First off, Voisses isn't a Sourcefabric team member -- just a valuable member of the SF community.

Second, failing to have backups for critical data is most definitely not a Sourcefabric failure.

Third, as Mr. James alluded to in a different thread -- aside from leveling -- attempting to DSP color modern digitally-sourced music is just complete nonsense. Does Netflix place Instagram-like filters over their movies? Should they??

With all due respect, artists spend countless hours and $$$ mastering THEIR music. Could go on and on about this, but I'm afraid there is little point. :(

I always wonder why people do this.

If you look at  your needs before embarking on a track then you will get there on time.
So lets stop with the parables.

Would you buy a Cisco Router or manage switch for your home? No because what is require for configuration,may be beyond your scope.

So I say that because if you do not understand the software take time to learn before making spurious remarks.

Not One single broadcasting software I know out there that do not issues.

At the Station The spend over $2000 US to buy a broadcast Board (console) with Software.
It came with a usb - key and support told them "Oh that-s the lite version of Autodj",the additional software runs about $7000 US with 3years support

When I use to use SAM you practically had to build any custom feature with pal.

Now Most enterprise software you have to purchase plug-in or add-ons  to do additional task like even autodj.

As I told everyone the firewall I use is basic,but you can make even more robust than any enterprise software  with plug-ins.

I hate when people bash Open source,without it many of the great invention are through Open source,from your Andriod/Apple phone to Space Technology.

The Days of getting everything in one then paying exorbitant licence and subscription fees is over.
Build a plan on what you want,then sit down and roll up  your sleeve and get to work.

Go Over here and see who is using Airtime ,my friend,The word is spreading.

Grow this community .There is too many critics today

Got to go read my anger Anger Management Book and take a tablet

Good Luck
Voisses

But For Argument sake ,lets take all you said and see if you its really valid.

• Updated to the latest version of Airtime and it has deleted every music file, and hundreds of other scripts I had in the web accessible airtime folder!
• How and why has this happened?
• Updated from 2.5.1 to 2.5.1a, running Ubuntu 12.04.

Do you buy new equipment like compressors equaliser etc each time there is a new version you change it.Not unless there is something feature that you need etc. So you have to look if that addition applies to you.

I worked for 10years managing servers over 6 branches and it was always recommended by microsoft to test locally before putting in production.

The problem you have is that you are not doing that,so you must complain.


You must if you manage systems remember "Do not roll out new features unless you test it

"Welcome to system analysis" unless you will get fired.

• It even deleted all of the audio content from my watched folder!

This is New,I have my media folder on a separate drive,I recently re-install my OS drive and re-link my watch folder and autodj folder and I never saw that all my media is in there.Seems Unusual.

•  I'd advise anybody thinking about updating - DON'T DO IT!

You need to read my post here http://forum.sourcefabric.org/discussion/16091/fallover-101-how-to-make-all-scripts-worked-revisted-pt2

I always warned people do not make custom changes to the core and script codes,you will only run in problem when there is upgrade by the maintainers.imagine you make a change to the Kernel,when Linus and the team do an upgrade your whole system will break and expose to security risk.

Do not Make changes to the PHP,Python,Liquidsoap Library or Utils,.

This is why I was not satisfied with the original tune-in script and re-wrote it as and add-on

• This is such a massive issue that we are now forced into looking at other software solutions. Airtime has the potential to be great, but I've spent more time trying to iron out silly bugs than I have concentrating on the content of my station.

This is a free world,and with choices.This is why I love this country.There are people now who want to change it but equal amount that like it free.(another topic and another time).

Those who come here for knowledge ,if I have none to contribute I will research to be of assistance.and whilst I do not speak for Airtime or Sourcefabric,If it was me,I would say leave and do not make the door hit you behind as there is no insurance or guarantees.If you come for help and solution lets go.

• Sorry guys, this just isn't stable enough to be on full release.

So which software is by your standard.In system analysis they say it  should be stable that sufficent person can use it and changes can easily be adapted.

