How to create an internet radio station
If you’ve ever wondered how internet radio stations work and/or wanted to create your own, this tutorial will show you how. It is actually very easy, and you can set up your own radio station and begin broadcasting songs in about 10 minutes.
First of all, let me give you a quick rundown on how it works. You have your music player (I will use Winamp, get it if you don’t have it) and you play your music as you normally would. You probably need a fast internet connection so you can broadcast without buffering occuring. Through a plugin (which you will download and install), Winamp will send the music you play to the broadcasting server (which can be on your PC or on another one with a larger connection), and the server sends the music to the listeners, reencoding it to a better format, if you are so inclined. Note that the amount of listeners you will be able to support is limited by your outgoing bandwidth and the bitrate of the song you are streaming, so if you’re streaming at 128 kbps and you have 256 kbps upload bandwidth, you’ll obviously be able to support 256/128 = 2 listeners.
The programs I use are Winamp for playing, oddcast DSP for broadcasting to the server and Icecast for serving. You can use Winamp’s own Shoutcast plugin and server, but I prefer to broadcast in Vorbis because it’s smaller and has much better quality than MP3.
Let’s get started, then. Download Icecast from this page (you presumably want the Windows version) and install it. Run it and click “Edit configuration” in the “Configuration” menu. A notepad window will pop up with various configuration options. My configuration is this:
<limits>
<clients>100</clients>
<sources>2</sources>
<threadpool>5</threadpool>
<queue-size>524288</queue-size>
<client-timeout>30</client-timeout>
<header-timeout>15</header-timeout>
<source-timeout>10</source-timeout>
<burst-on-connect>1</burst-on-connect>
<burst-size>65535</burst-size>
</limits>
<authentication>
<source-password>hackme</source-password>
<relay-password>hackme</relay-password>
<admin-user>admin</admin-user>
<admin-password>hackme</admin-password>
</authentication>
<hostname>localhost</hostname>
<listen-socket>
<port>8000</port>
</listen-socket>
<fileserve>1</fileserve>
<paths>
<basedir>./</basedir>
<logdir>./logs</logdir>
<webroot>./web</webroot>
<adminroot>./admin</adminroot>
<alias source="/" dest="/status.xsl"/>
</paths>
<logging>
<accesslog>access.log</accesslog>
<errorlog>error.log</errorlog>
<loglevel>4</loglevel> <!-- 4 Debug, 3 Info, 2 Warn, 1 Error -->
<logsize>10000</logsize> <!-- Max size of a logfile -->
</logging>
<security>
<chroot>0</chroot>
</security>
</icecast>
You can copy it and paste it in the open notepad window (the one with the configuration), but make sure you change “hackme” to more secure passwords. Once you have done this, save the file and close the window. Click the “Start server” button and the listboxes below should be populated with various information, like this:
Your server is now ready for people to connect to it, but there’s no music playing, so let’s tend to that. Download oddcast for Winamp from this page and install it. Now, run Winamp, go to the “DSP/Effect” section of the preferences and click on “oddcast DSP v3”. You should see the oddcast window pop up, looking something like this:
Click on “Add encoder” and a new encoder will be added in the box below. Right-click on it and select “configure”. A dialog will pop up, asking for various information. For “Encoder type” select “OggVorbis” (or MP3, if you are so inclined), this will make you stream in Vorbis. Some people might not be able to have the available codecs if they’re running a very old version of their player (all newer players worth their salt support Vorbis).
For “Quality” I have entered -2, it is the lowest quality, giving you about 30 kbps bitrate and very acceptable quality. You can experiment with 0 or 2, going over 6 is overkill in my opinion (since 6 is what I use to archive music from my CDs), and you will be able to support more listeners if you have lower bitrate for the song.
