Harddrive.fm

harddrive.fm is an alternative music show hosted by Miyabi and Kittiah. The show aims to expose its listeners to a selection of new and potentially undiscovered music interspersed with light-hearted banter and discussion. The show occasionally has guests in the studio where they operate a 'Desert Island Discs' style format.

The show is live monthly, every third Thursday night from 8pm until midnight and has a popular IRC channel on Furnet, #harddrive.

The show used to broadcast live on Second Life's GYC with hosts Kittiah and Miyabi present, but due to the system performance impact on the host computers, was retired for Season 3.

History
The show and its theme were thought up a few days before the first broadcast; Miyabi having cited a desire to return to producing radio to Kittiah, who provided ideas and encouragement to get the show off the ground.

harddrive.fm first broadcast on the 28th February, 2008.

As of show 15, harddrive.fm began broadcasting a live video stream simultaneously with the broadcast of the shoutcast audio stream.

As of season 4, a monthly format has been announced, due to the show hosts not being freely available enough nor having the necessary resources to produce weekly shows.

Format
All episodes of the show begin with a 5 minute long musical countdown segment. It is frequently changed and themed with various film, television and popular culture references.

The show began life in a 3 hour format but after several weeks of running over due to popular demand, the broadcast hours were extended to the current 8pm till Midnight slot.

While the show does not take direct song requests, there is an infrequently recurring 'Incoming' segment where the best listener-supplied music gets played.

Production
Since the initial broadcast there have been significant improvements to the production quality. Notable improvements include a MIDI control surface for queuing/playing tracks, the addition of compression and noisegating to the microphones and a redesigned website with chatbox functionality. The show also has live multi-camera video streaming with 128kbps MP3 audio.

For the beginning of Season 4's monthly show, a Traktor S4 controller has joined part in the show's production much to the excitement of the show hosts. Due to this, the occurrence of live DJ sets, mixes, and mash-ups has increased significantly.

Season 4 also marks a slightly new broadcasting method, including the show running their own flash streaming server. This is due to the show owners getting annoyed by limited service and over-advertising from currently available flash streaming services.

The show is also available for later download as a podcast either direct from the website or through the iTunes Podcast Directory.