Welcome to 'Transmitting to Earth'. I'm Charssun and I'll be your host. This blog and podcast is a byproduct of VoyagerRadio.com and is intended to provide the most timely information about this Internet radio station. It is also intended to be a fun and accessible electronic journal with commentary focusing on Internet radio, podcasting and webcasting issues and technologies, music, and some of my other interests. I also offer personal perspective about being an Internet radio broadcaster (and podcaster).
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A Review of Musicmatch's Download ServiceAnother music downloading service has been released, this one by Musicmatch. Here's one user's review. Streamium HackThere's a way to hack your Streamium so you can listen to stations that are supposed to be unavailable to this Internet micro hi-fi system. I believe you can already listen to my Internet radio station without this hack--in fact, I read somewhere that the device sounds especially great with mp3PRO streams--but you may find this information useful if you're unable to tune into other Internet radio streams. William Gibson Stops BloggingIt looks like William Gibson is off the blogosphere, returning to his "day job", writing fiction. It seems he's decided that blogging interferes with his writing. I've been battling that concept for some time now, too. (Well, not exactly battling--pondering, perhaps--in any case, the thought has crossed my mind.) I'm not the world's most prolific writer, finding it difficult to find the time to write a grocery list, much less write a novel--so I've wondered how professional (read: paid) authors find the time to disengage themselves from their blogging rituals in order to produce their works. Mr. Gibson provides one answer, comparing the struggle between keeping up his blog and writing his fiction as akin to "a kettle failing to boil because the lid's been left off". Not very productive, indeed.
So are the bloggers who are hoping to become published novelists simply prolific pipe dreamers? Maybe, if you take it from one famous author-turned-blogger-turned-author-again. But it's still early in this blogging game, in my opinion, and maybe there will be a breed of authors who find themselves able to engage in both activities successfully. Time will only tell, unless you're of Gibson's mind. And I wouldn't blame you--he has always been a fairly accurate foreteller. A Better-Sounding VoyagerRadioVoyagerRadio has recently undergone another major overhaul: I've converted my Internet radio station to the popular new mp3PRO format, which makes for a higher-fidelity webcast without an increase in bitrate. In other words, you'll now hear a better-sounding webcast without having to upgrade to a broadband Internet connection to listen to it! You'll have to have an mp3PRO audio player to hear the difference, though. Otherwise, you'll still be able to hear VoyagerRadio radio but you won't hear the added frequencies. You can find out more about this emerging sound format and obtain a free mp3PRO audio player at mp3PROzone.com.
Lots of chillout and downtempo electronica have also been added to VoyagerRadio over the past several weeks, so if you haven't been listening lately, now's the perfect time to become reacquainted with your favorite Internet radio station. Here's a quick link to the webcast to listen: http://www.live365.com/stations/baraka?play And if you listen to my station regularly, please let me know whether you listen via dialup or broadband, because I'm considering making the switch to a broadband webcast. So let me know how you prefer to listen so I can tailor the webcast for you! (Send comments to Feedback@VoyagerRadio.com or use the Comment link on my blog.) Thanks for tuning in! --end transmission-- Become a Preferred Member and Support VoyagerRadio!A few days ago I recommended all VoyagerRadio listeners to upgrade to Preferred Membership to receive all kinds of benefits. Let me now explain what some of those benefits are.
By becoming a Preferred Member you'll get fewer (if any) commercial interruptions while listening to VoyagerRadio and other Live365 webcasts, and you'll never see banner ads nor pop-up ads ever again. Those reasons alone make the low subscription fee valuable enough for me, but you'll also get access to all the VIP-only Live365 stations. (Live365 stations have a cap on the number of listeners that can tune into any station at any one time. All Live365 stations have these limits, which vary widely depending on the plan each webcaster pays for. As a Preferred Member, you can listen to any of these stations even after their cap has been reached.) Additionally, by becoming a Preferred Member you will also help support this burgeoning Internet radio community. In fact, if you upgrade to a Preferred Membership by following this link Live365 will share a portion of your Preferred Membership fee with me. Now how's that for directly supporting your favorite Internet radio station? Anyway, give it a thought. I know there are other stations out there that don't currently charge to listen, but how long do you suppose that will last? Probably not too much longer. Your dollars will help keep VoyagerRadio and other Live365 stations up and running for as long as you want to listen. (Of course, you could always contact me if you're interested in giving VoyagerRadio more direct support. I could seriously use the help. I'm not begging here, but, uh, I certainly wouldn't turn down any assistance I get.) Back From VacationI'm back from vacation and cleaning up the webcast again. I was in a hurry to leave and made some mistakes in my rush, such as forgetting to pay my Live365 bill (see the item, "Interruption in Service", below) and leaving too many upbeat songs in the webcast. So now it's back to business as usual. My next big decision is whether to change the webcast to a broadband webcast, so please keep letting me know how you prefer to listen--either email me or comment below. Thanks for the feedback! Interruption in ServiceMy apologies to anyone who has been blocked out of listening to VoyagerRadio within the past few days. We had a billing problem with Live365--okay, we forgot to pay the bill--and it looks like some of the features of our radio station were shut down. Like access for non-Preferred Members, for example. I just paid the bill, so the service should return to normal soon, and you'll be listening to more great VoyagerRadio music.
