If community radio stations can worry less about technical problems, then they can focus more on doing what they do best – broadcasting the voices of their community.

That's why a few great stations are pitching in to help us build Creek Studio.

Our supporters!

These outstanding stations have came together to help us!

• XRAY.fm - Community radio in Portland, OR
• KMUN - Community Radio in Astoria, OR
• KWMR - Community Radio in Point Reyes, CA
• KZFR - Community radio in Chico, CA
• KUSF - College radio at University of San Francisco
• WYBCx - College radio at Yale University
• WXNA - Community radio in Nashville, TN
• KKRN - Community radio in Round Mountain, CA
• WWER - Community Radio in Colonial Beach, VA
• KAAD-LP - Community Radio in Sonora, CA

Want to support us?

It's simple! And you'll get a few bonus things!

• If you are a monthly subscriber for Creek, please consider becoming an annual supporter. You will get a discount (one month free!) and a supporter badge on our website.
• If you are already annual, please consider paying for one more year – you will get a double discount (two months free!) and a supporter badge on our website.
• Know someone who could use Creek? Refer them to us! You will get 1 month free.

Again, I want to thank our supporters. Creek is here because of you!

Remote DJ gives stations an easy way for their DJs to broadcast from home.

It is essentially an online mixerboard. Just connect, then fade down the studio, then fade up your show, and start broadcasting.

It is especially useful for college and community radio stations impacted by COVID-19 – or if their DJs otherwise can't access their studio.

Please email me at help@creek.org and we'll figure how to install it at your studio.

How it works

1. DJs connect to Remote DJ. (It's compatible with anything that can send out an Icecast feed – like Audio Hijack or Rocket Broadcaster.)
2. They fade down automation.
3. They fade up their own feed.
4. Then they broadcast.

It even allows two DJs to connect at the same time and crossfade between DJ-1 and DJ-2.

Pricing

• $90 per month
• One-time cost of $200-$500 for set-up work and training. Pricing depends on how much work is involved to install this system in your particular studio.

FM Station?

For FM stations, you can make Remote DJ part of the DJ process by patching its stream into your mixerboard. Remote DJ outputs an Icecast stream, so all you need to do is schedule your automation system to "listen" to this RDJ feed whenever needed. Most automation systems support listening to an Icecast feed as an external source.

Creek can automatically archive and publish your station's radio shows.

Please email me at:  help@creek.org  – I'll set up a phone call with you to talk about your station, and how to install Creek's archiving system.

• Overview
• Live Demo and Video
• Pricing
• Installation
• Spinitron Schedule Import
• Website Integration
• Examples

Overview

Archives on your website

Automatically publish archives on your website with Creek's website tools. (See demo below.)

Record audio in your studio

Creek provides a dedicated archiving device to capture audio directly inside your studio. This is more reliable than recording from the stream, where audio gets lost if the studio Internet connection decides to flake out.

Flexible storage: 2 weeks or forever

Keep original-content shows indefinitely. Hide shows with copyrighted music after 2 weeks. Keep unlimited private archives so that DJs can access their past shows.

Spinitron integration

If you have Spinitron, then you can import your existing Spinitron schedule to create audio archives that are nicely organized under each show.

Live Demo

• Theme is customized to match your website.
• The seek bar can optionally be disabled for DMCA compliance.

Video Overview

Pricing

1. A.) Monthly option: $50 per month.
   B.) Yearly option: $550 per year (a $50 discount) and no set-up cost.
2. $300 one-time cost for the archiving device + $20 shipping.
3. One half cent per GB ($0.005/GB) for audio archive storage. This comes out to only $4 per month to store 1 full year of audio at 192kbit/s.
4. 1 hour of installation included. (I'll help you hook things up over the phone or Zoom.)

Easy install: Just add audio and Internet.

The best way to archive your station's audio is from inside your studio, directly from an audio source, and with a dedicated archiving device, like this one.

Introducing the Creek Studio Device:

This device records your audio from a USB audio interface.

(And it can also stream your audio — similar to a Barix or Telos device — but let's focus on archiving for now!)

After recording each show, it uploads the audio to Creek Studio.

