On Oct 19, 2014, at 11:59 AM, Gordon Smith <gor...@mac-access.net> wrote:
Hello everyone!
At last! At long, long, last! We finally have a suite of programmes which are
fully accessible, and which can make it possible for a serious broadcaster
requiring accessibility to use their Mac as a broadcast system. When I first
looked at this software way back in 2010, all I got was the usual “Unknown,
Unknown, Unknown” when roaming through the various dialogues and windows. Now,
however, the entire application has undergone a rewrite, and accessibility is
100%. You can do all of the things I’d expect of a broadcasting system,
including using a dedicated player as a cart machine.
It would have been nice, and I shall be talking to the developer about this in
the next few days, if we could have had a way to easily import pre-selected
carts into the dedicated player so that frequently used ones can be accessed
without having to re-queue each time. But given the power of this app, that
really is a minor issue.
There is a superb audio ducking system in this app, the best I’ve ever seen on
any software solution on any platform. The nearest comparison I can draw here
is with my Behringer Audio DJ mixer, and that device absolutely rocks!
The ducking depth can be adjusted, but the default is really well chosen. What
I like about this app, amongst other things, is the ability to configure
multiple preference sets, so that you can use them for different situations
without having to bother about changing things all the time. If you don’t like
the default keyboard shortcuts, you can change them to what suits you best.
When used alongside something like “iVolume” or even the iTunes Sound Check,
the output really does have a good dynamic edge to it. Not quite as good as OTS
AV on Windows, but very very close to it. Certainly, it is better than things
like Station Playlist, etc.
Another nice feature is the ability to see how long you need to speak for in
order to fit your tracks into a typical 6-minute rotation. The playlist can
dynamically adapt, when used in conjunction with the Advance Schedular which
the application uses to create very highly customisable playlists. You can run
a 24/7 automated station with this thing, and it stays in sync, other apps fall
down on this point, but this one is very very accurate.
If your musical genre is not one where you need to do many voiceovers, you can
just use the thing by pressing a couple of keys to turn of automation and to
disable ducking. If ducking is disabled, you don’t get the reduction in your
music level and, therefore, you don’t need to talk over the intros or outtros
of your tracks. You can even publish your station’s activity, live, via either
the web, or via most of the social networks; Twitter, Facebook, etc. You don’t
even have to fiddle around in order to set that up. Do it once, and you’re
good to go.
I still need to give this a real run out, but I am confident that, finally, at
long long last, my quest to find a broadcast system for OS X is over. Now it
should just be a case of learning all the ins and outs of the software, and
then going on air live. Oh yes, and I forgot to mention. There is built-in
support for streaming codecs such as NiceCast, Shoutcast, and Live365. So you
can publish, stream, and produce stunning audio. Oh, I forgot, you can also
adjust your tracks’ overall pitch by about 5% each way so that you get a
mega-smooth transition with the track that went before it and the track that
comes after. If you do that properly, the listener won’t notice. They
actually do that on commercial radio, I’m not sure whether many people know
that, but they do.
Anyway, I’ll be giving this a run out later in the week so I’ll try and
pre-record a demo broadcast so that you can hear for yourself just how nice and
smooth this thing sounds. It supports multiple output and input devices, so
that you can, for instance, use one for VoiceOver and your Mac’s internal
sounds, and another dedicated to Radiologic. It also supports MIDI-controlled
mixing, including jog wheel FX and whatever else your controller is capable of
doing.
Sorry this overview has been a little like a ramble, but I just wrote it on-the-fly,
without taking the time to structure my thoughts. But I’m excited about this as a
broadcaster because finally, without paying really top prices, we have something that
will mix it with the best of them. I have personally tried software on Windows which
costs literally thousands of Dollars, and it doesn’t sound as good as this thing
does. For example, Myriad, which is the software that 99% of professionals use in
their studios, Myriad doesn’t come across as smooth as this and even for the small
networks that thing costs almost $1500 US for just a year’s hire. Wow, finally, we
rock the boat! Bring on RadioLogik, and it’s worth dropping the developer a line as
I plan too, in order to start a dialogue with him. There are just one or two little
areas where I think he could clean it up a little. But nothing major, he’s developed
this with online broadcasting in mind, and it shows! Have a listen to this if you
want proof. There are some tutorials available on line in video, but they
demonstrate just how good the audio is. <http://www.radiologik.com> and there
are links to the download site from there. yes, it does cost a couple of hundred
Dollars. But that’s as nothing compared to what they cost under Windows. Even
Station Playlist Creator, Sam Broadcaster and OTS AV will set you back more than that.
Gordon
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