Linda

[...]below are some web links to webpages which we connect to seeing as we feel they’re really worth browsing[...]…

contact djgarryc@live.co.uk

http://www.corruptradio.net

Garry

Well, this post is focused upon streaming source clients. This is the part that gets your audio shipped up to a streaming server, so the guests at your venue can pick up your stream, by means of the Parcel Media URL. The fact that WinAmp has the Shoutcast plugin streaming source client, rather than a standalone streaming source client, kind of muddies the picture. However, the music/audio creation application and the streaming source client are functionally two different things.

You are likely bumping up against a limitation of WinAmp as a music/audio creation application. WinAmp was originally designed merely as a means of a computer owner to listen to mp3′s on that computer. The original vision likely did not include any sort of DJing. Accordingly, it handles a single audio source at a time, with no ability to mix in (e.g.) a mic signal alongside the music.

What you are needing is a more full-featured music/audio creation application. There are many from which to choose, which I’ll cover in a bit. However, I should point out that your current solution of WinAmp with the Shoutcast plugin is both a music/audio creation application (WinAmp) with an integrated streaming source client (Shoutcast plugin). Accordingly, you’ll need to address both these requirements.

Any of the standalone streaming source clients listed above should work for you. As mentioned, the job of the streaming source client is to take the pre-mixed audio generated by your music/audio creation application, encode it into mp3, and send it to the streaming server up in the cloud. Butt would work fine for this. However, your music/audio creation application needs to generate a pre-mixed stereo signal — music and mic — with which to feed butt.

There are many configurations that would allow you to do this. One way would be to employ a hardware mixer external to your computer. You could continue to use WinAmp (but not use the Shoutcast plugin with it).
- Run a cable from the headphone/speaker out on your computer to a stereo input on the mixer.
- Feed your external microphone to another channel on the mixer.
- Then run a cable from the output of the mixer to the line in on your computer.
- Lastly, configure butt to get its input from the computer’s line in.

In this manner, butt would be seeing the pre-mixed audio from WinAmp and the mic, and sending it on to the happy listeners in SL. You could pick up a small mixer from craigslist or a pawn shop suitable for the job in the $10 – $20 range. Add another couple dollars for cables, and you’d be in business.

As I said, this is merely one scenario that would work. There are many other options.

I’ve not done much with EdCast. If there’s a subversion repository freely available, that’s great for the community as a whole. Whether or not it gets picked up in active development, it would likely be a great learning tool for coders, if nothing else.

Since adopting Live as my streaming DAW, I’ve had to switch streaming clients. I ended up with BUTT. Currently, I do most work on OS X. I know Jack is available for OS X, but I’ve not tried it. However, I can tell you that BUTT sees Soundflower without any issues. Or rather, Soundflower sees BUTT. Soundflower is another ‘virtual patch cable’ like Jack, written by cycling74.

If I get some time, I’ll fire up a Linux/Jack/BUTT install, and let you know how it goes.

I would also mention, for those who want to stream to Second Life on Linux, to look into IDJC, the Internet DJ Console.