As hard as it may be to believe, I was once a new dj in Second Life and wanted to know how to find the right DJ Mixing Software for Streaming to SL.

I started out using Winamp with the shoutcast plug-in first which was limited in many ways. You could create playlists but if you wanted to find one particular song you would have browse thru the whole playlist. This is very tedious especially if you have a large playlist. Also, using a microphone was impossible unless you ran the whole mix thru the windows mixer and micromanaged every sound on the computer.

Then a good  friend told me about SAM Broadcaster and I started researching it. It uses a database to keep track of your songs, making it easy to find your songs on the fly. I acquired SAM and went about installing it.

Before installing the SAM software you should know what database program you are planning to use. I used the mysql database program so it needed to be installed before SAM Broadcaster. I used the database configuration wizard to create a default database with anonymous permissions and that is all I had to do before installing SAM. Disclaimer: You may choose to create whatever permissions you like according to your level of experience with databases but you are on your own when SAM gets confused about the database you configured.  lol

I have tried other DJ Mixing Software but SAM is my favorite. Virtual DJ is a good program if you want to match beats and mix songs more actively like a live DJ. Virtual DJ’s interface is more intuitive like because it is set up like 2 turntables. I have yet to try Traktor but I would like to hear your reviews if you have tried it.

OK, so you found a DJ Mixing Software and now you are ready to Stream to SL. You will need a streaming server to broadcast your stream to multiple listeners. Fortunately, most clubs have a stream of their own if you dj in-house.  So if you can make the right connections you can use the club’s server and not have to rent your own. If you want to rent a stream there are many stream servers out there. I recommend renting a stream from Shoutcast Streaming Services from QTLabs Inc. Sign up at http://pqenet.com and start streaming right away!

You will need access to the Music URL setting on the Media tab of the About Land menu. Usually you have to own the land, pay rent, or be a member of the group with permission to change this setting. Once you access the setting you will type in the stream server url. It us usually in the format of http://servername.com:port# or for example:  http://pqenet.com:8042

In your encoder settings enter your encoding bitrate (cd quality for the lame mp3 encoder  is 128kbps stereo), the server name, the port number and the password. In SAM Broadcaster this can be found on desktop B in the encoding window;  just click on the + symbol to add new encoder setting. Go under the Server Details tab to enter server name, port number and password. You can also set a station name and enable title streaming among other settings.

Well I hope this is helpful to the new DJ starting out in SL and I welcome further comments and details about other’s SL DJ experiences.

DJ Lysander