Then, this uploaded audio can be integrated with your website (see below for more).

Installation process:

1. Unpack your Creek Studio Device. (Cost: $300 + $20 Shipping)
2. Connect the power cable.
3. Connect a USB audio interface – like the Behringer UMC204HD or the Scarlett 2i2 USB (Cost: About $150-$170)
4. Connect it to ethernet for Internet access. (It doesn't require any special firewall settings.)

Already have a recording system?

Some studios have an existing recording system that stores audio files on a network drive. The Creek Pi can use these files if this works better with your studio set-up.

Custom Studio Integrations

If your studio has a special hardware/software situation – just email me, and we'll develop a custom solution for using Creek's archiving system.

Flexible 2-week limit, with unlimited private archives

Each show can have its own archiving rules.

• If it has copyrighted music, then hide the archives for that show after two weeks.
• If the show has only original content, then keep it available online indefinitely.

Plus, archives are kept in private storage for as long as you want. DJs can access the audio for any of their past shows.

(XRAY.fm in Portland, OR has archives spanning back to 2013.)

Spinitron Schedule Import

Creek can import your Spinitron schedule, DJs, and playlists – allowing you to get started archiving with almost zero set-up work if you already use Spinitron.

Creek will record the audio for each show in Spinitron, and upload it to your website.

(Or, if you don't have Spinitron, then use Creek Studio to build your show schedule.)

Website Integration

Add your archives directly to your website.

Plus, Creek's website tools will add a show schedule, and pages for each show. Archived audio then gets organized under each show.

Technical Details

• All archives are organized inside Creek Studio. It's a bit like WordPress. DJs can sign in to Creek Studio and download their past archives. It will also keep your archived audio for years (if you want).
• Archives are stored on S3 storage. It's like Dropbox, but for web developers. I'll help you set this up on Backblaze, or you can bring your S3 service – like those from Amazon, DigitalOcean, or Backblaze.
• If you have WordPress, you can use our plugin to add the archives to your website (like on the WXNA website). If you are not using WordPress, then archives can be added with an embed code.

Example Stations

Here are a few of the stations that use Creek for archiving.

• KMNO in Maui, Hawaii
• KKCR in Kauai, Hawaii
• KRBX in Boise, ID
• WXNA in Nashville, TN
• XRAY.fm in Portland, OR
• BFF.fm in San Francisco, CA

That's me in the photo – after digging around under a table, and plugging in the cables... for the very first Creek Broadcaster!

I installed it at an FM radio station inside a youth center in Oroville, CA. It's streaming their audio live, and it will soon automate their entire radio station.

Thanks so much to KOYO.fm for allowing me the opportunity to work with them.

What's in the photo?

On the right is the Creek Broadcaster. It's a small black box – only 4 inches square.

On the left is a Behringer UCA-202. It's capturing audio from a mixerboard over regular RCA cables, and sending it to the Broadcaster over USB. The Broadcaster is then streaming this audio live, and recording it to archives.

What does it do?

The Creek Broadcaster does three things:

• Streams live audio – to your website and apps. It's compatible with Icecast.
• Records the audio – and posts the audio archive for each show on your website. Or, keeps them private, in your own cloud storage.
• Plays audio – as a simple automation system. Just schedule your shows in the Creek Studio.

Who can use it?

Well, lots of people:

• Radio stations: Use it for live broadcasting, and automatic audio archiving. Or, use it as an STL (Studio-Transmitter Link) – similar to Barix or Telos devices. Or, use it for live remote broadcasting at events (like sports games).
• Churches: Broadcast sermons to people at home, around the world.
• Nightclub DJs: Broadcast your performances live. Plus, record your sets, and upload them to your Creek website (or SoundCloud, Mixcloud, etc.).
• High school sports events: Easily set up a live stream of the game.
• Live musicians and concert halls: Stream the concert live – and use tools like Gumroad and Patreon to sell access to your live streams and recorded shows.
• Public speakers: Live stream your presentation.
• College professors: Broadcast your lectures, and auto-record them, automatically making them available to your students.

What does it cost?

