Arfa B Posted March 15, 2009 Share Posted March 15, 2009 http://www.bsiusa.com/software/simian/simian.php seems pricey, anyone used it? before I try out, would like some pointers if anyone can help please? If I have helped you with a Freebie- please be kind enough to add a link from your own site or blog to mine- thanks! http://arthurburton.net Thank You! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
THREETEN RADIO Posted March 15, 2009 Share Posted March 15, 2009 I tried it in the past Arfur....... not an easy thing to set up but it worked well, I tried the trial version and a 98% cracked version (won't work properly without a dongle) but never used it on air. I personally think it is way too overpriced and there is better automation to use which is cheaper. That's my brief experience and opinion on it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eban Posted March 15, 2009 Share Posted March 15, 2009 WTF !!!!!! It is really to much expensive !! Seriously, you'll find lot of cheaper software ... One free and u can custom as you want is mAirlist (http://www.mairlist.com/en/) I know a pretty important webradio in France who use it, it is very powerfull because u almost make your software just like you want. Eban W26 Radio<< http://www.W26Radio.com iPhone/iPod radio apps developer - Jingle producer - Contact me! PayPal payment ONLY I'm not a VO but sometimes I give it a try Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Voxjunction Posted March 15, 2009 Share Posted March 15, 2009 One free and u can custom as you want is mAirlist I installed mAirlist a few days ago and love it, particularly for live assist. It can work with multiple soundcards, supports remote control/fader start etc and isn't CPU hungry...and that's just the free version. You can configure it to be as simple or as complex as you like. As for Simian, I used it briefly over ten years ago when it was BSI Wavestation. I found it hard to use and when I tried a demo of Simian last year, it still seemed too complex and needed a steep learning curve to master. From what I remember, Simian had many failsafe features built in to keep the station on air during different scenarios and handles incoming remote sources well, but I think it needs a fast system and multiple pro soundcards to get the most from it. For something in between, Station Playlist Studio Pro does the job and is the cheapest system I've ever known to include true voicetracking. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johny c Posted March 16, 2009 Share Posted March 16, 2009 You could also check out the free Zararadio software as well. I use it on 2 stations 24/7 and have no problems. http://www.zarastudio.es/index.php?section=downloads&page=zrfree.php&lang=en RAG-FM 107.7 Raglan New Zealand & ragfm.com ........"Top Music Top of the Dial" Click HERE to listen to the RAG-FM radio stream Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blazin 97 Posted March 29, 2009 Share Posted March 29, 2009 Are they joking??? That's wicked expensive!!! I've never even heard of it. And, I love how they say "it's just..." and then the price that's jaw dropping. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BWorld Posted March 29, 2009 Share Posted March 29, 2009 I personally don't care for Simian. It used a lot of system resources and didn't get what I wanted done. Sure, there was a few features I liked, but it was NOT worth the money, which is why I did not buy it. I used the demo and wasn't impressed. I found SAM much easier to use, offered ALL of the features that I needed, and was a fraction of the price. ██ Stream101 | Affordable Media Solutions ██ Shared cPanel? Web Hosting | WordPress Hosting | Premium Stream Hosting ██ TOLL-FREE: (616) 277-7280 | 30 Day NO QUESTIONS Money-Back Guarantee ██ 100% Cogent Free Network | CloudLinux OS | Tier 1 Bandwidth | Grand Rapids, MI Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ceejay7777 Posted March 30, 2009 Share Posted March 30, 2009 Are they joking??? That's wicked expensive!!! I've never even heard of it. And, I love how they say "it's just..." and then the price that's jaw dropping. It's really quite inexpensive for professional broadcast automation software, but as others have said, there are other products that do just as good a job. I did a comparison and full evaluation of Simian, Prophet NexGen 101 and StationPlaylist and settled on StationPlaylist. It does the job (fully automated and voicetracked FM station), is inexpensive and the support is second to none. