International country music career launched with help from satellite broadband

Satellite broadband has been instrumental in starting the career of a Queensland country singer whose music is now in demand all over the world.

Daryl Hayward’s unique country tones are being heard on radio stations in Australia, the United States and Europe, and he was voted ‘New Talent of the Year’ by country music DJs at the 2007 Tamworth on Parade Festival at Wagga Wagga.

Daryl, who co-produces his albums at his property ‘Boondarra’ at Yamala, some 38km from Emerald in central Queensland, said a big piece of the credit for his success goes to the satellite broadband service provided by Activ8me.

“If I hadn’t got satellite broadband, getting my career off the ground would have been a great deal more difficult,” he said. “I’m absolutely indebted to activ8me for providing a service that enables me to co-produce my music as an independent artist.”

Daryl’s career began almost by accident. His daughter Fiona, a country music singer who earned the same ‘New Talent of the Year’ award at Wagga Wagga in 2006 for her album Miles and Miles, had been unable to sing at a recording session in Rockhampton and it was suggested that Daryl might like to give it a go.

Daryl did a demo which sounded “pretty cool” and which prompted him to record a few more songs, but “something was missing” in them.

“I needed back-up singers on the tracks, but the lack of singers here meant that there were no back-up singers in Australia who were suitable,” he said. “The advice I got was to look at Nashville.”

Indeed, it turned out that only at Nashville, Tennessee – the world capital of country music – were suitable back-up singers. In fact they were Juli Manners and Ray Barnett, two of the very best in the business, and more than willing to work with Daryl.

“This posed another problem: how to communicate continually with a hi-tech digital studio in Nashville from central Queensland during the production process,” Daryl said. “I had the product and was blessed with great back-up singers; the problem was putting them together.

“So I started looking at communications options. I thought that using broadband to download the back-up tracks from Nashville would work, but it turned out that broadband was unavailable to me and that even in Emerald – where it was available – it was slow and prone to glitches.

“We had dial-up and tried downloading one song, but it just didn’t work. The copper wires coming to Boondarra had been laid in 1967 and had deteriorated. It was impossible.

“There was no way I was going to get this done without going somewhere else to do it, but I had to be here in order to run my business.”

Daryl runs a precision machinery shop at Boondarra manufacturing equipment for mining and agriculture, and is also a contract grain harvester working locally as well as in central-west New South Wales. The business helps to fund his music production.

“So I started looking for other options,” he said. “For six months I had no luck, nothing but hearsay and rumours. Then I saw an ad in the local paper. There was going to be a public seminar in Emerald about satellite broadband. I kept the page and went to the seminar. It turned out that satellite broadband was just what I needed.

“I went up to Janice Nankivell from activ8me and pleaded my case. She heard me out, made me a priority and in four weeks my satellite broadband service was up and running.”

Not only did Janice do that, she also helped determined that Daryl was eligible for a subsidised service through the Australian Government’s Broadband Guarantee which covered the cost of installing the satellite dish.

“It enabled me to create a studio at home and co-produce my own music. I had sent my songs by post to Nashville, from which they produced digital ‘click’ tracks with the back-up singers. This was emailed back to me so that I could sing the vocals and put them on our Avalon 737 sound desk.

“The satellite broadband had to be absolutely perfect for transmitting a very high-quality digital click track so that it could line up precisely with the original track. Quite simply, it was perfect.”

Working with sound engineer Shane Wilder, who operates his own on-property studio at Capella in Queensland, Daryl had in fact achieved something not seen in Australian country music before – digitised music with analogue intakes suitable for his low tones. The emailed tracks had lost no sound or quality whatsoever when transmitted over satellite broadband.

His first album Down Under Country Volume 1 is a study in sound quality perfection, merging Australian talent with the distinctive Nashville sound pioneered by American guitar legend Chet Atkins in the 1960s. It is currently enjoying a global revival and is very popular with the 40-70 age group in Australia and overseas. Daryl is now working on three more albums, co-producing them with the invaluable assistance of activ8me satellite broadband.

Satellite broadband has also assisted Daryl with the technical side of running his machinery and contract harvesting operations. He easily sources raw materials and parts for the machinery business, and it enables him to access valuable weather information that is critical to contract harvesting.

“A lot of pros in the country music business come and ask me how I produce my material, and I tell them all about activ8me – I couldn’t manage without it,” Daryl said. “Shane is now looking to get the same service to assist with his side of the production.

“I’m happy to tell the whole world about it, especially my fellow Australians who are still suffering the limitations and frustrations of dial-up. There is no need to suffer anymore.”

activ8me’s service takes advantage of the dramatic improvements in satellite broadband technology. The services are delivered through a dedicated Internet Protocol (IP) next generation satellite, which has significantly more broadband capacity than previous generation satellites, and is able to deliver greater bandwidth at prices comparable with terrestrial services in the major cities.

activ8me already successfully delivers metro-comparable broadband to thousands of customers in regional and remote Australia.

The satellite used by activ8me has the capacity and infrastructure needed to cover all known broadband black holes in Australia. It is one of the largest communications satellites ever built, with a massive bandwidth capacity of 45 Gbps, almost equivalent to all of the satellites currently serving Asia today.

It provides a low cost satellite-based broadband service with the advantages of large coverage, and fast and flexible service deployment.

Daryl’s story is typical of some 300,000 Australians who activ8me estimate, for a variety of reasons, have been unable to access broadband or standard internet services.

The Australian Broadband Guarantee provides incentives of up to $2,750 to Registered Providers to cover the cost and installation of equipment to enable people to access broadband where no other suitable service is available.

activ8me has set up a special phone line (1800 804 410) to explain the system to people and can also help establish whether they are eligible to qualify for an incentive.