Here's the pricing breakdown:

• $300 (plus shipping) for the device.
• Add $30 for the Behringer audio converter (shown in the photo above). Or, use your own USB audio device, if it's compatible with Linux.
• $80 per month: $50/mo for Creek Studio + $30/mo for the Creek Broadcaster with Automation (or, no extra monthly fee without automation).
• Additional Broadcasters are $20 per month ($10 discount).

When can I use it?

We are taking orders now. Estimated delivery is 2 weeks after ordering.

Feature Timeline

• Streaming and Archiving features are available now.
• Audio playback and automation will be available when the Creek Studio is released (targeting March 2020). Your device will be auto-updated to support automation.

After 5 years of work, and collaboration and feedback from 40+ stations, I'm excited to introduce Creek Studio.

Here's a demo video of Creek Studio with the archives and broadcasting device installed:

New Features in Creek Studio

New Playlist Editor

The new playlist editor reduces the work that you need to do to log your music. You can log your tracks before, during, or after your show.

New Timeline View

The shows and broadcasts are organized into a slick timeline. No more fumbling for the correct date to build your playlists.

Advanced Schedule Builder

Now you can build your schedule with Google Calendar-style interface.

Totally New Interface!

Creek Studio has a fresh new "web app" feel — similar to Trello and other platforms.

Upcoming Features

We're adding new tools soon to help your station run better.

Automate Your Audio

Creek Studio includes an automation system for stations that need one.

You can also integrate the Creek Studio with your existing automation system – like MegaSeg or RadioDJ.

By installing the Creek Broadcaster – our new hardware device – Creek Studio becomes a way to automate your physical studio from anywhere.

• Play music. Build playlists in advance, or play tracks live (similar to "live assist").
• Schedule to play recorded shows. For example, Jenny can upload her 2-hour prerecorded show, and it will automatically be played on her 8PM airtime.
• Play overlay messages. Play underwriters and station IDs over your music and recorded shows.
• Tie-in live remote audio. Automatically load up a remote audio stream (Icecast) and play it on air.

Automatic Music Recognition (like Shazam)

Do your live shows, while a robot automatically recognizes music from the audio itself, and enters the metadata for you (artist, title, label, ISRC, etc.). From our experience, it's about 95% accurate – and if the robot guesses wrong, you can review and edit the playlist. To use it, install Automatic Music Recognition tool (additional $100 per year).

Sidebar for Chat and Messages

See important messages from other DJs your station, including internal announcements and those "hey did you find my CDs?" messages. Or, chat with your listeners by installing the Public Chat component on your station's website.

Dark Mode

Because some people just cannot use apps with bright white backgrounds anymore. (Or maybe that's just me?)

The AudioServer is a REST API for audio.

It allows you to control basic audio functions (play, record, and stream) from anything that can do web requests – like Python, PHP, or cURL.

The Basics

Here are the highlights:

• Cross-platform: Same API for Mac, Windows, and Linux.
• Simple installation: Minimally, you can run it with just the AudioServer executable and two JSON config files.
• Everything is in JSON – both the API and configuration files.
• Simple sources and outputs structure.
• Supports complex routing scenarios. Route multiple sources to multiple outputs: { output: { sources: ["microphone-1", "file-1"] }
• Multiple independent instances under the same server. Similar to NGINX server blocks.
• Add, edit, or delete sources and outputs during runtime.
• Events: Schedule events to happen at specific times or recurring intervals.
• Built-in compressor and limiter.
• Built-in peaks values for all outputs. Display realtime VU meters!
• Written in C++ with the JUCE framework.
• Runs on VPS environments, like Ubuntu Server 18.04.

Examples: Play a file

# PATCH: /instances/station-1/sources/file-1
{
  "filePath": "/path/to/audio.mp3",
  "playing": true
}

Sources and Outputs

Sources

• Capture audio from a device.
• Play from audio file.
• Listen to a remote Icecast stream URL.

Outputs

• Play on speakers.
• Record to audio file.
• Stream to Icecast.

Who developed it?

• Jim Credland and Dom Smart of Devious Machines are the talented duo who wrote all of the C++ and in general actually built the thing.
• Travis Bernard (that's me) organized the project and wrote the API plan.