Preparing releases from internet-based broadcasts

Internet Radios: Common rules, frequent mistakes and all about superior quality.

Basic Internet Radio Selection Considerations

• For TheMixingBowl of interest are only the stations offering DJ sets that you can't buy anywhere as that it is what TheMixingBowl is all about. Radio stations meeting this requirement are listed here.
• Only few Internet radio stations broadcasting DJ sets are suitable for TheMixingBowl.org as they do meet the minimum quality requirements to allow their sets being uploaded to TheMixingBowl. All other internet radio stations are broadcasting nuked sets of low quality (sets that would be available elsewhere in much higher quality). The above mentioned list of Radio Stations can be considered to represent a Whitelist of suitable radio stations.

Minimum Acceptable Bitrates

Minimum acceptable bitrates for internet broadcasts need to be taken into account. If you have a choice between different broadcasting formats, choose that one with the highest quality and that means that with the highest bitrate. One has to know that all digital formats used to broadcast music are lossy and do not contain all the original audio information. And low bitrates are extremely lossy and can easily sound very bad. Do never upload internet broadcasts with low bitrates to TheMixingBowl.

The minimum requirements for a decent quality are:

• MP2: 144-160kbit/s,
• MP3 and AAC: 128kbit/s [the AAC format (used by iTunes!) is not better than mp3],
• AAC+: 64-80kbit/s [check the file properties / file information - you will find strings containing AAC+, HE-AAC or AAC+ v2],
• OGG: 64-80kbit/s,
• OGG aoTuV: 48-64kbit/s [the best audio codec available].

Sometimes, for special opportunities (especially live broadcasts) it might be necessary to accept lower qualities though.

1.) Note, that the AAC and AAC+ formats can be broadcasted in the RAW format (with the extension .aac) but can also be "hidden" in MP4 containers (these files have the extensions .m4a or .mp4). You have to be especially careful with .m4a and .mp4 files, these can contain other information as well (for example videos or picture stills or other audio files) together with the aac+ audio part. In any case, if you have .mp4 or .m4a files, check the file information first, whether or not it contains a suitable aac+ file and/or other (unsuitable) files.

2.) Also note, that it is almost impossible to distinguish between OGG and OGG-aoTuV as the available encoders do not save the necessary information to OGG files....

Apart from the above-mentioned minimum quality requirements, try to avoid streams sounding "crispy" with lots of distortions at higher frequencies. Also, try to avoid WMA and RA broadcasts. These formats are usually very listener-unfriendly with very low bitrates and 'bitrate management' what means that your stream can jump between different bitrates during a set (down to very low bitrates). Do not use them!

Ripping Internet Streams

- Suitable programs

- Guide to use the programs

Editing Ripped Internet Streams

- Suitable programs

- Rules for editing digital music files

Preparation Finish

- Preparing uploads...