Hi folks - for those of you who don't venture into General, I'd love to get your feedback on something we've been working on that uses the audio portal. Feel free to post any feedback here or in the other thread.

Nice prototype. I wonder if later (in the more distant future), there may be people who can volunteer to commentate?

At 12/25/14 04:19 PM, Troisnyx wrote: Nice prototype. I wonder if later (in the more distant future), there may be people who can volunteer to commentate?

Like guest DJs and/or shows? Yes, absolutely.

At 12/25/14 04:26 PM, BrenTheMan wrote:

At 12/25/14 04:19 PM, Troisnyx wrote: Nice prototype. I wonder if later (in the more distant future), there may be people who can volunteer to commentate?

Like guest DJs and/or shows? Yes, absolutely.

I'm more than interested in doing this. Will read up on the full article when I've got a bit of time

At 12/25/14 04:11 PM, BrenTheMan wrote: Hi folks - for those of you who don't venture into General, I'd love to get your feedback on something we've been working on that uses the audio portal. Feel free to post any feedback here or in the other thread.

This is a good idea and I think if it is made easily accessible then it should take off pretty well. Just be sure to give us cinematic composers some exposure.

At 12/30/14 02:34 PM, Bosa wrote: This is a good idea and I think if it is made easily accessible then it should take off pretty well. Just be sure to give us cinematic composers some exposure.

Good call - just the cinematic genre or maybe we could add "easy listening" too?

At 12/30/14 02:34 PM, Bosa wrote: This is a good idea and I think if it is made easily accessible then it should take off pretty well. Just be sure to give us cinematic composers some exposure.

Yep!

In general - cool thing.

At 12/30/14 02:38 PM, BrenTheMan wrote: Good call - just the cinematic genre or maybe we could add "easy listening" too?

I would go for both if it works. Maybe go by a certain genre schedule like you mentioned in your original post (3-4pm Jazz, etc.). The more stations and diversity the better, I say.

Yep, this is an awesome idea! I've no constructive thoughts on the matter. Just "F*** Yes!".

At 12/30/14 05:00 PM, Bosa wrote: I would go for both if it works. Maybe go by a certain genre schedule

I might just do genre stations for now, maybe start by adding:

-Hip Hop (and R&B?)

-Rock

-Cinematic, maybe I could make this a general "easy listening" station and add cinematic, ambient, etc.

Not sure how I'd program the schedules just yet, if I did that.

At 12/30/14 06:28 PM, LunyAlex wrote: Yep, this is an awesome idea! I've no constructive thoughts on the matter. Just "F*** Yes!".

So far I've found it a GREAT tool for new music discovery. I've already discovered several great artists and tracks that got so few plays and have been all but forgotten. I'm hoping that as we gain listeners, other people will find the radio as useful as I have.

At 1/1/15 02:03 PM, jaysummers759885 wrote: Don't forget independent music hour!

Isn't it all independent though? Or do you mean more obscure genres?

At 1/1/15 02:13 PM, jaysummers759885 wrote: So yeah, so stuff that is kinda obscure and different...

Oh yeah, like I said, "the sky is the limit" with respect to what we can do. :)

Gave the metal one a listen for a while, this is great! I'm excited to see how this evolves, within 5 minutes of listening I discovered some awesome talent.

Yeah been listening too.

Would be great if you could split the electronic section up when it gets popular. (Or if you are really nice can you make a DNB section, I'm making a DNB mix from just NG material... it would really help my search :P)

A little suggestion for the future if anyone agrees. Maybe only feature tracks that are abouve a certain score? Like 2.5 or something. And as it gets more popular you can set times like the "Underdog" hour, where it plays tracks lower than the set score.

I hope this wouldnt encourage zero blamming though

At 1/7/15 07:55 AM, Chozz wrote: Yeah been listening too.

Would be great if you could split the electronic section up when it gets popular.

Planning on doing just that!

(Or if you are really nice can you make a DNB section, I'm making a DNB mix from just NG material... it would really help my search :P)

A DnB station only? Have you been searching here?

A little suggestion for the future if anyone agrees. Maybe only feature tracks that are abouve a certain score? Like 2.5 or something.

Yep, I've done that from the start.

And as it gets more popular you can set times like the "Underdog" hour, where it plays tracks lower than the set score.

