The estimated reading time for this post is 5 minutes
If you’ve ever wanted to own your own radio station, your wish can now be granted from a new service called SAM VIBE. I’m not talking about you being a DJ, I’m talking about you owning your own radio station. You may think you need to be: 
- rich
- tech-savvy
- an audio engineer or
- all of the above
to own your own radio station, but you don’t have to be any of these. SAM VIBE is easy to use and free. Pretty much anyone who has a desire to own their own radio station can now do so with SAM VIBE.
SAM VIBE was launched in October this year and is owned by Spacial, which has been in the audio software business since 1999. I recently spoke with the Managing Director of Spacial, Pascal Laflamme, who told me they had over a thousand people set up SAM VIBE radio stations in the first week after the service was launched.
About SAM VIBE
SAM VIBE lets you create your own Internet radio station so you can broadcast your content to your listeners. “SAM VIBE is the easiest way to start an online radio station,” said Laflamme.
Here’s a video showing you how it works:
You can set up your own amateur or professional radio station in minutes. “You only need three steps to set up a radio station,” explained Laflamme. “Within 10 to 15 minutes you can be running your own radio station.”
Your audio files will be played according to your settings or, if you haven’t adjusted your settings, in a continuous loop on your radio station so people tuning in can listen to your station at any time.
You can discover SAM VIBE radio stations in a directory at audiorealm.com
Getting Started
With SAM VIBE, you can set up your own Internet radio station within minutes. A Quick Start Guide will walk you through the steps to get started. You sign up for an account, download the software and then upload your audio files. SAM VIBE accepts a wide variety of audio file formats.
The dashboard is intuitive with tabs to help guide you through its use.
You are given a web address that you can share with your listeners, post on your Facebook page, link to on your website and email to your friends. You can also submit your station to TuneIn Radio so people can listen to your station on their mobile devices.
Note that if you are uploading others’ music to your radio station, you can purchase a license from companies such as ASCAP, Sound Exchange, BMI, SESAC, Loudcity.com or Streamlicensing.com in the US.
Features
Although the software is simple and intuitive to use, it offers features that give you control over your broadcasts. You can put music files in your queue and play them in order or shuffle them. You can also schedule your music. Laflamme gave the example of adding separation rules so you don’t have the same song, artist or album playing twice in a brief time period.
You can also schedule Playblocks so you could play jazz music in the morning and pop songs in the evening. You can have different separation rules for each Playblock.
If you want to include news or weather, you can schedule tasks, such as playing the news audio file at the top of the hour. You can schedule that audio file to play just once so you don’t have the news playing in a continuous loop, for example. You can also schedule station promos and jingles to play at different times of the day.
SAM VIBE provides you with stats for your station, including how many listeners you have at any given time, peak listeners per day, average listeners per day and month, and performance counts for each song/track, etc. If your station gets popular, you could monetize your station by selling advertisements.
Ideas for Using SAM VIBE
You can upload music, podcasts, talk radio shows, interviews or any other audio files you want to share with others. Schools can create their own radio stations run by students. If you’re a band looking to be discovered, share your music on your SAM VIBE radio station. You can broadcast weekly podcasts on a topic you’re passionate about.
Political candidates could have their own radio stations to broadcast their speeches and interviews and to inform listeners of their positions on the issues. Churches could have their own radio stations to broadcast their ministries and sermons.
Laflamme gave the example of a trumpet fan who uses his radio station to play only trumpet music. Some movie fans have started radio stations that play only Star Wars and Star Trek music from those movies. “We discovered that there are people who are fans of a specific niche and Internet radio is allowing people to get exactly what they are looking for. You don’t have to listen to a generic radio station, you can listen to the songs you want to hear.”
Pricing
Creating a radio station with SAM VIBE is free. You don’t even need a credit card to create an account. You will not be charged for the first 0.5 GB of data that you upload and store on SAM VIBE. If you want to upload and store more audio files, pricing is as follows:
Accessibility
SAM VIBE software is designed to be accessible for those who are blind, visually impaired and color-blind. “We discovered that there is a community of broadcasters within the blind and visually impaired community, but there were no tools to make it accessible to them,” said Pascale.
The software has large fonts and the color scheme is designed to be color-blind friendly. Further, the software is compatible with text-to-speech screen readers and can be operated using a keyboard without a mouse.
What Else You Need to Know
SAM VIBE only works with recorded audio files. Live streaming isn’t yet available on SAM VIBE, though Laflamme would like to offer that feature in the future.
The software only works on Windows, not Mac. Laflamme explained that since the software launched recently, they had to focus on the biggest market, which is Windows. “If we see that the demand is there (for bringing SAM VIBE to Mac), then we will focus our efforts there.”
