Introduction
This guide will show you how to use Sam Broadcaster for your Audio Streaming Needs. This guide was written for Sam Broadcaster 4, but many of these techniques apply to previous versions.
Sam Broadcaster is an advanced program, and the purpose of this section is to highlight the key items that a DJ would need to know to use Sam Broadcaster. For a more in depth discussion about Sam, visit Spacial Audio's for Documentation. (http://www.spacialaudio.com/products/sambroadcaster/docs.html)
This section was created with the assistance of BCreative Wilde.
Software Requirements
Sam Broadcaster is an all-in-one software package that allows you to stream music using several different servers, configurations, and music type. All you would need to use it is Sam Broadcaster, available from Spacial Audio's website at: http://www.spacialaudio.com/products/sambroadcaster/
Sam Broadcaster is not for free, and costs $299.00
Interface
Sam
Broadcaster at may be a intimidating but is modifiable so you can change it
to suite your needs. There are 3 different working areas labeled Desktop A,
Desktop B, and Desktop C that you can customize so that not everything has to
be on the main screen. Below are two screen shots of what a Sam Broadcaster interface may look like. On the left is a customized version of the interface and on the right is the default version of the interrface.
 |  |
Default Interface
| Custom Interface
|
Deck A and Deck B
These two decks are very important and where your tracks pay from. To put a song into a deck to play, drag and drop a song from your playlist or your queue into an empty deck (usually Deck A), when it is time to play another song, Sam will either play from a song placed in the opposite deck (Deck B if a song is playing from Deck A or Deck A if a song is playing in Deck B) or it will play the next song in your queue.
See a screen shot example
The way these
decks work you will get a professional sounding cross-fade from one track to
the next. You can change that through the programs preferences. Another important feature of the Decks is the ability to preview a track without it broadcasting. This is done by selecting the "cue button in the deck you wish to preview the song. If you want to broadcast the song over your stream the Air button my be selected.
Fade Control (also known as DJ Control)
This control will allow you to crossfade your in between tracks. Another neat feature is that it allows you to beatmatch between two songs. There are four ways to use the Fade Control:
Manual Crossfade
The Manual Crossfade allows you to crossfade between two tracks. Moving the slider to the left will decrease the volume on the actively playing deck, and fade in the track on the idle deck. Moving it to the right perform the same effect (fades out the current track) but plays the track in the idle deck without fading.
Manual Fade
This is the traditional way tracks fade in and out on most mixers. Moving the slider to the left will cause Deck B volume to decrease, moving it to the right will cause the volume on Deck A to decrease.
Tempo Adjust
This is marked on the right hand side with the letter A and the letter B. This increases or decreases the speed of the song. By moving the slider to the left, it decreases the speed of the song in it's labeled deck. Moving the slider to the right, increases the speed. Placing the slider in the middle causes the song to play at normal speed.
Smooth Beat Fade
This is a new feature in Sam Broadcaster (introduced in Sam 3) that beat matches between two tracks in a very simple manner. The way this works is by moving slowly the slider from the deck currently playing a track to the deck that is idle. Once you have moved it (either to the left or to the right), you will use the manual fade (see above) to fade in the idle deck. Using this took requires a lot of practice and knowledge of songs.
Beat Fade
The "traditional" way of beat matching is done by using the Beat Fade. While the slider is in the middle both tracks are normal, but by moving the slider to the left will cause the track in Deck B to match the beat in Deck A, by moving it to the right, the track in Deck A will match the beat in Deck B.
Queue and Playlist
The Queue and Playlist are essential when preparing tracks to play. The Playlist contains a list of all your tracks by category, such as their content, their genre or alphabetically .
The Playlist
When you run Sam Broadcaster for the first time it aks you to add all your music the first time you run
it, this places all of your music in one place, the playlist. The playlist window allows you to use pre-configured settings to organize your music or allows you to create your own. To create your own folders to separate your music right click anywhere in the playlist window and select New. To add more music to your playlist right click in the window then add then the location of the new music. You can import specific
files, folders, URLs, and/or playlists. Often I like making different folders
that separate different genres of music.
The Queue (and how to configure playing from the Queue)
Queue is very when
lining up audio you want to play one after another. To use the queue, you drag and drop songs
from the playlist right into your Queue list. However they will not play
automatically unless you have Sam set up to do so.
In order to have Sam select the next song to play for the queue you have tell it to play. At the top of the
interface next to the Desktop A button, there is a drop
down menu. This menu controls the way Sam chooses to play it's music.
- Auto DJ Mode (which is default) allows Sam to randomly picks songs
to play and you never have to do a thing after you start playing the first
song.
- Manual Mode stops at the end of each song which is useful for talking between tracks without background music.
- Queue mode which will play
the songs in order as they are placed into the Queue. This is useful for organizing your music, requests and flow as you are broadcasting. This also allows you to have music n the background when you talk between sets of songs.
To select Queue Mode, click on the arrow of the pulldown menu and select "Play Queue", or click on it as a button and it will rotate through all of it's option.
See A Screen Shot Example
Sound FX and Voice FX
Use these two features to play pre-recorded sound effects while music is playing as well as the ability to talk over or between tracks.
To activate a sound effect, click on it's apporpriate box, it will play automatically. You can also control the volume of the effect by moving the volume slider on the right up and down.
To speak using your mic, hold down "Press to Talk" or click on "Lock Talk". Many people when beginning to use Sam Broadcaster experience an echo in their voice. To get rid of your echo, change the Voice FX destination. To do this, click on the config button in the Voice FX box and select the "Encoders" option.
Preparing Sam to Broadcast
The most important part of Sam is configuring it for Ineternet Broadcasting. To configure Sam to bradcast you need to use the Encoders section which is by defauly available on the Desktop B. To reach Desktop B, select it from the top of your screen. In the encoder's box, click on the +
sign to add streams.
Next we are asked about which type of encoder you are going to use. This is determined by the sort of streaming server that you have. In this case, we have a stream that accepts a mp3 encoder, so we are going to select mp3, and click okay (in this case you can also select the mp3PRO option).
Next a window will appear asking you to configure your Server and Encoder. These options vary based on the sort of server you are running. In this case we are using a 128KBPS Shoutcast sever. In the Quality section, click on the pulldown menu to select the sort of quality you wish your audio to be at. This may require some testing to figure out which is best suited for you. We have selected High Quality. Next, in the format section, we are going to select the bitrate for our stream. This is done by clicking on the pull down menu and selecting 128kb/s, 44.1khz, Stereo.
Now, click on the server Details tab to fill in the information pertaining to your server. In this example we have been given the server address of shoutcast.example.com at port 8910 and a password of hayhay. Also remember we are using a shoutcast stream. Here, we make sure that ShoutCast is selected in the Sever Type selection. In the Server Details selection we will in the Sever IP (shoutcast.example.com), Sever Port (8910), and Password (hayhay) all in it's appropriate areas.
It is a good idea to add some detail to your Server, such as the name, genre and website URL. In our example we have filled it in with an example of what it would look like. For your own server, fill in the appropriate information.
