When We Say Zara

Satellite Continues Not Working

Admin Bob says: "Please describe your setup procedure and what happens when you try using the satellite input."

First I provide audio to my hardware mixer which is the "Satellite" that I wish to play through Zara. For this test I have an FM tuner set to NPR and can see the VU readings flash on the mixer.

To monitor Zara I'm putting its output to a C.Crane FM Transmitter and listening to a second FM tuner at 89.9 MHz.

The choice "Connect to Satellite" is placed in the Playlist and when it passes by it visibly depresses the Satellite ON Icon on the top menu bar.

Next comes the "Satellite" choice set for 30-minutes and it begins to run but is silent.... the Line In from the mixer is not coming through.

We know the mixer Line In is good because you can hear my microphone through it at TeamSpeak meetings.

Satellite Input Trouble Shoot

Admin: "What input is the Satellite connected to?"

I have tried "Line Input" and "Stereo-Mix" but nothing.

Involuntary Changes Happen to the Sound System

These other problems may be related to the Zara problem I'm having:

Saturday night the voices of the members did not go directly to my recording of the meeting, they were heard only in the distance by way of my live mic. I later found that my RealTek Soundcard Control Panel had unchecked "Stereo-Mix" all by itself;

Just a moment ago I tried to record voice, but Audacity was not hearing me. This time the Realtek Soundcard Control Panel had unchecked "Line Input".

Neil has mentioned noticing similar "involuntary changes" happening within Windows XP, which is what I am using.

More Zara tests will be scheduled for tonight or tomorrow.

Hello all!

Been reading this thread about Zara radio and the events and play lists that can be created with it.

I just wanted to share something with you all.

As far as station jingles go, it is always best to leave a bit of blank audio space at the end of each of your Jingles.

I use Roxio's "Sound Editor" which originally came with a licensed copy of Roxio's "Easy VHS to DVD" software.

It creates a .WAV file when a recording is done whether it be by the included USB dongle which has RCA jacks for audio input from analog devices. But it can also do an audio capture from a mixing board for vinyl record transfer or get audio from the computer microphones.

I can export the audio files as several types of audio files, such as MP3 format and also edit the meta-data to reflect the songs properties and information such as year, artist and album name and year of release.

I usually leave a few seconds (2 seconds) of dead audio at the end of each file so there is a bit of dead space between songs or jingles.

When CDs are ripped, I usually use Windows Media Player and rip as .WMA files. I load them into Roxio "Sound Editor" and can edit the audio, such as adding some E.Q. if I feel the song needs some frequencies boosted a bit. then I export as an MP3 file format at 320 kbps constant bitrate. Usually, music from CDs have a dead space at either the beginning or end of a song once it is on your computer.

Sometimes too much dead audio at the beginning of a song will trigger Zara Radio to skip the song altogether and jump to the next and if that song has a long silent beginning Zara might skip that one too. It is BEST to trim the track if there is a long pause at the beginning of a CD transferred track!! As I said too long a pause and Zara will act as if the track isn't playing and skip to the next song.

It is okay to have a bit of dead audio at the end of a song or Jingle, but too much dead audio will make for long pauses between songs!! The maximum dead audio you want at the beginning of anything is 2 seconds and that is the MAXIMUM. For the end of the track or Jingle, you want no more than 2 seconds there also or you will have long pauses (dead air) in between tracks and Jingles which makes you sound more like NPR radio.

It is good to have these settings in the OPTIONS FADE menu:

Overlap set to 1 seconds.
Fade set to 1 seconds
The following check marked: "Fade On Overlap" and "Fade On Stop"

End Of Song detection check marked and set to -26dB

To prevent a song from playing twice, I have the DELETE ON PLAY button pressed in, when you close Zara Radio down, I suggest you DO NOT SAVE as your list will loose all those songs you added. When you do NOT save, when you start Zara Radio back up, your whole list is back again.

The ONLY down side to Zara Radio is the VOLUME SLIDER between the ON THE AIR and NEXT windows does NOT stay where you last left it. It ALWAYS starts MAXED OUT and you have to adjust it each time you restart Zara Radio again. That is its only down fall though.

Any further questions, please ask, I will answer as best as I can.

Bruce.

Hi Carl, I don't have a lot of bands on commercial CDs, I am mostly a vinyl record buyer if the release is available on vinyl. When I rip CDs, I have noticed when I load the tracks into my "Sound Editor" software, that the record companies leave long pauses at the beginning of a song and at the end so there is a dead audio area as your CD player's sensors send the track info to the microcontroller and to the display. That is fine when the tracks are played off of a CD, but once that track is transferred to your computer and added to a playlist, those long pauses can lead to issues when using playout software such as Zara Radio and Sam to name a few.

But it is a must to allow some form of a dead audio zone so tracks have less of a chance of over-lapping too much to where the next song playing covers up the last few words of your Jingles. I learned the hard way, always had the last word of a jingle covered up by the beginning of the next song played, until I learned to leave a 2 second blank at the end of the mp3 allowing time for the mix to sound better and not competing with each other.

Bruce.