Bottom Line
Have you ever wanted to own your own radio station? Do you like the idea of being able to broadcast your content on your own radio station? Would you like to have SAM VIBE be available on the Mac? What would you broadcast on your radio station? If you have a SAM VIBE radio station, let us know about it in the Comments section below!
Hi Carolyn,
This one interests me. Simon wants to be a radio presenter and my great niece is a singer. I think there could be breaches of copyright though. I knew someone who had an internet radio station in Holland, she wasn’t allowed to use MP3’s because of licensing and used .ogg files.
We could advertise and publicise a Zillion Ideas and the Wonder of Tech!
I think commentluv just went wrong. It’s my week for things going wrong. I posted two blogs on a Zillion Ideas yesterday by mistake. They can stay there now…
Hi Mike, You’re right, you can’t just broadcast someone else’s music without a license. That’s why I included information in the article about where to get licenses.
Yes, I could see you creating podcasts for your radio station, Mike. You cover so many topics, you could have a wide variety of podcasts!
I agree, if a post is published accidentally, it’s best to leave it published rather than pull it.
I am essentially blown away. What’s the catch? My catch is that I want to yak yak and not have to fill the air waves with music and stuff. OOOOH, the possibilities.
Hi Jayme, I agree. I was blown away when I was contacted about SAM VIBE. My favorite tech is full-featured, easy to use and free. This definitely fits the bill. I also love its accessibility features, allowing those with vision issues to use the service.
There isn’t a catch. I’m sure Spacial wants you to use SAM VIBE a lot so you become a paying customer, but even then I think the prices are quite reasonable!
Let us know if you start your own Internet radio station, Jayme. Feel free to leave a link in the comments! 🙂
Hi Carolyn
Great idea to work on. Never thought of owning that as it’s for big few.
There are so many things to broadcast, blogging can become RADIOLOGGING.
I can listen to different radio stations of my liking. I can play my own music and create a music album of all loved ones.
Once it starts producing the LIVE STREAM, I can give my own commentary for different matches played around in my own comic sense.
I think they have really executed a brilliant idea.
Thanks carolyn for sharing info
Sapna
Hi Sapna, I’m so glad you’re excited about this too. I think this is extremely cool tech and I am very excited to share it here. Yes, bloggers can definitely use this to help publicize our blogs.
I have created a Wonder of Tech station, but I haven’t had a chance to upload any audio files yet.
I think live radio might be a lot of pressure. I would want the safety of a recorded show myself, but that’s just me. :”>
Hi Carolyn,
I think it’s an innovative revolutionary idea – first the type blog, then video blog, and now radio blog – what’s left now? Having your own radio station is something special – I guess it’s different from a pod cast in the sense that you do not have to visit the site, right?
It has quite a lot of features, but how do you tune in – do you’ve to use a special radio player apart from TuneIn Radio and the mobile app? I wonder how it would be helpful to marketers and bloggers in terms of creating leads and bringing in traffic.
Thanks for the detailed info on this latest development in the web world.
Hi Harleena, Yes, an Internet radio station is different from a podcast because a listener just needs to tune into the station to listen by going to the website where the radio station is being broadcast. You get your own web address/URL when you create your radio station that you can share with your listeners. They can visit the URL and your station will be playing.
You can put whatever audio files you want on your station, podcasts, news, weather, sports, interviews and music. Just be sure to get a license if you’re broadcasting someone else’s music.
Listeners can visit your station by going to your web address and listening. SAM VIBE works on computers and mobile devices. Because SAM VIBE accepts nearly all types of audio files, some mobile devices may not play all audio files.
Wow! This is truly amazing! What’s the difference of Sam vibe from Sam Broadcaster btw? But I’ve tried Sam Broadcaster and it is totally making my life very easy, it even fixes my audio and broadcasts it in better quality.
Hi Rob, Welcome to The Wonder of Tech! I haven’t tried SAM Broadcaster, but my impression is that SAM Broadcaster is geared toward audio professionals while SAM VIBE is to get everyday people started with owning their own radio stations.
Hi Carolyn,
When I land on your blog and read this title, I felt like “WHAT?! A Radio Station?” 😉
Last day it’s about TV and now Radio 🙂 Really nice how they keep up with the new technologies and open doors for more opportunities. I feel like in future people would leave writing on blogs and start broadcasting on their own radio channel integrated with Social Media. You know, talkatives 😉 lol…
Mmm… I’m sure they are thinking of Macintosh platform 🙂 They might having it and Live Streaming in To-Do list. Why not, mobile too. I haven’t thought of a radio station. Interviewing bloggers on radio would be awesome 😉
Cheers…
Hi Mayura, Yes, you’re right, TV on Monday and radio on Wednesday. These media are still popular and innovating into the 21st century. Who knows what the future will hold?