For “Server IP” enter the IP of the server you’re running Icecast on (it’s “localhost” if you’re running it on your own PC). “Server port” is whatever you entered in the configuration, 8000 if you used mine, and “Encoder password” is hopefully something other than “hackme”. I also use mono, because my connection only has 128 available upstream bandwidth and it doesn’t sound too bad. It should now look like this:
Click OK here and then click “Connect”. If you did everything right, the encoder should now connect to Icecast and begin streaming, like so:
If you want to do a voiceover (speak in your radio) just click the Live Recording button and it will broadcast anything that you say in the microphone (or whatever you enter as the input device). Click on it again to return to your normal music (I haven’t actually tested this, if there are any problems just comment here).
The “Source Level Stats” section of Icecast should also change to include your stream, and will look something like this:
Try connecting with another player (not the one playing the songs) to http://localhost:8000/stream.ogg (e.g. for Winamp click Open URL). If that connects and plays, everything is set up correctly. You can now tell people to connect with Winamp or whatever player they use (and NOT WITH AN INTERNET BROWSER) to http://[yourip]:8000/stream.ogg (if you don’t know your IP, visit http://www.whatismyip.com/, or see the “Client address” in the “Details” tab of your Local Area Connection if you want to stream on a LAN) with their players, and that’s all there was to it.
If you get a permission error under Vista, swamplingman suggested that you give your user full permissions for the Icecast and Winamp folders. That should solve the error.
Note: Before you broadcast any music, make sure you have the right to do so, otherwise you could be breaking the law of your country. Also, if you are having connection problems, you are probably behind a NAT or a firewall that does not allow other people to connect to your computer. To clarify, you (from your internal network) can only connect to your station using your internal IP (192.168.0.1 or whatever) and people from the internet can only connect to you using the IP from whatismyip.com and only if you have forwarded port 8000 corrrectly. Ask your network administrator or visit www.portforward.com for help, as these problems are outside the scope of this tutorial.
well i just tried and tried and tried keep installing first winamp and then the cast program -.- but i still can't understand how to open this program through winamp / can't find the DSP/effect window you are talking about
Submitted by Epsilon (not verified) on Wed, 18/07/2007 - 16:30.How Do You input music????
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed, 18/07/2007 - 23:02.Tutorial, I did eveything they way you wrote and evrything is working grate. but I cant make the link work. When I give my link to my freinds its tells them "page not found" can you help me?
Submitted by dari on Thu, 19/07/2007 - 17:34.http://85.65.247.144:8000/stream.ogg
Submitted by dari on Fri, 20/07/2007 - 14:19.or this:
http://85.65.247.144/lisen.pls
Can someone tell me if one of those link are working?....
I'm broadcasting allmost al day.....
It is all working well, and my ip works fine, but I can't find my broadcast on Icecast.org. What do I do to get it on icecast???
Submitted by CRT (not verified) on Sat, 21/07/2007 - 01:37.That's a good question... I have no idea, I didn't even know they had a directory.
Submitted by Stavros on Sat, 21/07/2007 - 09:17.---
Vidi, Vici, Veni.
Ive read and read your amazing tutorial.
Cant get this to work, ive followed all the steps and im using the same software as you are, the same settings as you are, apart from the port and password, and obviously IP.
Please could you email me why and where im going wrong, or anything i need to do that isnt mentioned in the tutorial?
Im on Virgin Media Broadband, i think im on 4Mb, if not, then 2Mb.
Im using
Icecast 2.x
Winamp
and OddcastV3.
i have no idea why this isnt working :(
id love to host my own radio station.
Please Reply, Declan.
Submitted by Declan (not verified) on Mon, 23/07/2007 - 17:20.Well, I still haven't gotten my psychic degree, so I need more information. You don't need to do anything else though, it's all in the tutorial, you probably didn't understand a step.
Submitted by Stavros on Mon, 23/07/2007 - 18:44.---
Vidi, Vici, Veni.
Greetings!
Submitted by movafaq on Wed, 25/07/2007 - 22:23.I was happy to find your post and I did everything just as written. The Encoder connects to Icecast, but people are unable to hear sound, they remain at "connecting...". Besides no meta data about the song come out. I suppose there might be a connection between these two things. How can I make the right panel at Source Level Statistic show information?
Got a question. I was a disc jockey on allsouthernrock.com.
