Frequently Asked Questions

What kind of music do you accept? Whatsthegoodnewsradio.com embraces most music genres - if you're an independent artist you may signup to our service. The only thing we ask of you is to have at least one professionally recorded track to upload on the site, along with a bio and photo of your band or yourself.

What's the cost of being a member? Both listener and artist memberships are absolutely free of charge. this amounts to 25 megabytes of free storage space for both audio and video clips. However, we do offer an 100 mega bytes upgrade subscriber's package that allows artists to upload more audio and video clips or high quality videos and photos.

Will I loose the rights to my songs, videos or photos? Your material remains yours. We have no right to alter it or use it in any way shape or form before asking for your written permission. Any artist is welcome to join (unless banned by our administrators) and leave Whatsthegoodnewsradio.com at any time. If you choose to do so, all your private information and songs will be permanently deleted from our servers. For all the legal information, please check our terms and conditions.

What type of PayPal account do I need? As an artist you can signup for a "personal account" at PayPal. You'll need a valid credit card or checking account to do so. Please click here to do so. For those of you that already have an account with PayPal, please make sure the e-mail address (your nickname in PayPal) is entered in your MY ACCOUNT page. Any type of PayPal account will work as long as you can receive payments.

How do I turn my music into MP3's for Whatsthegoodnewsradio.com? First you may need to save your recorded music onto a CD. To create an MP3 file from an audio CD, you digitally extract the audio data to a WAV file on your computer. This is called ripping. Again, once its on your hard drive in a WAV format (or AIFF format on the Mac) it can be converted (encoded) to MP3. Some programs like Audio Catalyst, MusicMatch Jukebox and RealJukebox can rip or record and encode in a single process.

Encoding to MP3 Encoding is the process that converts uncompressed digital audio into a compressed format such as MP3. Ripping an audio file from a CD or recording songs from tapes and records simply copies the audio to a WAV (or AIFF) file on your computer hard drive. You still need to convert this uncompressed data to a new format. The aim of encoding is to create files with the best possible sound quality, given the constraints of file size or available bandwidth. This trade-off means that different encoders can produce files with a marked difference in sound quality, particularly noticeable in files with lower bit-rates.

Now about bit-rates. Bit-rate refers to how many bits are used each second to represent a digital signal. In an MP3 file, the bit-rate correlates directly to the file size and sound quality. Whatsthegoodnewsradio.com can accept up to 320kbps, so please make sure your files are encoded properly.

So how does this affect your MP3 files? You can encode an MP3 file at anywhere from 8 kbps to 320 kbps. Lower bit-rates give you smaller files with less sound quality. And higher bit-rates produce the converse. For example, a four-minute song encoded at 128kbps (near CD quality) will produce a file size of 3.8MB. As a rule of thumb, encode your files at higher bit-rates to play on your computer or through your stereo and use lower bit-rates for music played on a portable player where storage space is at a premium. To learn how to get started, just click on the sign up link.

Have a question that's not here? Email us at: wtgnrradio1@yahoo.com