For those of you who are Preferred Members, you didn't have to miss a single note of VoyagerRadio. Good for you! I recommend all of you to upgrade to Preferred Membership--there's alot of fantastic benefits to doing so. Poll: Dialup or Broadband?Okay, it's time for me to ask the annual question: How do you listen to VoyagerRadio? Are you on dialup, or broadband? I asked this question last year and a few of my listeners let me know that they were tuned in via dialup, so we kept the station available for dialup listeners. (We bumped up the quality a little, from 24kbps to 32kbps, to enhance the sound while still making the webcast accessible by dialup listeners.)
It's time to ask again, since we are considering changing the webcast to a higher quality stream, accessible only by broadband listeners. Let me know by commenting below (click the "Comment" link) or by emailing me your response. I have no idea which way I'm going to go yet, so tell me whether you're using dialup or broadband so I can prepare the webcast appropriately. I believe that you deserve to hear VoyagerRadio at the best possible quality available for your Internet connection. I've decided to renew my .Mac subscription for at least another year after weighing my options and reading articles such as The Mac Observer's .Mac: Extend Or End Your Subscription?. So why have I decided .Mac is valuable enough to spend the hundred bucks to renew it? Well, the answer is simple. When I purchased .Mac last year, I thought I would use it for about six months or so as I transitioned to a new web host and a new email address. I'd already been using .Mac for at least a year--when it was free and called iTools--and my website had been hosted there for several months. I wanted to keep the site hosted there for awhile longer because Google search results for Internet radio broadcasts were pointing to it, and if I switched over to a new host it would probably take several more months for Google's search bots to find my new site and readjust their listings. Which means that if I didn't subscribe to .Mac, VoyagerRadio would cease to exist for several months--at least, according to Google--since the search results would point to a nonexistent address. I didn't want this to happen, so I figured I'd go and spend the money on .Mac, and once I had a new site up and running elsewhere, I would have visitors to my .Mac site automatically redirected to the new location.
Confused? Don't worry, you don't need to have this all figured out. The point is, I was using the .Mac services and I wanted to use them for at least a little while longer. But I had no idea I'd be using them for so long. A year later, I'm still using .Mac to host my website--I had a bad year financially, and never could afford to invest in establishing a new site--and now it looks like I'm in the same position I was in last year. In other words, pay up or cease to exist. And since I couldn't afford to pay fifty dollars to host my website elsewhere three months ago, having to now subscribe to .Mac for one hundred bucks is a high price to pay, indeed. My financial situation hasn't improved much, if at all. So the question is, as always, to be or not to be? Well, it was an easy decision, even if I have to sell my body to pay for it. I've chosen to be, and at least I'll get a copy of The Sims to boot--part of the list of freebies Apple is offering as enticement to subscribers. Maybe next year I'll upgrade to a real web host. And how about you? Are you trying to make the decision whether to continue subscribing to .Mac or not? Let me know how you're justifying your purchase, whether it's because of your addiction to the nifty Backup utility or some other cool .Mac stuff--or, tell me why you think .Mac is another rotten Apple. In the interest of continuing with our education of the mp3PRO format, here's an article, mp3PRO vs. MP3, that may enlighten us some more. [Thanks to the folks posting to the mp3PRO discussion forum for pointing me to this article.] I've finally completed the first stage of converting VoyagerRadio to the mp3PRO format. At this time the playlist is still short, though, clocking in at just over 3 hours. But it'll be longer soon, believe me. I have some new music--new music!--to add to the playlist over the next few days, so stay tuned for some goodness.
