NOTE: sadly, MediaMaster.com has shut down its service. This post will remain because so many blogs link to it, but the fundamental service is now off the air.
So your saying to your avatar self, "Avatar Self, I'd like to be a music hipster and have a Radio Station, too.. but I don't like that nasty Rockabilly and Cowpunk that Hotspur likes.. I want to host a station that plays nothing but Yma Sumac, 24/7! How do I go about it?"
Nothing could be more simple! And (for the time being at least) it's free! A couple of assumptions up front, before we begin. There is ABSOLUTELY NO CONNECTION BETWEEN LINDEN LABS AND MEDIA MASTERS. They are separate companies and CANNOT support each other. Next, be legal. Go out and (legally) get your own digital music files of the material you wish to stream. That part is up to you-- I use Amazon's MP3 service quite a bit to cherry pick the songs that I desire for thematic radio stations. ALWAYS take the straight path. It's not worth the hassle and the headache that might result someday if you don't will astound you.
You will not be able to (live) broadcast your voice into Second Life (tm). You will have to work on another solution for that. MediaMaster can provide a service that will broadcast pre-recorded audio files into a "device" or player of some sort-- MediaMaster is marketing a service for personal use, using WinAmp or some other streaming client to play your stream through your computer. Fortunately, Second Life clients can also play music, with the right settings. I know I use the sobriquet "DJ" for this, but the following are really instructions for setting up a STREAM.. I suppose taking a request is possible.. but it would be incredibly cumbersome, requiring you to stop the feed, edit your playlist, and restart it. The stream is optimized for 'setting it up and letting it run' rather than tinkering with it on the fly. I suspect Mediamaster isn't keeping any Second Life (tm) DJ up at night, due to its inherent limitations, but I personally find the service a great way to foster another facet of creative expression in world.
1. Create a Media Master Account. Go to MediaMaster.com and do the registration stuff. They want the standard "registration data". Give them an alias if you are worried about privacy, that's what I do.
On your mainscreen, upload some musical tracks. After some diligent uploading, you'll have a big screen full of album covers with tracks contained in each one.
2. Create logical groups of musical tracks into PLAYLISTS. For instance, my "Pony Keg Playroom" is a playlist containing mostly American Audio bits.. rockabilly, psychobilly, cowboy punk, blues, etc. I group by theme, myself, but that doesn't mean you have to. In the picture above, you can see I've created three playlists, Pony Keg Playroom, In the Can, and Muy Classica. Let's look into Pony Keg Playroom.
3. Get the Music Stream for your Playlist, and Copy it to Clipboad. Inside the channel, you will see lists of tracks. You can SCRAMBLE the order of these (by pressing the Scramble button), or order them using whatever arcane logic appeals to you. We're interested in the button that says "Stream to Devices". I provide an attractive visual aid for the novice, above. Click this button. A window will pop up, with a string in it that will end with your MediaMaster accountname. THIS IS YOUR MUSICAL STREAM FOR THIS PLAYLIST. You'll need it!
Now, bring up Second Life (tm), and go to a parcel YOU HAVE CONTROL OF. Meaning, either you, or a group you belong to, can change the land settings. Bring up the land management dialogue box. you should be familiar with this screen from that time we streamed video, remember? Paste the string you got from MediaMasters into the MUSIC URL field.
That's it! Now, sit your avatar self down in a comfortable virtual chair, put your feet up and listen to the dulcet tunes of the Incan chanteuse. The music stream will play a short MediaMaster "bumper" identifying the service, before playing the music listings you uploaded to the playlist. Didn't I say this would be easy?
You no longer have an excuse for being ill prepared for the next inworld Yma Sumac festival, so I suggest you get cracking!
FOLLOW UP DISCUSSION ABOUT SL and DR ISSUES HERE
* well, kind of a DJ, actually ..
Posts
23 comments:
Hey, I want to meet your friends who are Yma Sumac fans!
