What equipment will I need?

[Jude Hatcher]

I have been doing some "investigation" over the past 3 years, into the possibilities of owning and operating a internet radio station.

Servers and bandwidth aside. What type of equipment will I need? A microphone is a given. My ideal situation would be to have a 2 or 3 mic set up. For additional guests, or cohosts. Mostly just one for the moment.

Mixing board? I have no clue as to where to start, or what to look at, as far as this topic goes.
Is there anything else, besides headphones and little stuff that comes along later?

 

[Support]

Hi Jude,

If you intend to have a 2/3 mic set up then yes a small mixing desk would be needed (unless you already have a soundcard with multiple line inputs). You can pick up a small desk for a fairly low price if you look at something like the Behringer range. http://www.music-group.com/Categories/Behringer/Mixers/c/123411?colExpFlag=,Mixers

Beside headphones you may also want to consider some pop filters for the mics. Although this is not necessarily essential, they are quite cheap and will eliminate any unwanted sounds picked up by the mic.

 

[Jude Hatcher]

Thank you for your reply.

I started looking into a online radio station, for about 5 years now. Quite a bit has changed since then. Including how I what to shape this thing.

The format will be roughly 50% music. Copy written. I am aware I need to sign up to a royalty company. The rest will be topics, hopefully guests. Hence more than one mic. Then as time goes by, some radio theatre. That all being said, having some of the right equipment early on, will help shape the sound. Individual Identity early on is important. Formats change.

I have been looking into a Focusrite 18i8, 4 channel interface, then a DBX 286s processor. Still researching microphones at this point.

So now we come to the last question? Will I need more than one computer?

 

[Support]

No problem at all.

I personally have the Focusrite 6i6 and they are great soundcards.

Yes you could of course do this all from just the one computer, but if you have another old PC/Laptop spare then this would be good just to handle the encoding side of things to send the audio to the server.

 

[Jude Hatcher]

Great! Thanks so much for the advice.

So, having a dedicated PC would be great idea? Any suggestions on speed and memory space?

 

[Support]

No problem at all, you're welcome

Yes, we think having a dedicated PC just for the encoding side of this would be a good idea, but it is not essential. Any basic PC/Laptop will do, it does not need to be of a top spec!