|
A little bit about the Atlantic Sound Factory
 My
name is John and I run the Atlantic Sound Factory.
I was born in England and have lived in or near Newcastle Upon
Tyne, Kings Lynn, Lincoln, High Wycombe and London. In 1982, I moved to the USA and I
now live in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
ASF Radio began broadcasting from my home in February of 2005
under the name "JDIRadio". It was rebranded several times in the
following months and finally became the Atlantic Sound Factory in
October of 2005.
ASF is my passion and it is 100% listener-supported.
Royalties to ASCAP, SESAC, BMI and SoundExchange are paid by
LoudCity.
It's important to note that my playlist is carefully selected - I
won't play just any old stuff. My station can be heard in almost
every room in my house so if I don't enjoy listening to it, it
doesn't make it on the radio. It's as simple as that.
My Sincere Thanks Go To...
Fans of the Atlantic Sound Factory, who show their support every
month by donating to keep the station alive and kicking. Thanks to Richard at 2NG
Radio and Nick from
StreamSolutions for proving that good guys still exist and
coming to my rescue at very short notice.
Thanks also to Randy from
Fast-Serve Stream Hosting for providing reliable platforms for
our listeners. And finally, thanks also to
iTunes, who has
given us a huge opportunity to be discovered by thousands of people
each day.
Station Timeline
On February 11th
2005, at 7pm, under the station name "JDI Radio" and with an
initial maximum supported concurrent listener capacity of 9 at 64k
mono, I began broadcasting.
On March 19th 2005, I founded IORSN - the Independent Online Radio
Station Network to help legal small webcasters become known.
On May 2nd 2005, I registered new domains and renamed my station
to AIR : Alternative Internet Radio.
On July 15th 2005, the station converted to SpacialAudio's SAM3
Broadcaster, adding a new and more dynamic sound to the audio and
allowing me to accept requests online. My wonderful family also
bought me a brand new professional mic for Father's Day. How cool
was that???
On August 4th 2005, after reaching maximum capacity at home, I
finally had to outsource my stream hosting. I upgraded the station
to 128kbps stereo (from 64kbps mono) at the same time and the new
bitrate, combined with the compression and enhanced processing
offered by SAM3, has taken the station sound from "Average" to
"Awesome"
On October 2nd 2005, I re-branded the station, moving away from
using the word "Alternative" in the station name as it was
creating some confusion about our Genre. After living in the US
for 20 years, but growing up in England, I've often been told I
have a "mid-Atlantic" accent. Since I love music from both sides
of the ocean, I decided to name my station the "Atlantic Sound
Factory", or ASF Radio.
On October 27th 2005, I implemented professional sweepers (station
promos/identifiers) on all shows except Atlantic Breeze on Sunday
nights (My son recorded some sweepers for my station and I will
air those during Atlantic Breeze each weekend because he's my kid,
it's my station, and he did a wonderful job). All the new station
sweepers were done by Ray Gauthier (see link below under Radio
Resources).
On January 11th, 2006 at 9:08pm US Central Time, the Atlantic
Sound Factory was added to the iTunes radio station listings. A
day I will never forget.
On February 28th, 2006, ASF Radio moved to dedicated servers in
Paris, New York and Chicago.
On April 5th, 2006, ASF Radio deployed new Windows Media Servers
in two data centers in Chicago and another dedicated server in
Paris, after a listener peak of 1,750 at Noon.
On April 7th, 2006, the station was added to the Windows Media
Radio Tuner
On May 3rd, 2006 at 12:45pm US CDT, the Atlantic Sound Factory
reached the "2000 concurrent listeners" mark for the very first
time.
On July 15th, 2006, I added 1750 cover images and about 1100
lyrics to the station website and database, with help from Werner
- a listener from Germany.
On December 3rd, 2006 after 5 weeks of hosting hell, ASF Radio
moved to EGI for it's primary hosting - thanks to the generosity
of supporters who came to the station's aid when things were
looking very bleak.
On January 14th, 2007 ASF Radio broke the 2,100 track mark and,
for the first time, is capable of running 24/7 M-F without a
single repeat (I still have to do the coding to make that happen
though...lol)
On February 26th, 2007 I launched a new ASF website with a
compact look.
On March 3rd, 2007 following the amazingly stupid CRB ruling, I
registered the domain SaveNetRadio.org and helped form the original
SaveNetRadio Coalition with a group of fellow small webcasters.
On March 28th, 2007 after talking with the Digital Music
Association (DiMA), I turned the SaveNetRadio domain over to DiMA/Qorvis.
DiMA brought small and large webcasters together to form a united
front against the CRB decision.
On June 26th, 2007 the Atlantic Sound Factory joined over 14,000
other USA internet radio stations in a day of silence to protest
the new royalty rates.
On August 4th, 2007 we moved 90% of our streaming operations to
Fast Serv, a USA based stream hosting company. Only our Windows
Media systems and one VIP stream remain on ASF dedicated servers.
Everything else is managed by Fast Serv, allowing me to focus more
on the station's content and less on the infrastructure.
On August 23rd, 2007 the website was given a small makeover in
preparation for expanded content and additional sweepers were
placed into rotation.
On September 2nd, 2007 I added the ASF Radio webcam giving
registered listeners a peak out of my front window.
On September 23rd, 2007 the Atlantic Sound Factory received a
tremendous write-up in the New York Times. My sincere thanks to
Shaun Assael for authoring the story, and Randy at
Fast-Serv
Networks for providing temporary additional listener capacity
in the wake of the media attention. You should be able to read
the story here. If you need to register, don't worry -
registration is free.
On December 29th, 2007 we moved the last of our network capacity
to Fast-Serv, who is now the sole provider of streaming services
for the whole station. I also added 170 additional tracks to the
station during the month of December, bringing our total song
count to 2,906.
With over 200 total hours of rock solid, great-sounding classics
and the best of today's new music, ASF Radio reaches thousands
of listeners each day.
 Radio Resources
Ray Gauthier
- Amazing voice talent for commercials, promos and sweepers
Find us on
SHOUTcast
Read my IORSN article on
how to start your own internet radio station
Legal Requirements - If you're having trouble sleeping...
LoudCity.Net - The small
webcaster's legal alternative to industry royalty fees
IORSN -
Independent Online Radio Station Network
|
