word the support. This is a one-man operation, but he is surrounded by fans (for obvious reasons). He still does support as much as he can, and all his user support one another.
There are downsides, small ones. There's no installer, so you need to be used to dealing with software like that. You need to install the database yourself (SAM does use a database, but installs one for you), and you have to install your own streaming software. However, all these steps, with links and videos and so many supportive users, are provided right there on the website.
Spacial's homepage says you can be up and running in minutes. The same goes for RadioDJ, except you will still have money in your wallet! The learning curve may be more steep with RDJ, but for a free piece of software, it's worth the invested time. I only wish I had that $300 to give to Marius, the developer of RDJ. He deserves it far more than Spacial
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