• I'd advise anybody thinking of choosing Airtime as their radio station solution to think long and hard about it. The support isn't great, other than from other users, and it's highly unstable.

Puff! opinionated. fiction and without any merits.It do not work for you why criticize.There is constructive  and destructive criticism ,which are you advocating.

• Despite all of the bugs, deleting / cancelling linked shows will cause you a world of pain, there are so many basic features that you'd expect with radio station automation software missing that you'll be left wondering why you chose this route.

What!!! Liquidsoap ,Php,Python,Zend,Icecast,silian and all the software in here that are use industry wise have to be manage and configured,So if I say I want to down load a file  I have to use say  2 piece of software (like php and curl) and either search for a user script or look if there is a function for that.So what route are you complaining about.?

• No ident interjection, no automated dynamic playlist creation (such an obvious and required option for any radio station that is not going to be monitored 100% of the time), no built in DSP options (other than Replay Gain - which is totally useless if you are using it with dynamically updated mp3 files using John Chewter's excellent hack), no built in JACK output routing - which would compensate for the lack of onboard DSP), no auto DJ, no failsafe fallback and many other features that you would just expect to be present.

Check  this  page  so may product which I chose and check what missing on the more page

Jack is a audio routing application which is like virtual audio( which you have to pay for and for windows os) if you want virtual multiple connection,if you do not  know what you are doing in both case youhave to stick to the basic.

Winamp dsp is simple like regain play and the one in SAMS is enough to blow my head.

The sad thing you do not is that liquidsoap come with plugins which does the same thing.

I used a simple audio processing function ,which I would assist you with but because of a comment you made ,then i would have to think twice.After all i am not employed to you

Look here http://savonet.sourceforge.net/doc-svn/reference.html under sound processing it will blow your mind

All I did was listen my stream in vlc and go to the settings==>adjustments and effects

and just tweak what I have

Finally ,They always say I blow my fuse,but I cannot remain silent when critics come with baseless argument,I would only frustrate myself.

So if you do not like something say what you would like to change and how you can make a difference to make this world a better please.

And

1. All excellent software are built from users suggestion,no coder can put anything in isolation,in fact some of the maintainers use the user suggestion and tweak it to the software.
2. You will continue to have stability problem if you continue to break the core code do major upgrades  on a test system before put in production
3. And All coders are not machine,they are people like myself and when I place a code out here if you find something wrong come back and say it ,do not make wild allegations that it do not work,It is why we have compilers to test and re-test until it works.
4. Stop sound like a whining baby
5. Get Knowledge to make better not to destroy
6. Leave software alone if you do not understand it

Auto DJ

People who comes here and complain about this is a waste of time its redundant

Simple get MIXXX and Use that Auto DJ

I draw many times here to tell people picture Airtime in some remote Server location and then use some

Desktop application with it.

There is a radio skin for Airtime which look like Any Software you Have out there.

So all your playlist can be share etc.

I think Sourcefabric needs to stress this and stop make people come here and I have to blow my Lid (Oh not that hey ask me but you can see the smile on my face when I do blow my Lid 

Good Luck to you All

VOISSES

=)) =))

@Roger Wilco,

I did state that I am not a Team Member,

I also did state that I am not speaking on behalf of Airtime or Sourcefabric.

I can even go further say,I am a frank outright person, do'nt even know why they have not banned me yet.

I know for a fact if you do not stand up for what you know people will run all over you.

I also know when people come for help is  different from when they become frustrated by their own fault but you have to come with clean hands to receive blessing otherwise when you eat it and it has adverse effects and you blame the servers.

So here is my thing
I am not her for fame,neither fortune,any award,or anything except to grow my knowledge  and help others in the process.

If you think what i say or code submit is foolishness let me know.

I worked for corporate world and we roll heads.All my boss Love me,they still do  and many ask  me to stop by when I am in town  but the one thing they always say,they always can count on my suggestion.

I am not affiliated with la quinta but they have an ad that shows a robot which scan the room,looking for the boss and Yes Man.

I ain't no Yes man.

