Revised: September 2009

For software we’ll use a free technology called Shoutcast, with support information at Shoutcast.com.

Benefits of a dedicated live audio stream:

• About 30% of Internet users still do not have broadband / high speed connections. Streaming your temple live sound separately as an Internet radio “Shoutcast” stream allows people with slower connections to listen to your temple lectures and kirtans.
• With the availability of Internet radio stations (Shoutcast) on recent mobile phones and devices, using the cellular phone network, Shoutcast has become very attractive as a way to stream your live sound to anyone with a mobile phone and compatible software (for example, “Shoutcast” App on the iPhone.)
• If you’re in a developing country and your upload connection to the Internet is limited, Shoutcast provides a bandwidth conserving way to add live sound to your webcam’s periodic still-image uploads.
• Users like to have a choice of watching high quality still images (say, for example, of your temple deities), while listening to a kirtan or lecture via streaming audio on their Windows Media Player, iTunes, or WinAmp.
• Bandwidth costs $0.25 per viewer hour for live streaming video. Four viewers watching for one hour: $1. These hours add up quickly. Avoid wasting valuable money and resources. If you don’t need to stream live video from a dark temple room to broadcast an early morning kirtan, a dedicated Shoutcast audio stream is bandwidth-economical and gives your congregation the live listening experience while watching high-quality periodic still image updates of the deities on the webcam. A typical Shoutcast live audio stream consumes only 11 megabytes per user hour, compared to 68 megs for live video.

Equipment needed: A computer, broadband Internet, and a USB microphone… or higher quality microphone with XLR to USB converter. (See “Microphone Systems” suggestions at the bottom of this page.)

You’ll connect sound from your temple room via dedicated microphone, to a laptop or desktop computer connected to the Internet. On your computer, the Shoutcast software will turn the incoming audio signal into a digital audio stream, uploading to a Shoutcast server such as http://shoutcast.primcast.com. For up to 30 simultaneous listeners, you pay a low $12 per month for this service. 100 listeners is $33/month, and so forth.

If you are an ISKCON temple we may be able to host your live audio stream on Krishna.com’s Shoutcast server free of charge. Contact us.

If you operate your own Internet server, you can host your Shoutcast stream there.

If you’re paying for a hosting account on a shared web server (the most likely scenario) ask your server administrator about Shoutcast streaming audio options. Most likely you’ll have to pay extra–IF they offer the service. Depending on the cost, it might be worth the $12/month to host your live audio stream with people who specialize in Shoutcast streaming. (Or free with Krishna.com, if we decide to feature your stream.)

When your Shoutcast hosting account is set up, you’ll receive a URL link that represents your live audio stream. Users can click on that link which will open the live sound stream in their WinAmp, iTunes, or Windows Media Player software. You can seamlessly incorporate your “listen” link into your existing website. It works like a regular link.

Step-by-step Tutorial

1) Sign up for a Shoutcast streaming audio account at http://shoutcast.primcast.com/. (The 30 listeners, 24kbit account for $12 is what I would recommend to begin with. Grow from there.)

Write down the account information, such as upload IP address, port number, password, mount point, etc., which you will receive after signing up.

2) Download and install the “Standalone” version of the Edcast software from:

http://www.oddsock.org/tools/edcast/

(During the installation, check the box next to the option to install “LAME encoder DLL for MP3 recording”. Leave the other default boxes checked.)

NOTE: The LAME MP3 encoder is distributed separately due to licensing issues: http://www.rarewares.org/mp3.php Specifically: http://www.rarewares.org/mp3-lame-libraries.php

3) Download and extract the lame_enc.dll from:

Place it in the program directory of your newly installed Edcast software. (For example: C:\Program Files\Edcast)

NOTE: Copy both the “lame_enc” configuration settings and the “lame_enc_mod.dll” file to your Edcast program directory. Re-name “lame_enc_mod.dll” to “lame_enc.dll”.

4) Launch Edcast via the shortcut it placed on your desktop.

5) In the Edcast program window, press the “Add Encoder” button, right-click on the text of the “Vorbis: …” encoder it just added, and select “Configure” from the choices.

6) In the Configuration window, select MP3 Lame from the “Encoder Type” menu. Then configure the settings as per your Shoutcast server account in Step 1. (Or, as per account settings you received from Krishna.com, if we’ve decided to host your audio stream.)

Example:

Bitrate: 24 (for 24 Kbit/sec)
Samplerate: 22050
Channels: 1
Encoder Type: MP3 Lame
Server Type: Shoutcast
Server IP: (The IP ADDRESS of your Shoutcast Server. For example: 69.44.23.45)
Server Port: (The port assigned to your shoutcast stream by your hosting company. For example: 8000)
Encoder Password: (Your shoutcast streaming password)
Mountpoint: (leave blank unless specified)
Reconnect Seconds: 2

7) Switch to the “YP Settings” tab at the top of the Configuration window, and enter some information about your live audio webcast.

Example:

Public Server: checked
Stream Name: Alachua Temple Live
Stream Description: Live audio from the ISKCON Hare Krishna Temple in Alachua, Florida.
Stream URL: http://www.krishna.com/alachua (your stream’s homepage)
Stream Genre: Alternative Spiritual

Unless you wish to give out instant messenger contact info, you can leave the rest blank.

8) Click on “OK” to save your settings and return to the main Edcast program window.

