I have shoutcast configured and mAirlist encoding to it but it sounds pretty bad. It does not have the “FULL” or “cd quality” sound. Any suggestions?
Have you checked the bitrate the player reports when you play the stream? Does it match the one you set up in the encoder config?
If it’s just about sound quality, mAirList 3.1 allows you to specify additional command line parameters to the LAME encoder, e.g. “-q 2” for better quality. A liste of available parameters can e.g. be found here: http://linux.die.net/man/1/lame
The stream is at 96kbps and 32kHz - is this what you entered in the encoder configuration?
By the way, is this a live signal (recorded from line in), or do the players broadcast into the encoder directly (output device set to “Encoder”)?
Perhaps you can post the contents of your encoder.ini file here. It’s in the “config folder”, see “mAirListConfig -> Advanced -> Data Folders” for the exact location. Remove the IP/Port and password information before posting the file here.
[quote=“Torben, post:3, topic:6821”]The stream is at 96kbps and 32kHz - is this what you entered in the encoder configuration?
By the way, is this a live signal (recorded from line in), or do the players broadcast into the encoder directly (output device set to “Encoder”)?
Perhaps you can post the contents of your encoder.ini file here. It’s in the “config folder”, see “mAirListConfig -> Advanced -> Data Folders” for the exact location. Remove the IP/Port and password information before posting the file here.[/quote]
I think the output device to encoder was the problem. I changed it but now it the stream sounds like “snow”.
In the Configuration program I have encoder stream set to Bit rate 96 mode Stereo
[General]
Samplerate=44100
[Playback]
Device=0
Speakers=0
[Record]
Device=0
[Options]
LinkOnAir=off
[Connection0]
Type=Shoutcast
Enabled=on
CustomCaption=
Hostname=
Port=
Password=
Title=
URL=
Genre=
AIM=
IRC=
ICQ=
Description=
LogFormat=%a - %b
IncludeItemTypes=Unknown,Music,Voice,News,Advertising,Package,Jingle,Sound,Effect,Trailer,Promo,Sponsorship,Sweeper,Drop,StationID,Bed,Instrumental,Show,Other,Custom1,Custom2,Custom3,Custom4
Bitrate=96
Mode=stereo
EncoderOptions=
Public=off
CountListeners=on
ConnectDelay=5
ReconnectDelay=10
The encoder supplies an internal master bus. You can monitor the encoder bus signal on your PC speakers by selecting a suitable “Playback Device” on the “Devices” tab in the encoder configuration in mAirListConfig.
Generally, there’s two ways to set up the encoder and the audio routing in mAirList, depending on the way you are going to use the software:
-
Fully-automatic setup: Set all players to “Encoder” and choose a playback device for monitoring. No external hardware needed. Not very suitable for live shows.
-
Live-assist or mixed setup with an external mixing desk: Set the player output device to a particular sound card output. Connect that sound card output(s) to your mixing desk, and also your microphone and other external equipment. Use the monitoring output of the desk to listen to the master signal. Also connect the master bus to the Line In of your sound card. Go to the “Devices” tab in the encoder config, select “no local output” for the playback device (as you’re monitoring through the mixer) and choose the appropriate Line In as the “Record Device”. In the main application, click the the “LIVE” button in the encoder status window to enable recording of your line-in signal.
Regarding the sound quality - did you intentionally set the encoder to 96kbps and 32kbit? Most people use something like 128kbps and 44.1kHz for fair sound quality.
Looking at your config, the sample rate (44100) seems to be correct - perhaps LAME is reducing it when you choose a lower bit rate like 96kbps? I’m not sure. If so, that might be the reason for the bad sound quality. Try setting the bitrate to 128 or even higher.
I intentionally set, within the mAir config, the 96kbps.
Perhaps something is wrong with the version of Lame I am using. All i did was copy Lame.exe and lameenc.dll to the mAir folder. Am I missing something there?
I got it working, sounding great!
I deleted the Lame.exe and Lameenc.dll I had copied over from another program (perhaps it didn’t like those settings) and started over with fresh DL of lame.exe and lameenc.dll.
Thanks for the help Torben!
Great. Glad to hear it’s working now. You can safely remove lame_enc.dll, only lame.exe is needed.
Time for some gardening now 
If there’s any other issues or questions, feel free to post them here.
What am I doing wrong, encoder connect but not sound in shout cast.
Check the audio devices configuration/routing in mAirList.