Starseed Radio is back in business, with an all new & improved self-hosted platform dedicated to streaming to you the finest high quality sound possible.
What a journey the past 4 years have been, and the whole concept and practice of DJ'ing in an online virtual world has a been a great learning experience! You never stop learning something new. It's been a blast and very exciting, but not without it's low-points and outright frustration. I learned a lot about DJ'ing and clubs in IMVU, the good, the bad, and the ugly, ...and not just about the music, tech, and the creative part.
I learned about the social aspects of it as well: It's a great way to get friends together and have a great time. But then there's popularity, status, egos, fake-friends, backstabbing, club politics and other things that are just not worth experiencing again nor worth anyone's time.
...but I also learned a lot about online teamwork, collaboration and making something "happen". I learned about the amount of "time", "commitment" and the "work" it takes to get to the end result of accomplishing something great and that people could later reminice, talk and smile about.
I learned all about how to use DJ broadcasting software, finding music and creating music playlists, ...and about finding and setting up radio stations on "3rd-party hosted" platforms along with all their pitfalls, limitations, and problems. I learned all about clubs and club-chains in IMVU, DJ'ing in Sansar, about all the "technical" aspects and issues of streaming decent audio, and the legalities of music licensing. I've even tried live Video-streaming some of my DJ sets to Mixcloud.
It sure is a LOT of FUN! There's also a lot of work involved sometimes. Just ask any DJ. I have a lot of respect for "anyone" who does this.
Full Time or Part Time. .....in Real Life or in a Virtual World like IMVU
Like I said, it's been 4 great years of IMVU for me, and three great years of DJ'ing. So you're probably wondering.....
"Okay, ...so what happened Jesse?"....
~ BURN-OUT ~
Ok, I can't blame it all on that, but it was definitely a part of it. With the effects of the pandemic fading-out, I've gotten really busy in real life with my daytime work and also my responsibilities at the studio at night where I hang.
I'm also not as young as a lot of people think I am ...and I'm getting older. My health has deteriorated. I've also been dealing with my own issues, my past, my current situation, an uncertain future, and outlook on life in general.
I went into depression for the most part, and when that happens, I isolate and put up a brick-wall. I had to stop for awhile, clear my head, and make time to re-evaluate ....where I'm going, and what I'm doing ...with the small amount of time I have probably have left in this world, and (more importantly) ...afterwards.
Thankfully, I've had quite a long time to work things out and how to proceed going forward.
Thank you to those who were patient with me as a friend, and also to those who helped me out of a really bad time.
Most know I used to be a huge proponent of the Zeno.fm platform, ...that is, until their platform had a glitch during their big upgrade in 2022 and permanently messed-up my account preventing me from being able to connect to live stream. Making a new account didn't help either, something to do with my IP. It was about that time that Zeno starting implementing unwanted "commercials" into everyone's streams, ...not good when your doing a show and a live-stream. When I didn't get anywhere, I finally gave-up and reverted back to using Caster.fm, which I really didn't want to do.
Now Caster has been ok for me for years, and I'm sure Caster is fine for the majority, but the limit of 128kbps MP3 really itsn't very good. MP3 is an outdated 'compressed' codec that kills fidelity. If your song-file is not recorded at, and you're not streaming at ..."at least" 192kbps MP3 or an alternate codec format, you're going to notice the difference. ...and these days, paid subscriptions with some platforms will let you stream "outbound" to your audience at higher kbps MP3 or using a different format like AAC. So what are the options?
- ...find some other free platform
- ...upgrade and pay $30 or more per month
- or, ...in frustration, do what I did. Build my own radio station platform.
...as with everything, nothing ever stays the same, and everything we know about and use is in constant transition, especially when it comes to "tech" and "IoT" (the internet of things).
The first trend I've seen is the move "away" from the MP3 format to other formats. We all know it's easier and convenient to stream "MP3 files". Why? ...because everyone's music files are usually MP3, and ...they are already "Metadata-tagged" with all that great information (song/artist), but ...you get better audio quality when you can record and stream MP3's at 160, 192, or even 256kbps MP3. However, the difference is what you can stream outbound from your radio station platform at: Ogg Vorbis, AAC, improved MPEG4A and now we are starting to see many platforms and software adopting the new "OPUS" (CELT) format at 48k (...a long time in coming) featuring superior fidelity streaming to your listener over lower kbps. Apple just needs to get their crap together and get their iOS products up-to-speed to be able to use & receive Ogg & Opus formats, but people can receive AAC+ broadcasts on any device.
Deciding to install and configure a radio station server wasn't easy for me. I didn't have anyone to show me how to do it, with the exception of a video or two on YouTube. It took months to figure things out the right way and make everything "secure".
...but when I was done, I was blown away. The combination of Azuracast combined with Thimeo Stereo Tool, ...those two things Alone, ...is a major "Game Changer".
Hey, ...but this whole thing is an adventure. It's supposed to be fun and challenging! I really and truly do love being a DJ, ...especially the entertainment aspect of it. To me DJ'ing is a show, and when I'm on-the-air, I want to engage and entertain people, make them happy and smile, and give them something to remember.
Anyway, I decided to build back slowly, taking my time, working things out, doing things right. My next goal is to come back online more often and spend time with friends, do DJ'ing when I'm able, and hopefully, maybe I can work on helping other DJ friends in taking the plunge in setting up their own station, or just following the same path I'm taking if they want to try it.
If anyone is interested in how I did what I did in building this Azuracast station, please contact me for more details. I've already done the hard part figuring everything out. There are costs involved, from basic which is good for most people ($12.75 a month for Linux cloud server hosting and roughly $10-$15 a year for a domain name URL). As of this year, Azuracast also has directly implemented "Master_Me" audio-processing for free right in their program. However, if you ever want to do it even better, there's plenty of legroom and options:
- more CPU & memory (approx. $27 a month server-hosting)
- making your own full-blown radio station page or pages to embed the Azuracast player on (roughly $90 a year for website-hosting)
- Enhanced audio w/ Thimeo Stereo Tool audio-processing tools (one-time cost of $39, $100, and/or $180 for the different tools)
If time permits, I may even post a tutorial on the options, what you need, and how to do it.
In the meantime, if you want to check out the basics or actually get started on making your own Azuracast server, please check out this blog post I wrote on my "Virtual DJ" Profile Blog (click link below):
The implementation of this new station was a long-time goal, and I'm happy to finally be done with this.
🎛️🎚️ I hope you enjoy the new Starseed Radio. 🎧🎙️