Submitted by Jonny (not verified) on Sat, 28/07/2007 - 19:34.Brad Schnabel got independent artists to sign waiver letters releasing the music to the station. Does this bypass the Soundexchange's royalties charged to the station legally. With the new regulations, I'm unclear on it. I would like to start my own non - profit station unless it costs too much....
Ah, I'm afraid I'm not a lawyer, but I would hazard a guess that if you have waivers from the artists then it would be legal to play their music. There might be an issue with Soundexchange asking royalties anyway, but since you have the waivers I don't think they have much right to ask for fees.
Submitted by Stavros on Sat, 28/07/2007 - 23:06.---
Vidi, Vici, Veni.
Everything Is Working Fine But When I Go To Download It When The Server Is Running It Just Records What I'm Saying And When A Press Stop Server The Download Stops Then When I Go And Play It It Plays What I Said While I Was Downloading It And When I Pressed Stop Server I Stopped Talking On The Play Back.
Submitted by Izaak (not verified) on Wed, 08/08/2007 - 06:04.So How Do I Get LIVE Internet Radio
i am trying to establish connection in the oddcast bu it still disconnected, i do it step by step..but when adding and configuring and connecting, still disconnnected after ten seconds.thank you
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Thu, 09/08/2007 - 10:31.This list hopefully will prove to be helpful:
6. Change the Mountpoint from /stream.ogg to /stream.mp3.
Click OK and then see if you connect. This is somewhat different than given in the tutorial but this format will allow others to connect and listen through all media players including WMP. If you do not have the lib dll's in your WinAmp directory you probably will not have the option to select MP3 as the Encode Type.
Now the link for your friends to listen is http://[You IP]:8000/stream.mp3
Greg
Submitted by Greg (not verified) on Tue, 14/08/2007 - 13:21.thx alot this helped me.
great tutorial.
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed, 19/09/2007 - 14:10.Mate, I love you big time..
This helped my Connection Error between IceCast and Oddcast whenever I played a song..
<3! :D
Submitted by Wanto Pk (not verified) on Wed, 16/07/2008 - 17:46.Its a good tut but i turn mic on it works and i turn mic off it crashes
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Sat, 18/08/2007 - 11:39.i need help on finding the site on this that the listners go to listen to my music?
Submitted by djtwinlife (not verified) on Mon, 27/08/2007 - 01:33.uhm how do i know if i am really broadcasting if i cant find my stream name on the icecast list or shoutcast list on winamp and why dont it save my broadcast after i close it even though i have the option chosen?
Submitted by DarK WulF (not verified) on Mon, 27/08/2007 - 04:09.ok uhm i did figure out what was wrong with my save brodcast that works now
still dont know if im broadcasting on the icecast list on winamp but thats minor compared to whats happening now.
so yesterday when i first installed all this and stuff it worked but today i turned my computer on and i wanted to do another show for the hell of it but when i turned all the stuff on and got it started up it wont connect now it just keeps saying connecting in 10 seconds each time it counts down it says unable to connect to socket or something like that and it counts down all over again i even tried deleating the thing and compleatley setting it up again and it still does the same thing
any help?
Submitted by dark wulf (not verified) on Tue, 28/08/2007 - 01:36.Is a static IP address required for this to work. I would think so considering listeners have to listen to the broadcast through my computer's IP. If so, I cannot use this set-up.
Submitted by GKC (not verified) on Thu, 06/09/2007 - 04:40.Hello all,
It says it can't find my socket. What does this mean?
Submitted by the_hero (not verified) on Mon, 10/09/2007 - 23:08.Hello man,
First: What a great Tutorial !!!
Second: I have done everything and i'm
going to test it tomorrow. But i have a
question. How do i put this on a website
like e.g. www.radio-x.com or something.
Thats what i want to know.
Bye !
Submitted by Marco (not verified) on Tue, 11/09/2007 - 20:24.Hi,
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed, 12/09/2007 - 08:55.I have done everything on like you have on oddcast, but when i fire up icecast in the source level statistics nothing is coming up in the boxes. Please explain what i have done wrong...