One of my client,said I will pay you  just to look and tell me what you think is wrong.

This is why I advocate for people to work on their own business to see the challenges

Thanks though you have re-iterated all the things I said in less words except

Its Almost impossible that the Upgrade he suggested he did could have destroyed the media collection

@ Voisses - You talk too much my friend :)

Seriously though, I can promise you that all of my data was erased, you can argue with me until you are blue in the face but that is a fact! I agree that updating without backing up is a dangerous move but I have limited HD space on my webserver and backing up the audio files, 30GB+ of them, wasn't an option. If I had in any way thought that a software update was going to overwrite the original folders I wouldn't have done it. This was an update, not a clean install.

@ Roger - backups addressed in the reply to V above.

With regards to your comment about attempting to DSP digitally sourced mastered audio files... You should have probably asked me what I am playing first no? It's a station with live & pre recorded mix shows from dj's that play primarily from 12" vinyl and record / broadcast into their computers via analogue mixers, not digitally mastered pop records. A lot of the time the show files aren't even normalized, let alone run through any kind of brickwall limiter. DSP is essential to create a smooth, balanced listening experience for our customers.

@ Josh - thank you so much for the reply.

Please don't think that I was bashing the software, Voisses got my back up a little and made me rant a bit, but I did say originally that I thought Airtime could be great, and the fact that I have spent the last 2 months setting it up is testament to how good I think it is.

I've experienced quite a few bugs along the way ;

- multiple files playing at the same time which ultimately resulted in a server crash
- unable to remove play listed items from linked shows, even after un-linking the show
- lots of hangs in the gui

And a few other bits, but I was more than happy to press on with it.

As for what happened, I was running 2.5.1 and typed this into the terminal : sudo apt-upgrade

Airtime updated to the latest version just fine, but wiped all of my scripts and music files that were located in new folders that I had created within the web accessible directory of Airtime. The folders I had created are all still there but are now empty.

Thank you so much for your offer of 6 months service, that is very admirable of you and I really appreciate it, but the way we are running this server requires root access with a bunch of cron jobs running to import the audio files from a different web server and move them around, and I'm guessing that your hosting options are solely interface based right?

Also with our HD requirements alone we would need to opt for your premium plan which is a bit out of our price range i'm afraid (we are a not for profit radio station).

Again thank you so much for your very kind offer though.

Wishing you and everybody else at Sourcefabric all the best,

Ade ;)









sudo apt-get upgrade

 My repeating automated show ingest usually works very well, because they are from the same source (on a show by show basis) and usually have been pre-normalised to the same levels as the original, by the originators - e.g. Democracy Now! and so the level-adjust setting is the same +- for all their files. It seems the repeating shows you use are not pre normalised - see Roger's comment above. I think you could automatically wipe the level ajust tag from the incoming mp3 in my script, in one line, and Silan may renormalise it for you when media monitor finds no level adjust tag.. I did not try it yet. A voisses stfu filter may be helpful too ;)

@ Roger, sadly this is all internet based and hosted remotely, there is no physical studio so hardware processing isn't an option. I agree, no DSP chain is going to fully compensate for the varied levels and eq that are being received, but it does go a long way to improving the sound. Something as simple as replay gain just doesn't cut it.

@ John, I am using a version of your "latest.mp3" hack for all of my shows. It works incredibly well and is the one thing (along with live overrides and the excellent scheduling) that is keeping me on this forum in the hope that I can stick with Airtime.

@ Daniel,  Hi and thank you for explaining that. It makes total sense, It's just a shame that I was unaware that this was the case before updating. I am very pleased, although still reeling, about the fact that this was done by design and not error.

Let me explain my reasons for using the web folder to store data.

I have a custom set up where my DJ's upload via another website that runs a php based upload script, (the same one you are using in Airtime), in a iFrame. Each DJ has their own dedicated upload script and those scripts were all being stored in other directories located under the web accessible folder. They had to be in here so that they were, well - web accessible ;)

The uploads from the users are put into another folder under the web directory and from there a scheduled cron job runs a shell script that strips the ID3 tags, rewrites them, renames the file and then moves them into another folder (also located under the web dir - I was just about to move dir this out of the web folder as it didn't need to be in there and then this happened - bad luck huh!).

