[RWP] streaming Reaper's output to Icecast or SHOUTcast

[Patrick Perdue]

Hi:

A while back, someone was interested in streaming Reaper's output to an 
Icecast server. Not sure if this is still the case, but since this topic 
was originally brought up, this has become a lot easier to accomplish.

At some point last summer, Derek found a streaming VST plugin that, when 
inserted on a track, could stream to Icecast or SHOUTcast servers using 
ogg vorbis or mp3, if the codecs were present in the same folder as the 
plugin. This thing was very problematic, but basically worked, kind of. 
It, however, had no way to remember server info between sessions, even 
if saved in a project, and had the annoying habit of buffering at random 
times for no particular reason, regardless of available resources.

Now, however, with an asio input modded version of Edcast, and Reaper's 
built-in ReaRoute asio device, this is now a lot more seamless and 
streamlined.

ReaRoute is basically Reaper's version of rewire, except it uses asio to 
pull things in and out of reaper between daws or anything else that can 
use it. So, for example, if you really wanted, you could pipe Sonar or 
SoundForge's output directly into and out of Reaper in realtime without 
using any additional hardware, or route a media player capable of asio 
output, like Foobar2000 with an asio output plugin into a reaper track 
for realtime processing of playback.

The nice thing about ReaRoute is that it is not treated as a standard 
asio interface by reaper, so you can use whatever interface you have, 
even if it isn't asio compliant, along with ReaRoute channels, which 
kind of gets around the issue of only addressing one asio device at a time.

With this in mind, it's quite easy to get Reaper's audio to a version of 
Edcast someone made which picks up audio from an asio source rather than 
DirectSound. Simply add a second audio output to Reaper's master track, 
or create your own bus by mixing any number of tracks to a pseudo 
master, then send it to one of ReaRoute's 8 stereo pairs to be captured 
by Edcast Asio, which can be downloaded here: 
http://users.tpg.com.au/radiorio/edcast_asio_3.2.25.130.exe
This allows for all sorts of fun and interesting possibilities for 
streaming live content from several inputs without an outboard mixer, 
just a decent audio interface, and mixing/applying processing wherever 
necessary.

ReaRoute is not present with a standard Reaper install, so if you don't 
have it, simply install Reaper again, choose custom, and select 
ReaRoute. Since Reaper doesn't touch the registry, nothing will break.

I have, however, noticed that on my install of Windows 7 64-bit, 
ReaRoute doesn't seem to show up in the list of enumerated asio 
compliant devices, but it's obviously installed, since there are options 
to send things to it from Reaper, which wouldn't normally exist. I don't 
know if this is an issue with Reaper x64, or something local on the one 
system I've tried it on. I will make some inquiries on the Reaper forum 
about this. Maybe I'll also try installing Reaper32 on that system, and 
see what happens.

I am, however, using it to great effect on a Windows xp installation, as 
a processor for FX Radio.
I have three instances of Foobar2000 playing files randomly from a huge 
collection of high quality sound effects, most of them in a lossless 
compression format, each instance having it's own compression. These 
tracks are then mixed down to another with a side-chain compressor, 
which takes it's input from another track connected to a VoIP softphone. 
So, when someone calls the FX Radio SHOUTBOX! (+1)360-515-4554,) the fx 
mix-down is ducked a bit while incoming audio comes across the phone. 
The phone also has it's own compressor, an auto-pan and some crappy 
reverb, just because I was bored. All this is sent to another track with 
compression and a limiter with a high threshold, just in case something 
spikes horribly, then sent to Icecast using ReaRoute. It's been 
streaming continuously with this configuration for just over three weeks 
without issue.

The individual instances of Foobar2000 are being sent through three 
separate virtual audio cables, which are translated through asio4all. 
That system didn't like it when I tried sending three Foobars directly 
to ReaRoute channel pairs, for some reason, but it was OK with two. I'll 
blame the fact that I'm using a single core AMD system that I built for 
less than $200 four years ago.

If you're bored, or just want to see this thing work, the feed for FX 
Radio can be found at http://borris.me/fx.m3u.

Now I must go get some real work done.