I've done all that you said, and it's streaming. I got my friend to connect through Winamp and it didn't work. Doesn't work for me when I do 'localhost'.
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed, 19/09/2007 - 18:23.Hi,
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed, 26/09/2007 - 20:51.Excellent tutorial.Thanks.
How to determine the number of users able to access our broadcasting.
In case if an online radio station needs 5000 listeners then how much should be the bandwidth.
Excellent step by step tutorial. I followed it with all carefullness and everything seems right. Although, when I open up another player and put: http://localhost:8000/stream.ogg or http://myip:8000/stream.ogg - it only says (connecting) or with a msg: (The download of the specified resource has failed)
NOTE: I do have a router - but I dont know how to configure it. If this is the problem (can someone help me)
Thanks.
Submitted by xtrang3 (not verified) on Fri, 28/09/2007 - 23:44.Also, I forgot to put this other msg: Windows Media Player cannot play the file. One or more codecs required to play the file could not be found.
Thank you.
Submitted by xtrang3 (not verified) on Fri, 28/09/2007 - 23:46.ive downloaded oddcast but its not appearing in my winamp plug ins section is there anything else i can use
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Sun, 30/09/2007 - 22:54.????
Hello.
Well i got evrything working but i seem to be having trouble with which to give to my Friends is it http://localhost:8000/stream.ogg or http://[yourip]:8000/stream.ogg
If it doesnt matter then i gae it to my Friends and they cant seem to connect and i gave them the instructions u put.
Open Winamp Click File then Click Open URL.
So they did that and put in http://localhost:8000/stream.ogg but nothing happens for them but it wokrs fine for me o_O
Any reasons Why??
Thank you
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Mon, 01/10/2007 - 01:23.I have everything running properly and i can even connect to myself. But it seems no one can connect to me. Most of my friends get a unknown path or bad path error. I'm using http://myip:8000/stream.ogg for them to connect to but still to no avail. I have also made sure i have ports 8000 and 8001 port forwarded in my router setup. What could it be?
Submitted by Chris (not verified) on Fri, 05/10/2007 - 19:29.If you can connect to yourself it means there's a network error. Either you didn't forward the ports correctly or you have a firewall enabled. Turn off all firewalls, including windows'.
Submitted by Stavros on Fri, 05/10/2007 - 20:09.---
Vidi, Vici, Veni.
Great Tuto.
However I am receiving an error on connecting to the OddcastV3. It says "Encoder init failed"
When I see the logs in the WinampPlugins it says a lot but some statement says as follows. Any idea why such a simple thing is causing problems
Cheers
Srini
"10/13/07 23:22:49 Info(MainWindow.cpp:703): Socket connected
Submitted by srini (not verified) on Sat, 13/10/2007 - 17:47.10/13/07 23:22:49 Error(liboddcast.cpp:2206): Sorry, but this vorbis mode is not supported currently...
10/13/07 23:22:49 Info(MainWindow.cpp:703): Disconnecting
10/13/07 23:22:49 Info(MainWindow.cpp:703): Disconnected
10/13/07 23:22:49 Info(MainWindow.cpp:703): Encoder init failed
I have the same problem... it sais that cannot connect to socket and it sometimes connects but then disconnects like a secounnd after it has connected...
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Sun, 14/10/2007 - 08:14.I'm streaming as an MP3, as I learned the hard way that most players don't support ogg. When I put the link in a player that supports streaming it works fine, but when I link to the URL in a web browser, the browser, using Quicktime, downloads just a few seconds of the MP3, then stops. How can I setup simple links to my stream like other internet radio web sites have, such "Play with Itunes," "Play with Quicktime" etc. Is there a certain codec that Oddcast can use to stream, that if linked to in a browser, would pull up any of the major media players?
Submitted by americanknight on Tue, 16/10/2007 - 16:38.Err, I'm not really sure, but you can just look at the URL and see. It's either going to be a something:///stream.mp3 link or a link to a .pls file you're supposed to open which contains one entry for your station in it. You can just open your station in Winamp, save the playlist as .pls and add a link to that (provided you have the correct IP). When someone opens it, they'll start listening to your station with their default player.