There is no downloadable / streamable content in these folders, it's strictly incoming access only for the DJ's to upload their show files, so my reason for doing it this way has nothing to do with on demand content. Also, the DJ access is password controlled on a user by user basis, there is no public access to these upload scripts.

The only directories that were over written were all of the ones that I had created under the web dir. Like I mentioned above, the actual folders I had created were still there, they had just been stripped of their content after the upgrade.

To be honest, I would love to get Airtime working the way I want it to as the scheduling alone is hands down the best I've seen in any broadcast automation software. My only issue now is the output.
I need DSP juice, and know I can access it via JACKd and then route that off to my encoder (darkice for example). But I just can't figure out how to make it work.

I have updated Liquidsoap with the Jack plugin, my DSP is running and passing the output to darkice but I just can't figure out how to send the airtime output to Jack.

I've read everything I could google about it but i'm still totally at a loss.

I know it involves some adjustment to the liquid soap script but I have no idea what to write and where to put it.

If any of you could help with this I'd be very very grateful.

Cheers

Another thought. You can use SOX serverside to DSP files on impòrt - but not in real-time. If you don't know what SOX can do - download Audacity (free) and see (Its a wrapper for SOX).

Hey John,

The irony is that I had changed this just before this update issue happened, I just didn't move the folder in time. The files are no longer being uploaded to the airtime server at all. They are being uploaded to an off site server and then the airtime server downloads them, one by one, as and when it needs them. Doesn't go anywhere near the public folder anymore.

Will have a look at SOX but we do need real time processing for the live shows.

Orban sells expensive DSPs to real terrestrial broadcasters because raw FM has some issues, as Daniel James said in a different thread. Digital doesn't really need it aside from gentle leveling. Does Netflix Instagram filter their movie collection, in real time, before streaming to millions of subscribers? No. Why is that? It's patently unnecessary.

One last thing I will add on this subject though....

The sound quality of today's pop "mastering" is shocking.
It's over compressed, over limited, over eq'd and has virtually no dynamic range.

Have you ever thought that by processing you could actually tame some of those awful sounding files too?

Side-chained multiband compression of those horrific high-mid frequencies for a start. Push those down in your mix and it's going to sound better right away.

It's not just a one way street.

Lastly, saying that digital doesn't need processing is just a mad statement to make.
In the old days, before everybody with a computer could make and release a track, your music HAD to be mastered before it was cut onto a lacquer. There are certain frequencies that vinyl doesn't handle well. Searing tops, overly subby bass, wide stereo field in the sub 40hz range.

This meant that a professional got their hands on your work at least once before it was unleashed on to the public.

These days you can find Joe Bloggs in his bedroom offering to "master" your track for $5 with a copy of Audacity.

Music has never sounded worse than it does right now sonically.

Garbage-in and extra-processed garbage-out? Maybe Ade, you need better garbage to start with. It seems you are asking a playout system to re-master on-the-fly and this is beyond the scope of the Airtime playout system.

No I have not done that yet. I was waiting for 2.5.1a. Your report does not surprise me. The schedule table and the show instance table do not always line up as they should. Example - if you do a show content update and the ajax fails (3 times a week here) you can end up with overlapping tracks - lots of them if its a repeating show. There is a fudge in the schedule table code that tries to deal with that by prefering the latest modified track and show instance, which sometimes gets it wrong.

DON'T DO THIS AT HOME! : I am now running LIVE on 2.5.2 alpha Git version - without a safety net, sanity certificate, roll-cage or goggles. As it seems a lot more stable than 2.5.1a - so I might have a go at that this weekend. It doesn't seem that hard, just a simple PostGres query or two and a some PHP CLI SOXI magic - IF YOU HAVE NO FOLLOWING FILES IN THE SHOW. I guess it could run Silan and level it as well, as media monitor ignores it.