[Kzyxtalk] A pre-Thorgellen musical interlude.

[Marco McClean]

A pre-Thorgellen musical interlude.


You probably already know that it’s easy and fun (and free, in all 
senses of the word– like free hamburger or free parking or free country 
or freedom of speech) to get airtime on KNYO and do your own show in the 
store on Frankin Street in town. (Contact Bob Young via http://knyo.org 
and he’ll make arrangements to meet you at the storefront, show you how 
to use the simple equipment and put you on the schedule. It’s really 
that simple. That’s the way radio is supposed to be. That’s real 
community radio.)


But what you might not know is that, if you want to, you can do your 
radio show live from anywhere there’s reliable web access. Your kitchen 
or garage or front room or treehouse –or anyplace else in the world. 
Most KNYO airpeople do it that way at least part of the time. You need a 
computer, a mixer, a microphone, an easy-to-install audio streaming 
program, web access, and that’s pretty much it. We’ll advise you on what 
to get, and so on. Once you’re set up, you gather your show material 
around you, wait till it’s time, then click one click and you’re on the 
air on 105.1fm KNYO-LP Fort Bragg CA. When your show is over, click 
another click and you’re off the air, and the transmitter goes back to 
automation that fills the time until the next live airperson begins his 
or her show.


Up until last night, at least as far as I knew, you also needed a 
separate computer or tablet or phone or CD deck to play music on your 
show, if you’re doing a music show (the store has CD decks and a 
telephone call-in interface already there for you to use, and a cable 
ready to accept the sound from your tablet or other player). Last night 
I was reading, putting this year’s Thorgellen show together (that’s 
always Friday the day after Thanksgiving, in America) (it’s an ancient 
festival of feasting and fire and pet sacrifice and hallucinogenic 
mushrooms to honor the Great God Thor and placate his wrath) (the real 
Thor, not the easygoing Marvel franchise Thor), and a way occurred to me 
to use my computer’s internal sound parts to play recorded music and art 
into the mixer that’s plugged into the /same computer/ that also does 
the streaming through the web to the transmitter /and/ records the show 
for posterity. I wondered if my 2007(?) Compaq desk lump at Juanita’s 
would do it all smoothly and just work, and I tried it out, and it 
worked great.


Here’s the recorded result of the test. I’ll leave it up for a little 
while to give you a chance to hear it. Music you’ll recognize: /Refugee/ 
from the album Chipmunk Punk, /Walk Like An Egyptian/ from the same 
Chipmunks but slowed down so you hear the actual voices, and Malvina 
Reynolds, and Mark Knopfler, and Terrence McKenna speaking and Alex 
Jones sobbing and ranting on the subject of DMT machine elves, the CIA 
and the Bilderburgers), and Mouth Music, and some more, not in that 
order, of course. Here’s another way to hear the same set, thanks to 
Hank Sims of Lost Coast Outpost, that you might like better for its 
instant-gratification play button and lack of confusing flashing ads.


So, let’s see, a desktop or laptop computer, any microphone and stand 
you’re comfortable with, a cheap USB sound mixer (I recommend something 
in the Behringer  Xenyx USB line, for its built-in volume limiting) (I 
use a Q802USB; you can get one new for about $80 now), and there’s your 
entire tiny professional broadcast booth right there. All you add is you 
and your commitment to real radio. And also you can use the same setup 
for podcasting or just recording your own instrument or your band and 
get pretty good results. There’s a lot of free or cheap recording 
software available for that. Audacity is one example. I'm still happy 
with a 20-year-old program called Cool Edit.


And, p.s., it's still not too late to hear last Friday night's Memo of 
the Air: Good Night Radio show. It was titled /The fathers have eaten 
sour grapes and the children's teeth are set on edge,/ and it's here:
https://lostcoastoutpost.com/podcasts/memo-of-the-air/


-- 
Marco McClean
memo at mcn.org
http://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com