Submitted by Stavros on Tue, 16/10/2007 - 17:11.---
Vidi, Vici, Veni.
hi,
Submitted by anish (not verified) on Mon, 05/11/2007 - 06:52.your tutorial has gone well so far but im unable to save your program into the notepad after clicking on the edit configuration of the ice cast. what can i do to proceed?
ask the poromenos guy...he's a brain!!
Submitted by blackcatdog (not verified) on Tue, 06/11/2007 - 19:18.i set up radio usind icecast with oddcast plug-in in winamp i put http://myip:8000/stream.ogg and doesnt play nothing can i test it by myself i do file play url and nothing or do i have to try from another pc
Submitted by djmega (not verified) on Thu, 08/11/2007 - 15:25.dont know why it dont work everything say connected and shows my ip in listener url
hello
Submitted by Lado (not verified) on Mon, 12/11/2007 - 10:35.everything working good but i just wonder how i can understand/see my radio listeners IP adress?:P
just wonder i wanna to know from where listening people my radio
thanks before
http://85.117.38.76:8000/stream.ogg <---online radio but not for 24 hours;) enjoy
everything set up fine and working but when i type my ip in my adress bar on a web page its telling me to change my user name and password how do i change them for it to work
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Tue, 13/11/2007 - 14:38.You can't open your station with a browser.
Submitted by DJ Archie (not verified) on Fri, 23/11/2007 - 13:14.It can be opened with Realplayer/Windows Media Player/Winamp...
File>Open url (in some cases Ctrl+U
That's where you put in your ip adress, and how other people can listen to it.
This works perfect...
Submitted by DJ Archie D (not verified) on Thu, 22/11/2007 - 02:18.I got one question tho,
Is it possible to play music in the background while you use your mic?
Thank you! Ive always wanted to be a DJ. Listen in to Metal In The Morning at
Submitted by Mason (not verified) on Fri, 23/11/2007 - 16:43.http://65.184.117.15:8000/stream.ogg
ive done correctly all the steps and tried to open the url as u said with another player. and this showed up :
Action canceled
Internet Explorer was unable to link to the Web page you requested. The page might be temporarily unavailable.
i wonder what's wrong, or if ive done something wrong.pls help me
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Mon, 03/12/2007 - 08:35.HI,
The tutorial was really good but still i am having a problem.
The oddcastv3 keeps on disconnecting...
Its like its get connected and instantly gets disconnected..
CAN U HELP ME PLS!!!!!
Thanks,
Shobhit
Submitted by He ho haha (not verified) on Wed, 26/12/2007 - 21:32.What's the link that my friends can hear me?
and
Is it any cost for all that?
please answer immediately to my hotmail please!!!'
Submitted by Billwants to have a free radio (not verified) on Sat, 29/12/2007 - 20:17.thanks bill
I have always said. Most all companies always get ''their'' people to write the directions for any of ''their'' products. In doing this you have a learned person that is ''very'' familiar with the product, writing the directions or manual for it. This has proved to be wrong time and time again.
Submitted by baggz (not verified) on Wed, 02/01/2008 - 08:12.What should be done in any and all companies is to go get a so called ''layman'' off the street that does not know anything about''said product'' In doing this you will have them ask the ''what you think or the company thinks'' is the stupid or not important question/s. If this is not done we have a breakdown of communications and the manual or directions become a pain in the ass and not so helpful after all and all the company gets is grief and pissed off people spreading bad energy around about said company. Why? Because the helpful directions did not help them cause somehow it left out one step aka one important item.
....hope this helps.... just saying what I have observed all my life.
Well, this tutorial isn't any company's or affiliated with any product. I just wrote it for people to use. I am not sure why people are having so much difficulty, because it's three cut/paste steps. It's not like you can really mess something up...
Submitted by Stavros on Wed, 02/01/2008 - 11:48.---
Vidi, Vici, Veni.
perfect! that's good.
Submitted by Nabi (not verified) on Tue, 08/01/2008 - 02:56.very thanks for this tutorial.
have a nice time.