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JJtheDJ Posted April 1, 2009 Share Posted April 1, 2009 I have about 8 different Radio Automation Programs here in studio and Simian is one of them. It is a great program, but in my opinion, SAM Broadcaster lives up to it's spectations more than Simian. I love the way SAM interacts with websites, best in the business as far as I am concerned. The way the current song playing shows up with the album art, the last five songs that have played, the dedications, the requesting, the top 10,20, or so songs being listed. You can fully customize a website using SAM's automation software where it all runs off of the main SAM Machine. Can ya tell that I love SAM Broadcaster? From this thread, I see many people plugging free or ultra cheap products, and I know about them all as well. SAM is not cheap at all. It's around $300.00 so for some people it may not be an alternative to Simian, but for the price, you really do get what you pay for. It is an excellent piece of software with many features. MANY, MANY features! I have automation software ranging from the thousands to $50.00 and I chose SAM Broadcaster over them all! I do have a Simian machine though, but I only use it when I am not officially live. I'll play around with it when I have the video stream open because it does do the trick when I need to use multiple sound sources, but SAM is the same way, so you aren't losing anything with SAM Broadcaster. My thought process. I spent the money on it, so why not use it? Right? Check out http://www.jerseysclassicrock.com - and you tell me what you think. That is connected to a main SAM machine. I am in love w/ the website. Best Regards, JJ the DJ Jersey's Classic Rock - Owner Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blazin 97 Posted April 4, 2009 Share Posted April 4, 2009 I have about 8 different Radio Automation Programs here in studio and Simian is one of them. It is a great program, but in my opinion, SAM Broadcaster lives up to it's spectations more than Simian. I love the way SAM interacts with websites, best in the business as far as I am concerned. The way the current song playing shows up with the album art, the last five songs that have played, the dedications, the requesting, the top 10,20, or so songs being listed. You can fully customize a website using SAM's automation software where it all runs off of the main SAM Machine. Can ya tell that I love SAM Broadcaster? Yes I love SAM too, it's what I use for my station. Its just so easy to use! Even though I am a hobby broadcaster, SAM seemed like a necessity. 8 automation systems though? come on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JJtheDJ Posted April 5, 2009 Share Posted April 5, 2009 Yes I love SAM too, it's what I use for my station. Its just so easy to use! Even though I am a hobby broadcaster, SAM seemed like a necessity. 8 automation systems though? come on. I'm serious. I have eight of them. I decided to try out a bunch of them, try to figure out which one was best to use for me. I have multiple machines in studio and I keep SAM on the main one, Simian on another, and I have two on the production machine, but hardly use them. There are a few I don't even use. Call me crazy, but I would rather try something out before actually using it. I will tell ya, if you know how to use PALs and how to organize your rotations, SAM runs with the best of them. Different hours represent different rotations at Jersey's Classic Rock - check here - http://www.jerseysclassicrock.com/index.php?page=calendar-test - and you'll see the different times. I created a great rotation that works perfect and believe me, listeners can tell the difference if a station is actually broadcasting an organized rotation or just randomizing their tunes when playing. Anyhow, thought I would share my input. But yes, I do have that many automation programs. Best Regards, JJ the DJ Jersey's Classic Rock - Owner Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blazin 97 Posted April 5, 2009 Share Posted April 5, 2009 Oh alright that makes sense, I thought you were saying you bought 8 automation systems that you never used and will never use unless there was an emeregency Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JJtheDJ Posted April 5, 2009 Share Posted April 5, 2009 Oh alright that makes sense, I thought you were saying you bought 8 automation systems that you never used and will never use unless there was an emeregency Yep I don't mind keeping more than one on each machine, although on the main streaming machine, which is a $3,500.00 + monster, it has only one. I tested all eight of them out though. Also, a message, I posted an ad about adding personalities to the show. However, I am seriously thinking about adding a co-host rather than personalities. Still have yet to make my decision. I want someone to talk to on the air regularly. So if anyone is interested, please email me - jjthedj@jerseysclassicrock.com - or you may send me a PM here. "The Show" w/ JJ the DJ is a premiere program that attracts tens of thousands of listeners