If you don't have an mp3PRO player yet, get one! They'll make the webcast sound oh, so better. You'll still be able to listen to the webcast with your old MP3 player, but I'm telling ya, you're missing out. Literally. Listening to an mp3PRO webcast with an MP3 player without the mp3PRO plug-in is like listening to a concert with earplugs on--you can still hear the music, but you're missing some of its kicks. So if you're listening with an mp3PRO player, tell me--how does the new VoyagerRadio sound? I'm in the process of upgrading the webcast to mp3PRO, so you may experience a shorter playlist over the next few days as I am removing tracks and converting them from the MP3 format to the better-encoded and better-sounding mp3PRO format. If you are unfamiliar with the mp3PRO format, don't worry--you'll still be able to listen to VoyagerRadio as you normally do, whether or not you have an mp3PRO-compatible MP3 player. (If you'd like to learn more about mp3PRO, please visit mp3PRO.com.)
Since I like to keep the playlist fresh anyway, the tracks that have been playing on VoyagerRadio the longest will be removed for awhile so as to accomodate newer additions. So look (or listen, rather) for a fresher and better-sounding playlist, soon! Big news! Universal Music Group will be slashing CD prices [link found on Critical Minds] in an effort to boost sales. As reported in the Wall Street Journal [Registration required], the new $12.98 price has been called "a massively bold move" and will radically transform the recording industry. We should see the new prices sometime in early October, and I'm sure the other record companies are now scrambling to find a way to match the $4 to $6 price reduction.
Now we can resume buying music. Perhaps. Of course, I'll still be scavenging the used CD bins at my local Goodwill or Second Spin store. Once the newly-priced CDs begin circulating and finding their way back to secondhand CD stores, perhaps used CDs will be lowering in price, too. Can you say $4.99 used CDs? (And I'm not talking about Half.com here.) Yesterday at Second Spin I found a used copy of A Special Album, so now I can eighty-six that...er, um...unlawfully obtained MP3 of Think Twice and replace it with a better-encoded and better-sounding MP3. For your listening pleasure. You'll also finally get to hear some other Ralph Myerz songs, besides those same four tracks found on A Special EP! Of course, you won't hear the entire album on VoyagerRadio, due to a shifting playlist and the upbeat nature of some of Myerz' songs (which doesn't match our webcast's downtempo mindset). So if you find that you enjoy the band, then buy their stinkin' CD! They're a small band on an independent label (as far as I can tell), so you won't be supporting the RIAA with your purchase. I don't think. Does anyone out there know? Let me know by inserting your comments below. While at the Santa Monica Public Library I picked up this CD by an artist called Thunderball. There were very few electronica CDs in the library's collection--in fact, only 4, 2 of which were Brian Eno works and the other a collection of electronic music "gurus" spanning the likes of John Cage and the aforementioned Eno. In the spirit of educating myself I took home all of the CDs, but the only artist I had any hope for inclusion in the VoyagerRadio playlist was Thunderball, which I had noticed was part of Eighth Street Lounge a label which included one of my favorite downtempo artists, Thievery Corporation.
So last night I listened to Thunderball's Ambassadors of Style hoping for something listenable but expecting something outdated or just plain awful, and today I can tell you that this CD is certainly listenable. More than listenable. I enjoyed falling asleep to A of S (which doesn't imply that the music is dull--I can sleep through most anything I enjoy), and I've just now added a few tracks from the CD to the VoyagerRadio playlist for your enjoyment. So enjoy! Besides this blog, a narrative blog called something that happened, and various other projects, I also moderate a discussion forum: Please consider subscribing to engage in a dialogue about all things having to do with Internet radio! |
Send Us Your Music
Artists! Want to be heard on this station? Email your MP3 audio, one file at a time, to our Program Director or mail your CD promo(s) to the following address:
Harold J. JohnsonVoyagerRadio
547 Gayley Avenue #1
Los Angeles, CA 90024 Make certain to let use know whether we may use the audio in our podcast, too!
Download the Podcast
We are officially podcasters now that we have revitalized and reintroduced our downtempo show Tempo of the Down, this time around as a podcast. Now showcasing independent downtempo we've been granted permission to offer for download, Tempo of the Down is our entry into the future of Internet radio.
Head over to our new Podcast area to download the latest session!