9) Connect a microphone to your computer. Ideally, this microphone can be permanently positioned near one of the loudspeakers in the temple room, or anywhere it can pick up the ambient sound of the temple room and still reach your broadcasting laptop or computer.

(See the recommendations for Microphone Systems at the end of this tutorial.)

10) Notice the “Live Recording” center area of the Edcast window. Here you can select the source of the audio signal you wish to broadcast on the Internet. You can switch between Line In, built-in microphone, CD player, etc. If you have a microphone connected to the “line in” socket on your computer, select the “Line In” option.

11) Once you’ve connected your live sound source, click on the long rectangular grey bar area of your Peak Meter. It should turn from grey to black, and display green lights that move whenever there is sound.

12) Use the horizontal sliding bar below the peak meter to adjust the input sensitivity and volume. The Peak Meter should stay between the “-15” and “-0” decibel range during kirtana or loud segments of the lecture. If it is too loud, your listeners will hear digital distortion.

Red light on the meter’s far right indicates distorted sound. Orange is good. (Generally in the -15 to -0 db range.) Green means safe but, if the sound levels hover below the -30 decibel range, the volume may be too low for some listeners.

13) Press the “Connect” button and see if your MP3 encoder will connect. You can monitor the status of your connection under the “Transfer Rate” area of the window. If it shows “24 Kbps” (or similar), all is good and you’re broadcasting live! Congratulations. Move on to Step 14.

If the text below the “Transfer Rate” heading says “trying to connect, password failure,” or constantly is stuck in “connecting…” mode, check your Internet connection. Make sure you are able to get online and browse the Internet with a web browser on the same computer. Reboot your Internet modem and network routers if you have to.

If you’re able to get on the Internet and you’re still having connection problems in the Edcast window, then double check your Encoder Settings (right-click on the encoder text to “Configure” the settings.)

TIP: Sometimes switching the settings for “Server Type” to “Icecast” can temporarily solve password failure errors.

14) Now go to another computer and check to see if you can hear the broadcast. Pretend to be a listener of your own radio station. You’ll have to have WinAmp or iTunes on that computer. And you’ll need to know the listen URL of your broadcast (which will have been supplied to you by your Shoutcast server hosting company.)

Either open a web browser and type in the listen URL, or enter it directly into WinAmp or iTunes via the “File / Open URL” menu in those programs.

15) If everything works, then send me an e-mail with your listen URL so I can add it to the Krishna.com webcast listing for your temple.*

You can reach me at: webcams@krishna.com

Microphone Systems

1) Simple, inexpensive method: Buy an inexpensive computer microphone at your nearest electronics store, along with a 16-foot (5-meter) USB extension cable. This works if your broadcasting computer is able to be located within 16 feet of the temple room. (You may have to drill holes into a wall to run the cable in such a way as makes sense.) USB technology is not intended to be used with long cable lengths. 16-feet (5 meters) is the maximum supported cable length, after which you will need active USB repeater” cables, with total length of repeater cables not to exceed 80 feet (24 meters).

A word of caution: Don’t expect miracles from cheap USB microphones. Kirtans (kartals) are often way too loud for these sensitive mics, which are designed to be used for speech (one-to-one Internet telephony / Skype chats). You may have to glue foam or a cotton ball over the tip of the mic to make it less sensitive, or try various software limiters such as Stereo Tool to avoid distorted sound during loud kirtans.

2) Higher quality method: Run one or more chorus microphones suspended from the ceiling of your temple room. For example, place one mic near a loudspeaker. The other near an area where it will pick up the response of the audience during kirtans, and questions during lectures.

Recommended microphone: Audio Technica PRO-45 overhead hanging “choir” microphones, at $90 a piece.

The XLR end of the cables from these condenser mics connects to an analog-to-digital converter connected to your computer, that also powers the mics with 48V phantom power.

For single mic setups we would recommend the MXL Mic Mate Pro, an inline USB to XLR adapter for connecting any good quality microphone directly to a computer’s USB port. One advantage is that XLR mic cable can run up to 300 feet (90 meters) in length without much signal degradation and radio interference, whereas USB cable lengths (for cheaper USB-only mics) are limited to 16 feet (5 meters). Since the MXL Mic Mate XLR to USB converter does not have a built-in limiter (as opposed to the PreSonus INSPIRE below), you may need to use a software compressor/limiter such as Stereo Tool to even out the spikes in loud kirtans and prevent distortion. See the Wikipedia article on software compressors… the bottom of the article has various recommendations of software.

For two microphone setups we recommend the PreSonus Inspire 1394 FireWire Audio Interface, available for $199 from most online music stores. The real beauty of this box is that if I can access the broadcast computer over the network, via Remote Desktop, I can control the volume of each microphone remotely without having to leave the office, via on-screen software volume controls for each channel. It also has a built-in analog limiter to prevent distortion during loud spikes in the live sound.

The PreSonus Inspire uses a Firewire connection to the computer. If you don’t already have a firewire input, you’ll need a $40 firewire card from Belkin, such as the “Belkin FireWire Notebook Card” (if you’re using a laptop to broadcast), or the $70 Belkin 3-Port Firewire PCI Express card for desktop PCs. (We had problems with other cards. PreSonus specifically supports Belkin 400-speed firewire cards, that use Texas Instruments chips.)

3) The obvious but NOT recommended method: Run an audio cable from your temple sound system mixer “record out” to your computer’s sound input jack. Here are all the reasons why not to do this. (Click to read.)

If you have additional questions, please contact us.

Happy webcasting!