per day and it continues to increase in popularity. We also stream the video and are a featured program on Stickam. I am proud to say. Once again, let me know and I will definitely inform the interested people on more info regarding the position(s). Best Regards, JJ the DJ Jersey's Classic Rock - Owner Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djkenowens Posted April 6, 2009 Share Posted April 6, 2009 I like Simian. Up until a few years ago, I was Operations Manager for a small cluster of stations in PA. We used Wavestation for the AM/FM combo for years before I got there. When we upgraded the FM studio (a Modern Rock station that was unprofitable compared to our Classic Country AM, believe it or not), we placed Simian on a new PC to upgrade the system. (the old system on the FM was a Win95 machine, a 200mmx I believe... this was only in late 2005, early 2006, just for reference). They still use Simian there, we added another AM talk that runs Simian. I co-hosted the morning there. The Classic Country AM still runs Wavestation 3.0 on a 233mmx win98 machine. That station still plays mostly vinyl, with some cd's durng the day parts, talk format at low power where the machine switches between 3 satellite receivers and the machine handles the weekends with a combo of satellite and pre-recorded country shows, When Radio Was and the likes except for a few hours each day of live polka shows. I have the highest respect for Simian. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ceejay7777 Posted April 7, 2009 Share Posted April 7, 2009 That station still plays mostly vinyl ... Yea .. vinyl. You know, there's probably people on this forum that don't know what that is Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djkenowens Posted April 7, 2009 Share Posted April 7, 2009 sad but true my friend... I still have a collection of it myself. While I was at the station, I was transfering tracks to the pc. We had stuff that was never released on digital media, hence our use of it on vinyl... we could go back the Pioneers and even The Carter Family... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigloo Posted April 10, 2009 Share Posted April 10, 2009 We have been using OTSAV since 1999 and have tried some others including SAM. SAM is a great program and I also love the web interface, but their PAL scripting is not the easiest in the world to understand. We chose to give up the web interface and go with OTSAV. We haven't looked back. The scheduling piece of it if fabulous. Radio automation at its best in my opinion. You can create playlists for any desired amout of time. Based on your instructions, it will do so +/- 3 seconds. You can even have it remove existing songs in the queue and have the newly generated list replace it etc. There is no web interface, but that's ok. In the past 10 years if we've had 100 requests, that would be a lot (and we do have a request link on our web page). We simply process requests manually (i.e. add to playlist manually). Additionally, OTSAV uses very little computer resources. Most others are resource hogs. I will mention, however, that if we had to stop using OTSAV for any reason, we would most likely move to SAM (and hire someone to do the PAL scripting for us). ________ Lou Bigloo Christian Radio http://www/biglooradio.com/ digiSTREAM SHOUTcast Hosting http://www.digistream.info/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WayneOwens Posted April 19, 2009 Share Posted April 19, 2009 I've used many different automation systems in my 5 years in this industry. I've used Prophet Audio Wizard - 2006 at WFMX/WSIC (Worked very well, but it was the old DOS version 2003-2007 SAM Broadcaster (Worked well for a few years then after I purchased it, it always seemd to have DB Failures. 2008 - Digilink-Xtreme ($100 a month but it comes full prepped with a bridge for satellite automation and the consoels are relatively inexpensive) 2008 - PLAYER101 and NexGen101 Demos (These were the original 2004 releases when they were still a little buggyn but they were good) 2009 - PLAYER101 and NexGen2007 Demos (These have been the better more advanced versions, in fact I wqill be purchasing Player101 when I get my taxes back, it's virtually a SAM in a bigger package, comes with a lot more features minus a requester.) All in all Prophet Systems Innovations/RCS is the best company to go through for automation. Player101 doesn't require a console as the Volume Control is on it's Pot Status Window. NexGen you need a console and the sound cards to control the volume, but hey if I had $10K I would get it in a heart beat ($6,500 for the automation and a nother $4K for the console) Player 101 can be purchased stock for $495 and extra modules are $101 a piece, if anyone is interested I can post the PDF price list I got from my sales rep at RCS for people to look over and see if they like it. But to the topic at hand, Simian is a waste of time, I've demoed it, and had ABSOLUTELY no luck with it, so get something from RCS and you'll be set for life... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gorby Posted April 29, 2009 Share Posted April 29, 2009 For value for money, Station Playlist offers one of the most bang for the buck. I used SAM for years but found that SPL did exactly what I needed better. SAM was good, but again, ask yourself exactly what do you need it to do. Horses for courses. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gc985radio Posted June 7, 2009 Share Posted June 7, 2009 too complicated and overpriced- I'm still trying to get rivendell up on my station,not easy=( Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tawoz Posted July 25, 2009 Share Posted July 25, 2009 would like to know also,has anyone used zararadio version 2,not the free one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
101thefeed Posted August 7, 2014 Share Posted August 7, 2014 Just an FYI, over the years i have been program director and involved in small to medium to large market stations, in that time i have used everything you can think of here is a list SS16 (Scotts) A powerhouse with huge crt touchscreens and bulletproof operations SS32 (The upgrade in windows to ss16) Maestro (garbage) OMT Media Touch (Quickpix) good software in its beginning IMEDIATOUCH (Super powerful and very versatile) Wavecart (the beginnings of BSI) Wavestation (For a long time BSI's Flagship) Simian (the death of wavestation, but some people like it and it is very powerful) Rivendell (Linux dream come true, but never standardized on windows so will probably never be mainstream) Winamp (with a broadcast crossfade plugin this thing used to power an AM station i worked at) Raduga (this thing was a nightmare and a joke but it was a good try) Jazler 1 (the beginnings to a cool radio software) Radiostar 2 (this was jazlers upgrade and very powerful for overseas radio stations) SAM (i dont care what anyone says there is so much evidence that this sucky POS was never intended for radio, it is buggy and crashes, and has no place in radio) FYI: for web guys that have 5 listeners this thing seems to have the lions share Software i have never had the experience using would be Dalet ENco Dad Prophet (that is owned by clear channel and sucks) Wideorbit (the future of scotts studios and was also known as google automation) Zararadio Stationplaylist (may be powerful but not paying 250 for EVERY piece of the software) Radiodj (the creator says it will never be used for reliable fm operation, but we hold out hope someday) Overall there have been many over the years, i am a consultant for the new Jazler product but it has now been put on hold, the station i am currently managing needs to have remote voicetrack capabilitys for the area, so we are returning to Simian for the time being, maybe one day the new jazler product will be more suitable, but that will happen over time! We have ten djs in the area all hooked up to remote studios, we use a sync software with a replication of the database across all studios, when the program log gets new voicetracks it updates in realtime, plus simian has come along way with the html output to the website, not that we need that, Hope everyone finds what works for them, hope this helped a little! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djgary72 Posted August 8, 2014 Share Posted August 8, 2014 Radiodj (the creator says it will never be used for reliable fm operation, but we hold out hope someday) There are FM stations already using RadioDJ for their playout system. We see the owners of those stations posting quite regular on the RDJ forums. SAM (i dont care what anyone says there is so much evidence that this sucky POS was never intended for radio, it is buggy and crashes, and has no place in radio) FYI: for web guys that have 5 listeners this thing seems to have the lions share I'm glad it's not just me that thinks that. would like to know also,has anyone used zararadio version 2,not the free one. I found Zara radio very tricky to use. I also found it didn't crossfade that well. You would be better of learning how a system like RadioDJ works IMHO as that has all the features that most radio dj's need. Plus it's also FREE & it's a really stable piece of software once you get used to it. My Blog https://djgarybaldy.blogspot.com User of RadioDJ FREE radio playout software since 2010. How to Install RadioDJ: https://djgarybaldy.blogspot.com/2020/08/how-to-install-radiodj-free-radio.html RadioDJ is my FAVOURITE piece of software it works when I need It Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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