I’ve recently been listening to streams of Dutch pirates and noticed they have particularly good sound quality and a constant level, even though many of them still play vinyl records from my parents era (some tracks were indeed in my Dads record collection, as he liked Country and Western)

Added to which the streams are from the output of a radio receiver, so there is also all the noise/interference of Band II VHF (and sometimes just “sssssssssssssssssssss….” which might mean this has happened : 😥

Soundprocessing hardware is often in the same rack as the TX and thus gets seized by the Communications Ministry officers and Police, although it appears to be more difficult for the Dutch legal system to confiscate other studio equipment unless the offences are repeated); so most of todays setups are knocked together from equipment that was mostly destined for the WEEE container anyway (as it is easy enough to set up a point to point link with WIFI or even some analogue equipment). Also most NL pirates are run by farmers in their middle years as a weekend hobby, or as marathon broadcasts around traditional rural holiday periods, they wouldn’t make enough use of a sound processor costing €1000 or more .

Some Internet stations also use sound processing for their live streams (it can be built into DJ software); I have been wary of it due to its overuse by many broadcasters (added to bandwidth/cost reduction techniques which make the result sound particularly rough); but with any type of radio people are often going to listen on smaller speakers or headphones as they are doing something else whilst listening.

This Japanese software is recommended by the Klompenboer (== clog wearing farmer/bumpkin 😉 ) on his website.

MultiMax
Ook een erg leuk programma is MultiMax. Het is een niet-gratis Japans programma, met pre-empaselimiter én klinkt erg goed. Hier te downloaden vanaf de site. Het scherm is erg overzichtelijk opgebouwd en je ziet hier meteen alle instelmogelijkheden in beeld. Erg overzichtelijk allemaal.

I’ve also added the link (in English) is here. Its not that easy to find and Toshi (like many other Asian folk) also has a widely duplicated name so googling for him turns up lots of other chaps including a judo master (if it is the same guy he is very modest, as he would either have to have written this programme when he was 10 or be particularly fit and youthful at age 40+)

Multiband Audio Limiter – MultiMax – Perfect software to create original audio CD

The shareware version is limited to 90 seconds, but the software (which was written 10 years ago but does appear to be being maintained) is definitely worth €22l; similar programmes are sold for a lot more.

Its age does mean it runs well on older computers; with a decent soundcard (and/or Cheesweasel specials (€8 audio trafo) on the input and output to remove the power supply noise) –

When a studio is used by more than one person the Klompenboer suggests runnning it on its own PC (without screen/monitor) and hiding this somewhere (so people don’t try and call up facebook/twitter on it, as that glitches the audio). it wpuld be a good way of using an otherwise obsolete Windows XP based PC (I’ve got it running well on a 2006 era laptop with an external USB soundcard even when using a second monitor for jingles playout); though I have to make sure Multimax and the PPM meter run on one screen and the jingle player on the other. (I’ve also turned off the pre-emphasis and 15 KHz filter as this is only required for analogue FM broadcasting).