I love your idea of interviewing bloggers for a radio station. That’s the exact sort of niche that Laflamme was discussing with me when he talked about ways people were using SAM VIBE. Let us know if you start a radio station, Mayura.
When I asked Laflamme about bringing SAM VIBE to the Mac, he said that he really wanted to do that. In fact, he is a Mac user himself. But to start they had to focus on the more popular platform first, which I can understand. Hopefully, SAM VIBE will be very popular and Spacial will bring it to the Mac!
That’s pretty cool Carolyn…
I was thinking it’s kind of like blog talk radio although there is some interaction on that platform.
I more then likely wouldn’t use this one but I do listen to Pandora so that I can create my own type of radio station without me having to upload anything. I mean you know, to make it personal but I can see where this one would be really cool for a lot of people. Ah, the things they keep coming up with.
~Adrienne
Hi Adrienne, Yes, I’m a big Pandora fan too. If I were to create a radio station, I probably wouldn’t add music, but make it more of a talk format. Maybe tech topics for the week, like a podcast. But I enjoy listening to so many awesome tech podcasts that I don’t have much time to create my own!
I would love it if you created a talk radio station, Adrienne. Hearing your wonderful voice with your welcoming Texas drawl would always put a smile on my face. 🙂
It seems that my fathers dreams just came true! He always wished to have an own radio station like that guy had in Northern Exposure. I just can’t wait to share it with him!
Hi Chris, Welcome to The Wonder of Tech! I’m so glad to hear that your father’s dreams have just come true. He will enjoy having his own radio station with SAM VIBE. Feel free to leave the web address of his radio station if he wants to reach out to Wonder of Tech listeners! :-bd
Carolyn – How innovative can people really get these days???? Has anyone really even imagined this to be possible? I mean how can this idea even occur?
Your article title itself is so tantalizing and one would no matter what would like to see what you are talking about. This is really awesome, i really think all music lovers would love to have their own station and also make it public 🙂
An interesting find by you, and of course a great review of the find 🙂
Thank you very much for your kind words, Praveen. I’m glad you’re so excited about SAM VIBE like I am. When I first heard about SAM VIBE I couldn’t wait to share it with Wonder of Tech readers.
Let us know if you start a radio station, Praveen! :-bd
Hi Carolyn
I don’t think I would have the time to run my own radio station, but the idea is great. When I think how local radio station made radio broadcasting 15-20 years ago this really is avery simple and cheap way to go about it.
Hi Thomas, Yes, you’re right, owning a radio station would take time. But for those who always wanted a radio station, SAM VIBE may be the best way to start one. Since it’s free, people can give it a try to see if they like owning a radio station!
This sounds like it would be fun to play with, though I probably best show some restraint, as I could very easily get addicted and throw my whole life out of wack.
Hi Brian, Yes, I could see someone really getting into this and it becoming more than a hobby. But who knows? Perhaps new careers can be launched with this service!
HI Carolyn,
Very intuitive concept and interesting. Absolutely they will see more subscribers soon and going to rock.
Most avid music fans have wide choices to listen different channels and this surely creates a room to group all under one roof. Awesome idea.
Mac comparability surely a missing thing since Mac is a Media hub. However, they can release soon I believe. As we discuss in our previous post Viggle – Online media broadcasting in going to rule everywhere. Answers are on the way 🙂
Thanks for sharing the info Carolyn.
Hi Manickam, Yes, it is a very interesting concept. I really hope that SAM VIBE does well. The service is impressive, plus I admire how it’s accessible to those who have vision issues.
If SAM VIBE is successful with PC’s I imagine that they will bring it to Macs as soon as they can.
Thanks for stopping by and offering your thoughts, Manickam.
This is so interesting Carolyn! I’m not quite sure what to do with this at the moment but this is exactly the sort of article that can be inspirational. I have a feeling that someday, I’ll find the perfect use for this. Thanks for sharing it.
Hi Sherryl, I’m so glad you find this so interesting, Sherryl. I feel exactly the same way! The possibilities for this service really are endless and I look forward to seeing how people make use of it. Keep us posted about your station!
SAM VIBE seems pretty good…but there are still a few “bugs” to be worked out. Like, I tried to do the “station in 11 minutes” thing…and all I got was an error message. It read: “metadata not synchronized, upload failed” 14 times. Recommend against putting any money in SAM’s hands until they have it working in a fool-proof way. –G
Hi Greg, Welcome to The Wonder of Tech! I’m sorry you’re having problems setting up a SAM VIBE station. I suggest you contact customer service to help figure out your problem. The setup for me was very easy and bug free so maybe they can solve your issue. The service is free to set up so you won’t be out any money regardless.