Mac Audio Guy

The fact that the online community of Second Life provides a way listen to streaming audio has created opportunities for musicians , DJs, and others to stream live audio broadcast into Second Life. Since there are no real good tutorials out there on streaming from a Mac and that I’m getting tired of repeating the same set of instructions, I put together this article. First I’m going to make the assumption that you want to stream to more than ten listeners at a single location in Second Life, and that you already have installed and are familiar with the basics of using Second Life. Please note that you can also stream to even more listeners over the internet using this same method.

Getting Nicecast

The first step in the process is that you need to have broadcasting source software. PC users have a simple WinAmp plug-in that most users use. But for Mac users this isn’t an option. While there are several DJ programs like Tracktor that support streaming, by far the easiest to use and most prevalent piece of software is Nicecast by Rouge Amoeba ( http://rogueamoeba.com/nicecast/) . Nicecast cost $40US for the fully functional version. But it’s well worth the money in saving you time and headaches. Simply put, you need to purchase this software if you want to broadcast from your Mac.

For the purpose s of this article I’ll presume that you are using Nicecast. After installing Nicecast and opening it the first window that you will see is the Broadcast window. This is the start and stop button for your broadcast, so you will want to keep this window open at all times when broadcasting.

Okay, listen up! Here is the is the biggest misunderstanding regarding Nicecast and internet broadcasting: You CAN use Nicecast’s built-in server to broadcast, but in 99% of the cases you DO NOT want to use the built-in Server. Here’s why: Unless you have a serious connection to the internet(and I mean T3 or better) you wont me able to serve very many streams. The math is simple, if you want to run a 96kbs stream, the bandwidth required is 96Kbs per listener. So your typical high speed 600 or 700kbs DSL connection can support seven listeners in the best case scenario, add overhead for NAT, shared devices, Gateways ,yadda yadda yadda, and you can see that running your own server probably won’t work. I will show how to configure Nicecast to use an external server so that you can broadcast to more listeners.

Getting a Shoutcast server

This brings us to the second piece of software in the chain. A Shoutcast DNAS server. Either you or the land/ club owner in Second Life will have to rent usage of a streaming server. There are two “brands” of servers out there; Shoutcast and Icecast, Shoutcast being a free piece of software from NullSoft and Icecast which is open-source software. I’ll use the Shoutcast server for this example. Like I said earlier, either you or the venue owner needs to “Rent a Stream” which is to say, a streaming server. If you search Shoutcast in Second Life you can find several vendors that can rent you the use of a server on an hourly, weekly, or monthly basis, and you can pay for these in Linden $. A typical 100 listener, 128kbs server rents for about $4000 Lindens a month. If you are a freelance musician or DJ in Second Life having you’re own streaming server is a huge advantage in terms of control, if you can justify the overhead. If you are a club or venue owner, haveing your owndn streaming server will allow to attract more artist and visitors to your venue and will allow you control of the music on your land.You can also search the internet and find Shoutcast streams for about $30-50US a month. Once you or the venue owner has rented a Shoutcast server you will be provided with the following information:

a URL with port number (in the form http://XX.XX.XX.XX:XXXX or http://hostname.com:port #) this is the URL that you will need for the land settings or to send internet listeners to.
A Host server IP ie. XX.XX.XX.XX
A port number ie XXXX
And a Password
You’ll need this information to configure the Nicecast Broadcaster.
You may also receive an admin login and password for configuring the Shoutcast server. which in most cases you won’t need to mess with. Warning: any changes to the default Shoutcast configuration should be undertaken with great care.

Configuring Nicecast

The next step is to configure Nicecast to send the audio from your Mac to the Shoutcast server. In Nicecast, go to Show Server under the Window menu or hit Command 2. Next, click on the drawer icon either in the upper left or right of the Server window
Once the Drawer is open, click on the + sign in the lower left of the drawer.

This will add a server called Untitled Server and a configuration form will open in the Server window. In the Name field, type in a name of your choice for your server.
Next select Shoutcast as the Server Type. In most cases leave the Account field blank. Type in the password that came with your Spoutcast server info. Fill in the Address field with the IP address or hostname of your Shoutcast server (Do not include the http://.) Fill in the port number from your Shoutcast server info. Leave the Mount Point field blank and leave the Public URL field set to Automatic. Next click on the radio button to the left of your server to activate it. You can now close the Server window.

There are a couple more settings that you should do in Nicecast. Make sure the Broadcast window is open or open it by going to Window>Show Broadcast or typing Command 1. Under the Source button you can choose which application you’re going to source your audio from. Nicecast will allow you to stream just about any audio from your Mac, but for testing and getting familiar with Nicecast, I suggest setting this to iTunes so that you can play music from your music library into Second Life. Read the Nicecast documentation to customize your source audio settings. Under the Info button you can fill out information about your “Radio Station” that you want your listeners to see. Don’t worry about the Titles button at this time. Under the Quality button you MUST set the Bitrate to same as your Shoutcast server. Set the Sampler Rate to 44.1 and the Channels to Stereo and leave the CPU slider in the middle. Under the Share Button, the URL of your stream will be there automatically. This is the Address you can give internet listeners or post to your Website. And finally there’s the Effects Button. The Effects button brings up the Effects window, where you can add audio effects and useful plug-ins like the voice-over module to Nicecast. I’ll refer you to the Nicecast documentation to use this window, for now you can close the Effects window. Okay, you are almost ready to broadcast, now we have to configure SL to receive the broadcast.

Configuring Second Life

At this point, you are configured to send your stream out to the internet., but to bring it into Second Life we need to configure the land to receive the broadcast. Launch Second Life and go to the land where you are going to be broadcasting to. In the case that the land or club is owned by somebody else, they will have to configure the land or if they already have a land stream changer, you may be able to enter the information from the Shoutcast server into the changer. In the case that you own the land, select About Land from the World Menu. In the About Land window click on the Media tab. Enter the URL with the port number of your Shoutcast server into the Music URL field. You can close the About Land window if you’d like. Now it’s time to do a test broadcast.

Starting your Broadcast.

With Second Life still open, switch to or open Nicecast. Click on the Start Broadcast button. You may get a “Quit and Relaunch” dialog if you have iTunes open, If you do, just click on the Quit and Relaunch button to relaunch iTunes. Next you should see the red on air light appear and when you start playing a song in iTunes you should see the level meter in the Broadcast window moving and you should see the name of the currently playing song. All of this confirms that you are sending a stream to the Shoutcast server. You may at this point be hearing both the source song and a slightly delayed version of the same audio through Second Life, this is good, it means you’re successfully broadcasting.. Go to the Control menu in Nicecast and choose Mute. Now, switch windows to Second Life. You still should be hearing your music. If not, make sure your media player is enabled and that you’ve hit the play button. If there is somebody else in your same location ask them if they can hear the stream. It should be working at this point. If not, here is a short troubleshooting list.

Trouble Shooting

I can’t address every problem you might encounter, but here are some of the common errors and their solutions.
If you get an “unable to connect to server” message in Nicecast, make sure that you entered the Shoutcast server info correctly in the Server window and that the server is activated.
And restart the broadcast.
If you are on air in Nicecast, but can’t hear in Second Life, check the land setting to make sure the correct music URL is entered, then, check that your media player is enabled and you’ve hit the play button.
If the Second Life stream sounds garbled or slow or fast, make sure your Shoutcast server and Nicecast are set to the same bitrate.
I sincerely that you got your stream up and running at this point. Be sure to take the time to read the Nicecast documentation thoroughly. And IM me, VJ Shojo, in Second Life to come listen to your show.

written by macaudioguy