Tidal's Guide On How To Host A Radio Station (For Free!)

[tidal]

 

Introduction

I decided to make this guide so that, if, a player wishes to save money and host their own radio station, there would be a clear cut way. After agonizing about this for days, scouring the internet for a viable option, trying to figure out a way but ending up just seeing videos that don't really show me an intuitive enough way, I finally came up with something BRILLIANT. But it wouldn't be possible at all without the help of a gracious server member called Santana, who introduced me to zeno.fm, the purpose of which will be explained later in the thread. ANYWAY, let's get started.

 

I WILL TRIM THE FAT AS MUCH AS I CAN

 

Step 1: Make a shoutcast account

https://shoutcast.com/

 

Step 2: Create a self-hosted, free, radio station

Spoiler

 

Step 3: Go to zeno.fm and register an account there, as well, and create a radio station on their end.

https://zeno.fm/

(Music streaming is premium as a category, so I just did something else. Talk radio, I think. But it streams in 128kbps, nonetheless.)

 

Step 4: Install Winamp & Shoutcast DSP

https://directory.shoutcast.com/Winamp

 

 Step 5: Open and set-up Winamp & Shoutcast DSP 

Go to zeno.fm again, go to your station there, find a table called "Stream Encoder Settings" and use the information to fill up your DSP settings on Winamp, accordingly. (see photos provided below for more clarity, you should also mimic all the settings I've put in. Sections I've skipped are fine to leave as is, from my experience)

 

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Step 6: Sourcing some music

Now, locate your local files through Winamp by clicking LIBRARY > IMPORT MEDIA DATABASE then the folder where your songs are. Yes, you have to have copies. I have a music catalogue. It's been a product of years. Call it my take on collecting. Now, I don't know how tight the rules are here regarding piracy so I won't be publicly disclosing how I get my music unless I get a green light. I already feel awkward doing this since GTAW has a paid service for hosting but I'd like to think we could afford ourselves this little bit of freedom of choice. Girl, if you can save money, why not. If it's free, it's me... and I don't turn down anything but my collar... as Heylia James would say.

 

Step 7: Your stream URLs

You can find them on zeno.fm, below the Stream Encoder Settings table. Use MAIN as your link to GTA World's setstation section on the UCP.

Spoiler

 

Step 7.1: All done! Get broadcasting!

Just play some music through Winamp. You can right click and queue up songs. You will see them on the top right corner of the screen. You can also make playlists ahead of time. It's all in the GUI, you'll be able to pick it up with practice. Zeno.fm also has an auto-dj feature where a user could upload up to 500 songs for free on their cloud and have them play whenever the user isn't around to self-dj. Pretty neat. It's almost too good to be true. Maybe it is. But who cares? It works for me so far and it made me donate for Gold VIP, which, I've never done before on a server or online community of any kind. Without this, I probably wouldn't have donated at all.

 

 

P.S. Please leave some suggestions on how I could improve this guide for future use. Also, if you can, please provide screenshots of zeno.fm's registry portal since I don't want to add to my digital footprint by going through registering for another one. Thanks and I hope I helped.

[tidal]

OMG I POSTED THIS ON THE WRONG SECTION IDEK HOW THAT'S POSSIBLE please move it to off topic, thank you

Edited November 21, 2021 by Amellis
Moved :)