Alright, ya got me.. I confess it.. I'm a not-so-very-closeted Yma Sumac fan. I love her voice. And yes, Goomba Boomba is playing, right NOW, on my Radio Station setting. (grins)
I gotta say that based on your last post about this, I went out and did it. I set up a Media Master account, uploaded much of my iTunes library and made one playlist that I affectionately call The Celtic Rose. Perhaps I should have called it the Eclectic Celtic Rose since I have everything from Medieval Baebes to Dropkick Murpheys to the Tartan Terrors to Celtic Women.
I think I am going to enjoy this...it's fun having the music I want when I want it.
Thanks for the recommendation.
E
I can't believe you guys know who Yma Sumac is! Well, Hotspur, maybe. Talk about an odd duck (Yma...well, H too).
So...when's the festival? Will it crash the sim? Even if only four people show up, her voice alone should do the trick.
Thanks Hotspur! The easier it is, the better! I am going to try this out!
Thanks for the info Hotspur - pretty slick set up. Always wanted to rig a free music service to play my own tracks in SL, but never stumbled on the right recipe. :D
/me actually likes Yma Sumac
Thrilled to see this, and thanks for sharing your experiences and enlightenment, Hotspur! I'm sharing this link around — I got turned onto MediaMaster thanx to you and some others, and now use it on my land in Grasmere.
Great post!
Hi Hotspur, Mace Maverick here. We have had some converse on the grid before. MediaMaster seems ultra hip and groovy but I am a little concerned about the RIAA monster out there. They have already deemed that technically even playing music in a public eatery for patrons to listen to is actually a no no since the owner of said establishment never paid liscensing fees. Yeah I know, i was amazed when I read about that one too. Basically they are establishing that even just playing music for a crowd of your mates could get you in trouble. Now I think that the RIAA are a bunch of money grubbing butt monkeys however they are butt monkeys with effective legal aid.
What is the general take on this? If we start up with MediaMaster are we setting our selves up as targets for the anal retentive Huns in the legal corp of the RIAA?
hi, Mace, long time no see.
Great comment and great question-- so much so, I had to go out and do a little reading before replying. Didn't want to sound too stupid. The results of said reading were interesting, and as always, subject to point of view and circumstance.
As this is a subject beyond the scope of "How to do this keen thing with Media Master", I started a new post on it HERE. There's even a little widget thingie to post your comments directly into the message.
I consider this issue to be pretty important-- thus the new topic. Drop on in!
- H.
Hi Hotspur, what about bandwidth? i've read somewhere that for streaming music to SL you need not to exceed 96kbps at mp3 settings and better mono instead of stereo. Is that right?
Thxs for your information :)
@mace: One way to avoid the RIAA problem is to upload music that has suitable Creative Commons licenses. Many songs are available on archive.org, including some by Second Life's very own Torley Linden (aka Torley Wong), and links to more can be found on creativecommons.org.
@loco: Second Life is not limited to 96Kbps streams; I have played 192Kbps streams in the viewer so I know it can be done, and higher bandwidth streams sound better. However... the higher the bandwidth of your stream, the more likely listeners are to have problems with skipping and stuttering, because they don't have enough bandwidth for both the stream and the other demands of SL.
Just a heads up.. after having a mail thread with the folks at Media Master, they clarified that their existing service was not intended to be used as a multi-user broadcast and may be suspending the radio function until they can add proper authentication and single user streaming enforcement. (could be offline for a couple months).
The good to come out of this is that they are going to investigate what would be needed to create a product offering of the multi-user streams.
They have their work cut out for them on this.
What the Heck is up with Media Masters are they really out of Space?
Does anyone know if they are going to add more? Its been rejecting my music for 2 months?
ANY ONE PLEASE TELL ME WHATS GOING ON i even called there company, with no answers!
http://blog.mediamaster.com/2009/01/22/mediamaster-is-shutting-down/
Sorry.
Yes, I know: http://hiberniaskids.blogspot.com/2009/01/end-of-mediamastercom-era.html
It is terribly sad. A great service shuts its doors.
Thread closed, due to Spamming.
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