Original author(s) | Robert "LiquidRain" McAuley |
---|---|
Initial release | September 10, 2006 |
Stable release | Rainwave 5 / December 12, 2015 |
Repository | https://github.com/rmcauley/rainwave/ |
Operating system | Microsoft Windows, Apple Mac OS X, Linux, Windows Mobile, Android, iPhone |
Available in | English, French, German, Spanish, Finnish, Portuguese, Russian, Korean, Dutch, Polish |
Type | Music |
License | Open source |
Website | https://rainwave.cc/ |
Rainwave is an interactive radio website that allows users to request, rate, and vote for songs in real time. [1] The site hosts five separate radio streams and focuses completely on video game music. Rainwave is a free service, funded primarily by Robert "LiquidRain" McAuley, and supplemented by user donations.
The Rainwave web interface and back-end was written by Robert McAuley. The initial version was called "Raincast" and was written as a stream helper for IceS. It was announced to the Icecast mailing list in November 2004. [2]
In the summer of 2008, with the addition of a second stream for OCR Radio, Rainwave became the official online radio station for OverClocked ReMix. [3] [4] At the same time, the Rainwave interface was upgraded to version 2, or "R2". [5]
In March 2009, a third stream, V-wave, was added to the site. [6] V-wave specializes in video game music covers and chiptunes. For a brief period, V-wave featured live radio shows as well.
In February 2011, V-wave was renamed to Mixwave and then eventually Covers.
Later that year, in August 2011, 2 new stations were introduced. The first was named Omniwave, which hosted all music available on via the website. The second was Bitwave, a stream exclusively for chiptune music. From this point on, Rainwave also started to present its music streams in MP3 format. [7]
Rainwave interface and server-side software has been designed and implemented by Robert "LiquidRain" McAuley.
It is divided into various layers with different functionality:
Audio streams are in the Vorbis and mp3 formats at approximately 96 kbit/s.
Vorbis is a free and open-source software project headed by the Xiph.Org Foundation. The project produces an audio coding format and software reference encoder/decoder (codec) for lossy audio compression. Vorbis is most commonly used in conjunction with the Ogg container format and it is therefore often referred to as Ogg Vorbis.
Chiptune is a style of synthesized electronic music made using the programmable sound generator (PSG) sound chips or synthesizers in vintage arcade machines, computers and video game consoles. The term is commonly used to refer to tracker format music using extremely basic and small samples that an old computer or console could produce, as well as music that combines PSG sounds with modern musical styles. It has been described as "an interpretation of many genres" since any existing song can be arranged in a chiptune style defined more by choice of instrument and timbre than specific style elements.
M3U is a computer file format for a multimedia playlist. One common use of the M3U file format is creating a single-entry playlist file pointing to a stream on the Internet. The created file provides easy access to that stream and is often used in downloads from a website, for emailing, and for listening to Internet radio.
Altacast is a free and open-source audio encoder that can be used to create Internet streams of varying types. Many independent and commercial broadcasters use Altacast to create Internet radio stations, such as those listed on the Icecast, Loudcaster and Shoutcast station directories.
Napster is a music streaming service based in Seattle, Washington. Napster started as an audio search engine named Aladdin that was purchased by Listen.com in May 2001 and became the basis for its new streaming service, called Rhapsody, that launched in December of the same year. Based on the Open Music Model principles, Rhapsody was the first streaming on-demand music subscription service to offer unlimited access to a large library of digital music for a flat monthly fee. In August 2003, internet media behemoth RealNetworks, anticipating the launch of Apple's iTunes store, acquired Rhapsody. On April 6, 2010, Rhapsody relaunched as a standalone company, separate from former parent RealNetworks. Downloaded files come with restrictions on their use, enforced by Helix, Rhapsody's version of digital rights management enforced on AAC+ or WMA files.
Music Player Daemon (MPD) is a free and open source music player server. It plays audio files, organizes playlists and maintains a music database. In order to interact with it, a client program is needed. The MPD distribution includes mpc, a simple command line client.
Audacious is a free and open-source audio player software with a focus on low resource use, high audio quality, and support for a wide range of audio formats. It is designed primarily for use on POSIX-compatible Unix-like operating systems, with limited support for Microsoft Windows. Audacious was the default audio player in Ubuntu Studio in 2011-12, and was the default music player in Lubuntu until October 2018, when it was replaced with VLC.
Streamtuner is a streaming media directory browser. Through the use of a C/Python plugin system, it offers a GTK+ 2.0 interface to Internet radio directories. Streamtuner does not actually play any files, it downloads a list of online radio streams and then tells the unix player to play the selected stream. Streamtuner offers hundreds of thousands of music resources in a more common interface.
Zune is a discontinued line of digital media products and services marketed by Microsoft from November 2006 until its discontinuation in June 2012. Zune consisted of a line of portable media players, digital media player software for Windows PCs, a music subscription service known as a "Zune Music Pass", music and video streaming services for the Xbox 360 game console via the Zune Software, music, TV and movie sales, and desktop sync software for Windows Phone. Zune was also the provider of music streaming for United Airlines in-flight, after a partnership in 2010.
LMMS is a digital audio workstation application program. It allows music to be produced by arranging samples, synthesizing sounds, entering notes via mouse or by playing on a MIDI keyboard, and combining the features of trackers and sequencers. It is free and open source software, written in Qt and released under GPL-2.0-or-later.
Voices of the Lifestream is an unofficial tribute album released by OverClocked ReMix in honor of Nobuo Uematsu's score for the popular video game, Final Fantasy VII. The album was released on September 14, 2007, to coincide with the 10th anniversary of Final Fantasy VII. Since its release, the collection has received praise from numerous video game sites and professional composers.
Impulse Tracker is a multi-track music tracker. Originally released in 1995 by Jeffrey Lim as freeware with commercial extensions, it was one of the last tracker programs for the DOS platform.
OverClocked ReMix, also known as OC ReMix and OCR, is a non-commercial organization dedicated to preserving and paying tribute to video game music through arranging and re-interpreting the songs, both with new technology and software and by various traditional means. The primary focus of OC ReMix is its website, ocremix.org, which freely hosts over 4,000 curated fan-made video game music arrangements, information on game music and composers, and resources for aspiring artists. In addition to the individual works, called "ReMixes", the site hosts over 70 albums of music, including both albums of arrangements centered on a particular video game, series, or theme, and albums of original compositions for video games. The OC ReMix community created the Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix soundtrack for Capcom in 2008, and began publishing commercially licensed arrangement albums in 2013.
Opus is a lossy audio coding format developed by the Xiph.Org Foundation and standardized by the Internet Engineering Task Force, designed to efficiently code speech and general audio in a single format, while remaining low-latency enough for real-time interactive communication and low-complexity enough for low-end embedded processors. Opus replaces both Vorbis and Speex for new applications, and several blind listening tests have ranked it higher-quality than any other standard audio format at any given bitrate until transparency is reached, including MP3, AAC, and HE-AAC.
Groove Music is a discontinued audio player software application included with Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows 10 and Windows 11.
Apple Music 1, previously branded as Beats 1, is a 24/7 music radio station owned and operated by Apple Inc. It is accessible through iTunes or the Apple Music app on a computer, smartphone or tablet, smart speaker, and through the Apple Music web browser app.
DeaDBeeF is an audio player software available for Linux, Android and other Unix-like operating systems. DeaDBeeF is free and open-source software, except on Android.