Broadcast to RadioHost Studio with SAM Broadcaster

SAM Broadcaster has been in radio studios for twenty years and a great many stations have their entire music library, rotation rules and jingle structure inside it. Connecting it to a Studio station is one Icecast encoder definition.

What you need first

An External DJ credential from Live → External DJs in Studio, plus the server, port and mount point shown on the same page.

Adding the encoder

Open the Encoders window, press the plus button, and choose an MP3 encoder at the bitrate you want. SAM asks for the format before it asks where to send it, which is the opposite order to most software and catches people out.

Then set the server details:

The username matters. SAM defaults to source, and against Studio that is a failed connection with an otherwise perfect configuration.

Press the connect button on the encoder row. Green means the stream is up.

Metadata

SAM's encoder has a metadata format string, and the default — artist and title — is the right one. Studio passes it through, so it is what listeners see on the website player and in aggregator directories during your show.

If your library's tags are inconsistent, this is where it becomes public. It is worth an hour in SAM's library tools before it is worth any time on the encoder.

The DSP chain

SAM has a full processing chain — gain, compression, AGC, a multi-band unit — and stations that have tuned it over years should keep using it.

One thing to know: the audio arriving from SAM is a live source to Studio, and a live source is passed through rather than re-measured. Studio's loudness levelling applies to files in its own library, not to a stream in flight. So SAM's chain is entirely what listeners hear during SAM's hours, and the target to aim at is "sounds like the rest of the station" rather than "as loud as possible".

If the station's automated hours and SAM's hours are noticeably different in loudness, the fix is SAM's output gain, once.

Two systems, one schedule

If SAM runs continuously it is the station and Studio is delivering it. If SAM connects for shows and disconnects afterwards, Studio's automation covers everything else and nothing needs a Windows machine awake at 4am.

The second is the arrangement worth aiming at, and it is the one where a power cut at the presenter's house is a gap rather than an outage: the moment the source drops, Studio's automation resumes from the current schedule position.

Frequently asked questions

Which SAM Broadcaster edition do I need?

Any edition with encoder support, which is all of the desktop ones. SAM Broadcaster Cloud is a hosted product with its own streaming and is an alternative to Studio rather than a source for it.

Can SAM send to Studio and to another server at the same time?

Yes. SAM supports several simultaneous encoders, so a second one pointed elsewhere costs only upload bandwidth — budget the full bitrate of each.

Does the station keep playing if SAM's machine reboots?

Yes. The source disconnects, and Studio's automation takes over from the current schedule position without anyone intervening.

Why does SAM connect and then immediately drop?

Usually the bitrate is above the plan cap — 128 on a trial, 192 on a station subscription — or a second source is already connected. A station accepts one live input at a time.