RadioVague: HOWTO to send Ogg Vorbis audio to the RadioVague Icecast2 servers using MuSE on Mac OS X

Written by Mike Harris for RadioVague.com, $Revision: 1.8 $ ($Date: 2008-11-03 18:32:38 $)

The latest version of this document can be found at http://radiovague.com/howtos/broadcast/macosxmuse/index.html

This HOWTO is for Mac OS X users using MuSE OS X.

Although this HOWTO covers streaming Ogg Vorbis format streams to Icecast2 servers, you can use the same application to stream in MP3 format. Radio Vague currently only use Icecast2 servers and Ogg Vorbis is our preferred audio format. For more information on Ogg Vorbis, see the Ogg Vorbis Homepage at http://vorbis.com

Be aware that MuSE is a free software project and development is ongoing. If you have any problems with the software, the MuSe community is there to help you. There is a bug reporting and tracking system available on-line at http://bugs.dyne.org/main_page.php.

Contents

• Requirements
• Getting and installing the software you need
• Configuring MuSE under Mac OS X
• Starting to stream
• Saving your configuration

Requirements

You'll need at least a G3 Mac at 233MHz with 128MB RAM (256MB recommended) as you need to be running Mac OS X. I've tested the following with OS X version 10.4.3.

You will also need to have the details for one of the RadioVague Icecast2 servers:

• Server address (e.g. live1.radiovague.com)
• Server port (e.g. 8000)
• Server password
• Stream name (e.g. mystream.ogg)

You can get this information from the RadioVague production team by emailing someone@radiovague.com

Getting and installing the software you need

Download MuSE from Dyne.org at http://muse.dyne.org. I recommend that you download the latest available version.

At the time of writing this is available here: ftp://ftp.dyne.org/muse/binary/MuSE-0.9.2-svn-PPC-7.dmg

Once downloaded - to your Desktop most probably - double click on the icon, which will open and a new virtual disc called muse will appear that contains the single file muse-osx. Drag this file into your Applications folder.

That's it installed. Now let's configure it and do some streaming with it.

Configuring MuSE under Mac OS X

Go to your Applications folder and double click the muse-osx icon there, MuSE will start and you'll see the following two windows:

The top window in the figure above, labelled MuSE, is the main control window and the lower one - labelled Channel 0 - is your playlist control.

The icon buttons on the main window will do the following (ordered from left to right):

• Stream: this is where you set-up the details for streaming, how you are going to encode and the server details.
• New Channel: Channels are for inputs and MuSE allows you to have up to five of them. This means you can easily swap between different playlists. For this example, we'll just use the Channel 0 which is the default. Once you've got the hang of things, try using more than one.
• Output Device: this button allows you to monitor what you are streaming on your Mac's default output device, which in non-nerd parlance probably means the speakers. This button does not affect whether the sound gets streamed or not.
• Input Device: toggles whether to mix in input from your Mac's default input device, meaning either the built in or external microphone.
• Volumes: opens a window that displays the current volume and bit-rate of the stream.
• Status: opens a message window that displays MuSE's message log file for troubleshooting.
• About: information about the MuSE project and it's developers.

The next thing to do is to add some files that you want to stream. Use the OS X Finder to locate files on your Mac's hard disc and drag and drop them into the large grey area in the Channel 0 window. Drag a couple over for testing:

Note that these files need to be in Ogg Vorbis or MP3 format otherwise MuSE will not accept them. It cannot play AIFF or AAC (the default used by iTunes) format files.

Once you've done that, you can reorder your tracks by clicking and dragging them inside the window. Then you should decide whether to play through the list once or have it repeat.

Now click the play button and you should hear the first file in your list being played.

A word of warning: I've found that for some reason the reproduction of the files by MuSE on my computer is a bit flaky in that it often comes out distorted, especially with .ogg files. I'm not quite sure why this is but it seems to be only the monitoring and the sound comes out fine when streamed.

Next we set up the server information, so click the first icon in the main window, Stream and the server setup window will appear, click the Add button at the top, then click the Add button that also appears below, you should have something like the following (note mine is filled in as per the next step):

Let's go through the myriad of settings:

• Encoder Type: you can send you stream in ogg or mp3 format, it's up to you, but we prefer ogg.
• Quality: this interacts with the bitrate and frequency fields as you move the slider.
• Mode: Whether you send your stream in mono or stereo.
• Bitrate: in kilobits per second. To start with a decent radio-quality stream, set this to 24.
• Frequency: in Hertz. To start with a decent radio-quality stream, set this to 22050.
• Frequency filtering: leave this on auto.
• Filename + Record Now: you can save a copy of your stream to the hard disc whilst streaming if you like. To do this, select/enter a filename and click the Record now! button when you're ready to record. Not needed for streaming, just an optional extra. Be aware that this file could get very big.
• Host: enter the host name (address) of our streaming server here (e.g. live1.radiovague.com).
• Port: enter the port, for RadioVague (and most Icecast servers) the default is 8000.
• Mnt: this is the so called mount point of your stream, which in non-nerd parlance means what your stream will be called. If it's an ogg stream then this should end with .ogg and for MP3, it should end with .mp3
• Name: this is the title of your stream and this will appear as the name of the stream on the streaming server's playlist. This should also appear in the player of those who listen to the stream. Make sure it's relevant to what you're streaming and keep it short and succinct.
• Description: an optional field for providing more information about the stream.
• Url: this is generated automatically by MuSE from the Host, Port and Mnt fields. This is the URL that you'll need to give to your listeners in order for them to connect to your stream.
• Login Type: set this to icecast 2 for streaming to Radio Vague.
• Username: for RadioVague (and Icecast2) servers enter source here.
• Password: enter the server password.

Starting to Stream

Click connect and you're streaming. Or should be. If you experience problems look at the log file window, by clicking the Status button in the main window.

That's it, here's a screen shot of all windows running and me streaming two channels at once:

(Click to enlarge)

Saving your configuration

You can save both your playlist and your server configuration. For the playlist, select the Channel 0 window and then from the main menu select Playlist -> Save -> as new, give it a name and click OK. For the server settings, click the save button at the bottom right-hand of the Streams window, give your configuration a name and click OK.

The saved settings can be loaded back in by clicking on the Open button in the Channel window and the load button in the Streams window.

Validate this information.

Article copyright (c) 2005 www.RadioVague.com Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.1 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled "GNU Free Documentation License".

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