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----- Original Message -----
From: "Tom Fine" <tflists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
I wasn't talking about internet-only at all. I was talking about using
modern technology to make
equipment investment minimal.
Net-only is very easy, just do a podcast. But, as I've said before, beware
of ASCAP/BMI rules. And,
even if you load up a podcast file of 192K MP3 (which becomes a rather
large file when you get up to
30-60 minutes), the quality is still sub-par from a good-quality FM
broadcast (but better than
over-processed headache inducing garbage found on most FM frequencies in
most places today).
The thing that interested me about community radio is that it would be
nice to have a real-deal
FM-quality signal (albeit low power with limited range) with something
aside from what Evergreen and
Clearchannel decide is good content. I'd also love to open it up to some
of the local high school
kids and older folks who are into music -- see if exposure to different
tastes and styles broadens
everyone involved.
But, given the PITA factor, I'll just revert back to my norm -- staying
happy with 1000+ LPs,
hundreds of tapes and several thousand CD's. Music is becoming less and
less a shared experience
anyway, with the iPod revolution and decline of music-based radio. Back in
high school, many years
ago, I tried to gin up interest for a school radio station to go over the
cable TV system (we
already had a TV studio, so it wouldn't be a big deal to piggyback onto
that infrastructure). Could
not get enough commitments to make it feasible, and got outright hostility
from the union AV and
library staff. Oh well. At that time, my friend, who was in a serious
Deadhead phase, told me,
"dude, I feel your pain a little but I gotta tell ya -- the best radio
station in the world is your
own turntable, man." Since this guy introduced me to MANY still-loved
musicians and music genres, I
listened to his words even if we looked like a 60's refugee and was a bit
bleary-eyed (he now works
for the UN, so go figure). He was right, of course.
Somewhat relevant to all of this, and worth reading, is Chris Anderson's
"The Long Tail". It started
with this article:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.10/tail.html
and was expanded to a book:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1401302378/sr=8-1/qid=1152787909/tomslinx
and Anderson has a related blog:
http://www.thelongtail.com/
I don't buy it all, hook line and sinker, but there are a lot of
interesting facts and predictions.
Bottom line is, there might be hope for our oft lament: languishing out of
print copyrighted
commercial music. Under the Long Tail theory, the Big Music
mega-glomerates will wake up to the fact
that there is demand for this stuff, though small compared to their
"mainstream" offerings, and will
make it available in some cheap/efficient manner (ie iTunes). As I've said
numerous times, my fear
is that the quality level will be leagues worse than the master media and
even worse than the
original release media.
Anyway, a little veered from the Community Radio topic, but it started
there! ;)
Well, the big difference is that you are thinking in terms of (I'm guessing
here)
classical music, mainly from the LP or even the stereo LP era. For this, you
would
need/want at least "CD quality" sound...probably two-channel...for
"webcasting"
and for "community" FM. The former takes a lot of bandwidth...and I have no
idea
what the latter would require!
In my case, what I own...and what I'd like to webcast...are my 40,000-odd
(some QUITE odd) 78's. Of those, about 98-99% are (at least currently)
public domain up here in the "frozen northland"...and, better yet,
they are all mono and most of them have minimal bandwidth (even the
electrics cut off around 6 to 8KHz). So, MP3's of my old acoustic
discs won't...in fact CAN'T...sound worse than the originals!
What I might consider doing is to convert them to MP3's, and then
assemble THOSE into one large MP3 file (how does one do that?)...
Steven C. Barr