butt (broadcast using this tool)

We all listened to radio stations at least once in our lives, and perhaps some of us even dreamt of how cool it'd be to have one of our own. Imagine being able to stream your own music and have people tune into your station as you stream your favorite tracks from your PC.

Of course, thanks to rapid digitalization, you too can start on your radio-hosting journey right now. butt (broadcast using this tool) works in conjunction with services like Shoutcast, Icecast, and Radio.co to allow the user to stream their favorite songs on their very own radio station.

The first impression with this tool is that it's quite compact, and that it retains an old-school Windows 98-like look. Don't be misled by the design: it is not hard at all to operate the app. The main thing that users should pay attention to is in configuring the program: you'll have to set up the server for the streaming to work.

Go to the Settings menu, and click to add a new server: depending on your setup, you may choose to run a Shoutcast, Icecast, or Radio.co server. We found Radio.co to strike a good balance between ease of use and performance. Do note that you'll have to sign up on their site for it to work.

The Settings menus are pretty comprehensive in terms of allowing the user control over their stream: you can configure your main audio device properties, as well as your streaming quality. What's more, you can choose to stream in one of the many codecs available: MP3, OGG/VORBIS, OPUS, AAC+, and even FLAC, with a bitrate of up to 320kbps. Encoding quality can be separately adjusted as well.

You also have the choice to record your streams and automatically update song names, as well as extend their names with any suffix or prefix you want.

butt (broadcast using this tool), while bearing an interesting name, manages to make it possible for users to stream their songs and manage their own radio station.