I’ve been getting quite a few emails asking about various aspects of Acts of Volition Radio. Also, I’ve been glad to see that a few other sites seems to have taken to the voice-annotated downloadable compilation format (LugRadio and Mathcaddy Radio). Whether or not it was inspired by this humble site, I’m glad to see it.

Here, then, is my attempt to answer some of the more common questions about producing a downloadable radio show.

What hardware do you use to record Acts of Volition Radio?

I have a Shure SM57 microphone that I bought in the hope of doing some home recording. It’s a relatively cheap microphone that works well for voice or instruments (particularly guitar amps). It costs about $150. I plug the mic straight into the soundcard on my IBM ThinkPad T30. However, I think I could get better quality with a pre-amp of some kind — instead, I just jack up the signal in the recording software (probably to the detriment of audio quality). A good mic-stand helps too.

What software do you use to record Acts of Volition Radio?

I use a windows shareware multi-track recording package called N-Track Studio. It’s not very polished, but it was really cheap ($45) and does what I need. I think N-Track Studio is to ProTools (or other pro audio software) what Paint Shop Pro (or maybe more like LView) is to PhotoShop — the much cheaper, much less polished little brother that does 90% of what the pro software does.

Why don’t you use GarageBand?

I probably would if I used a Mac. It looks like a good piece of software that would do everything I need (multi-tracking, volume envelopes, etc.).

Why release the show as one MP3, rather than individual MP3 files?

I release the show as one mixed-down MP3 because that seems to me to be the easiest way to release a collection of songs with voice annotation at a reasonable quality. There doesn’t seem to be a decent way to release a collection of tracks together (another argument for an album file format). I could release a zip file with a collection of MP3s and an M3U playlist — but this would limit where it could be easily played, add extra complication, and limit control over the flow of the show. I do occasionally talk of the fading in/out beginning or end of some of the tracks.

I also see the show I’m putting together as a peice of work in of itself. I’m adding value by collecting tracks and adding my thoughts and impressions. The result is one unit of work. Yes, it’s a pain that you can’t skip ahead a track (of course, you can always manually jog through the track), but I think this is a reasonable trade-off.

While I suspect that keeping the show as one file does make what I’m doing a bit more palatable to the music industry, as it is a bit more difficult for what I release to end up as individual tracks on file-sharing networks, this isn’t why I do it in this format. I’ve never thought crippling features or tying the hands of the user (listener) was a good means of protecting work — but rather it is usually a symptom of broken law and regulation.

Is Acts of Volition Radio Legal?

Kinda, sorta, not really… When I first started, I emailed SOCAN (Society of Composers, Authors & Music Publishers of Canada). SOCAN is kind of like ASCAP here in Canada — they handle the licensing of music for radio and the compensation of artists. I got an informative and timely reply that explained, that:

“SOCAN is not yet issuing licenses for the communication of musical works in Canada over the Internet. As such, there are no rate cards nor is there a set form that you are required to fill out. However, when the Copyright Board approves a tariff applicable to your business (tariff 22), SOCAN will require that you pay all applicable fees and taxes retroactive to the commencement date of your business.”

To avoid any copyright infringement legal issues, I was advised to send a letter to SOCAN stating that “my company” (I guess that means me) agrees to pay any taxes and fees retroactively once the rates and laws are sorted out. Apparently a typical fee for this type of licensing in other medium runs around $0.25 “per subscriber” — but I’m not sure the “subscriber” model really holds up in a downloadable format.

I do get the impression that the downloadable nature of Acts of Volition Radio is particularly beyond the understanding the legal system to address so far.

Basically, they haven’t quite figured it out yet. I decided not to sit on my hands and wait for policy to catch up with culture and technology. I’ll do my best to follow the laws and pay any appropriate fees when they are finally sorted out.

How much bandwidth does it take? How do you pay for it?

Not a whole lot. The show isn’t so popular that it runs up too much bandwidth usage. For example, Session Six was downloaded about 400 times in February. Also, I’m a partner in a web development firm and I’m able to piggy-back on some of the hosting/bandwidth resources available to me there. After taking a quick scan of some web-hosting sites, I see that you can get 45GB of traffic for under $15/month — not bad.