Best radio automation software tools for your Windows PC

SAM Broadcaster Pro

SAM Broadcaster Pro is a professional-grade radio automation software program, which gives you the possibility to create and run your own online radio station.

It supports multiple player decks and a powerful built-in audio processor that boosts your sound. You can also take advantage of an equalizer, stereo expander, multi-band processor, compressor, and limiter.

SAM Broadcaster Pro is compatible with all major streaming servers, such as StreamCast, Windows Media, Icecast, Live365, and Shoutcast. It can also be integrated with websites (HTML and PHP templates are included).

Download SAM Broadcaster Pro (free trial)

Radio-related statistics are compiled and displayed on the main window in real-time. This way, you can find out how many people are tuned in every moment.

As for the listeners, they can check out the song name, artist, album, cover art, and any other relevant information on their own devices.

You can take song requests and automate their playback, enable voice tracking mode, edit a song’s cue list, and set playlist rotation rules. The built-in encoder offers support for MP3, WAM, AAC+, and Vorbis.

RadioDJ

RadioDJ is a free-to-use radio automation software tool available for Windows computers. Wrapped in an intuitive interface, the application comes with advanced features for radio broadcasters.

To use this program, you must have MariaDB or MySQL installed on your PC, along with a database of songs created in MySQL. It’s possible to import audio tracks from various formats, such as MP3, WAV, and FLAC.

The user interface of RadioDJ is fully customizable and includes a history window. It announces the next song in the main window, one minute before it’s supposed to play. Voice tracking is supported, together with custom song and jingle rotations.

Download RadioDJ (free)

You can create your own playlist or turn to the automatic DJ function to rotate tracks by category, subcategory, and genre. To make sure that the same track will not be played twice, it’s possible to define complex rules.

Furthermore, RadioDJ features an advanced scheduler to set up additional actions for various events like radio shows or advertisements. There’s also a built-in web browser to help you find artist info on the web, as well as an audio processor plugin to enhance sound.

RadioBOSS

RadioBOSS is a multilingual radio automation software solution, only compatible with Windows. It comes with integrated support for Internet streaming, including Icecast, Shoutcast, and Windows Media.

Using this application, you can put together music playlists tailored for radio broadcasting using an intuitive audio library and advanced functions like automatic volume normalization, crossfade effects, silence trimming, and timed announcements.

Download RadioBOSS (free trial)

By configuring rotations, you can prevent the same songs from being played more than once. It can automatically remove old audio records as well as split them by time interval.

Commercial breaks can be effortlessly created and assigned with an advertisement scheduler. It’s possible to generate detailed reports about music tracks, use a microphone and linear input for voiceover, create song teasers, and set how much to boost the volume during ads.

PlayIt Live

Available for Windows users, PlayIt Live is a radio automation software solution that can play MP3, WMA, MP4, and WAV audio tracks. It has a classical decks mode as well as a modern live-assist view which lets you control three players.

All Windows-compliant sound cards work with this program. You can add tracks with a simple wizard, trim silence, or explore jingles and various sound effects with the help of QuickCarts. But you can’t save playout patterns to file to be able to later load them and pick up where you left off.

Download PlayIt Live (freemium)

It’s also possible to play remote audio tracks and load live streams from the web, set up actions for scheduled events, mix microphone input, and stream to Shoutcast or Icecast servers using plugins.

Meanwhile, the audio processor plugin of PlayIt Live supports automatic gain control, equalization, and compression. In the pro version, you can use enable data management on remote servers and voice tracking (including remote).

More advanced techniques are available for scheduling and reporting.

PlayoutONE

PlayoutONE is an easy-to-use radio automation software tool with a modern-looking graphical interface. It can be used not only by professional DJs and radio broadcasters but also by enthusiasts and those interested in starting their own online radio station.

There are four main decks available for playing songs from your computer, together with the fifth deck for loading music from online streams. Each player can be associated with a different sound card.

While adding tracks, PlayoutONE automatically identifies silence at the start and end of a song, in order to use it for intro and outro. You can create playlists with song rotation and set various instructions, like playing an Internet stream at a fixed time.

Download PlayoutONE (free trial)

The software application supports voice tracking, an integrated CD ripper, an equalizer, a standard audio processor, and hotkeys for sound effects. To unlock additional features, it’s necessary to purchase a professional version.

In the pro edition, you don’t have to load playlists anymore because everything is visible and one click away. You can quickly locate songs with the Media Finder, track voice in a web browser, fine-tune logs and playlists, enable auto-ducking, and more.

Conclusion on radio automation software solutions

Taking all into account, radio automation software tools are a must-have feature for professional DJs and radio broadcasters, as well as anyone interested in broadcasting and starting their own radio station online.

You can check out any application from this list to see which is a better fit for you when it comes to SAM Broadcaster Pro, RadioDJ, RadioBOSS, PlayIt Live, and PlayoutONE.