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setting up an internet radio station - Part 2: Shoutcast setup tutorial

shoutcast is one of the most popular internet radio station streaming platforms



Step 1: Get the components

There are three essential components involved with setting up a streaming shoutcast radio station:

  • Winamp - The Audio Player (audio source) This component is what plays your music - in this tutorial we will use WinAmp download winamp. Once that is installed and you have imported your audio into it - QUIT Winamp and go on to the next step.
  • The ShoutCast Plugin for Winamp (also called DSP Plugin) - this plugin will re-encode the audio coming out of the player into a format that is ready to stream - it is a signal processor. download Shoutcast plugin for Winamp. Once you download it and install it you can RESTART Winamp. View the Preferences Screen (shortcut: CTRL-P) and click on the DSP/effects subcategory under the Plug-ins tree - there you can see "NULLSOFT ShoutCAST Source DSP V1.9.x" listed.
  • The Shoutcast Server Application - (also called SHOUTcast Radio DNAS) DNAS stands for Distributed Network Audio Software - this application is a specialized server that takes the audio signal from the Shoutcast plugin in WinAmp and sends it out to your listeners in the format and bitrate you specify. You can agree to the license and download on this page. You will want to click the download link that says "SHOUTcast WIN32 Console/GUI server v1.9.8".

Step 2: Edit the Shoutcast server configuration

  • Once the Shoutcast server application (Shoutcast Radio DNAS) download has finished, extract all the files into a folder and create a shortcut for SC_SERV.EXE on the Desktop.

  • Start up the SHOUTcast Radio server by double-clicking on SC_SERV.EXE

  • Click on the "Edit Config" menu option located at the top. This will start the default text editor, opening the configuration file for SHOUTcast DNAS application. Follow all the directions that are written into the configuration file.
    • shoutcast tutorial - edit shoutcast config

    Some of the things you must change are illustrated above:

    • The maximum number of listeners (Max Users) is 32 by default. If you are streaming using a home broadband connection then change this to around 10.
    • The administrator password is 'changeme' by default. Enter your own password and keep it secret, keep it safe.
    • The shoutcast portbase is 8000 by default. Keep this unless you already have something running on that port. Doubtful.
    • Once you are done making changes, save the file, close the editor, and restart the SHOUTcast Radio DNAS server application. You should see a square window with a lot of text in it (server updates) - not to worry it will connect to the source soon.

Step 3: Edit the Winamp DSP plugin preferences

  • Go back to Winamp - open the preferences screen and under DSP/effects highlight the "NULLSOFT ShoutCAST Source xxx" line and click the "Configure Active Plugin" button at the bottom of the screen.
    • winamp preferences
    winamp preferences showing DSP installed

  • Once clicked - this interface will pop up - DSP interface - "output" tab
    • shoutcast tutorial - dsp connect tab

    • Enter the password from the server config edit above
    • Enter your port if it is something different than default 8000
    • Keep address as localhost

  • Enter station data by clicking the 'yellowpages' button to the right of 'connection' button - this is a service run by AOL / Shoutcast where your radio station will be listed within their directory.
    • shoutcast tutorial - dsp ypy tab
    • Check Make this server public
    • Enter a station description - add good keywords here
    • Enter your station website url
    • Enter station genre (ex: alternative,chillout,techno,minimal)
    • Enter AIM, ICQ, IRC
    • Check Enable Title Updates

Step 4: Launch your shoutcast server - **DON'T DO THIS UNTIL YOU CONFIGURE YOUR ROUTER**


Step 3: Router Setup >>


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