Definitely.

lol

Also, yes I have been scouting through the DNB portal. What I was saying is it would be easier to scout if it was seperate on the radio, cause I can leave it running in the background when I'm killing prostitutes on GTA. (But it's alright, i'm just being lazy)

At 1/13/15 08:50 AM, Chozz wrote: What I was saying is it would be easier to scout if it was seperate on the radio

I see what you're saying, and no I wasn't planning on a separate DnB station.

I kept listening to the heavy metal channel for hours while playing warframe.
Man some tracks in there were so deadly I almost cried when they ended because I couldn't quit the game and catch the name of the track.

Some are so utterly bad they either make you wish for a quick end or force you to laugh very loudly. xD
This channel also gave me some confidence that my own "metal & rock" ain't so bad and there is a shitload of worse dudes. xD

At 1/14/15 10:14 AM, Deshiel wrote: Man some tracks in there were so deadly I almost cried when they ended because I couldn't quit the game and catch the name of the track.

Yeah isn't that great? I'll have it log what played at some point so you can go look it up.

I'll be listening while I work, and a few seconds in I'll get a spontaneous metal face and start to headbang, then I have to look over at what's playing, click the link, fav the artist and song. SO many great tracks on here, some with just 300 pitiful listens.

Some are so utterly bad they either make you wish for a quick end or force you to laugh very loudly. xD

Haha yeah it's like either SUPER good or utterly terrible. It motivates me to make a "vote to skip" button big time.

This channel also gave me some confidence that my own "metal & rock" ain't so bad and there is a shitload of worse dudes. xD

What I've heard of your music is really good.

Based on everyone's feedback, I added a bunch of new stations. I'll start work in incorporating the jingles you guys later this week.

Let me know what you think.

At 1/17/15 01:07 PM, Lich wrote: Later on down the road could we have user-generated stations going?

I must have been out of town when you wrote this, and missed your post entirely.

Yes, we could totally have user generated stations. I've got a few ideas on how to do that.

If possible could we have it like:

1) Run off of Pre-Designated playlists

Yes absolutely.

2) Manually add jingles into them

Yes - we could use playlists for this too.

3) Have a system for streaming live talks on stations with enough average listeners

Right now we can preempt any station with a live stream very easily.

4) Front-paged rotating ads linking to popular stations

Maybe, once it's more polished.

5) Radio station forum

I was thinking about doing an official radio thread here, like we did for the podcast. We'll see how it goes.

6) Ad-free for Supporter users running their own radio stations.

We'll see if we ever do ads on radio first...

At 1/17/15 01:07 PM, Lich wrote:

1) Run off of Pre-Designated playlists

One idea I had: we could schedule times for user generate playlists to go into rotation. You could create a playlist called "Hidden Gems - Industrial" for example, of tracks that really got missed or that you really want to showcase. I could then pull directly from this playlist and play it on the radio.

Lots of different things we could do...

I think it's a really cool idea. I would probably suggest a channel for Experimental music...? I think it would welcome a whole load of tracks that aren't necessarily defined by the boundaries of genres, aside the ambiguous "Miscellaneous", and are still unique enough to be in their own league.

Just throwing a thought, what do you guys think?

At 2/24/15 11:36 AM, ForgottenDawn wrote: Just throwing a thought, what do you guys think?

Are you talking about the Other - Experimental genre?

At 2/24/15 11:46 AM, BrenTheMan wrote:

At 2/24/15 11:36 AM, ForgottenDawn wrote: Just throwing a thought, what do you guys think?

Are you talking about the Other - Experimental genre?

Yeah, that one.

Awsome :D!
Does Dance music just go under "electronic", or hasn't that genre been added yet :)?

I've been listening for 10 minutes and all I've heard so far is pretty terrible, I feel unlucky. :(
For example, this gem came on: http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/184056
I don't even...

In terms of feedback I'd say an actual "radio" is a bad idea because a machine won't separate the good and the bad, it'll just throw a lot of random stuff at you and a "vote to skip" button is bad because some ass will sit there and vote to skip only the good stuff. :P
Why not call it NG Radio but have it work as a random song player instead, with a skip button? Maybe it can save the last 3 songs too, in case you want to listen to one again.

At 2/24/15 12:47 PM, Ectisity wrote: Awsome :D!
Does Dance music just go under "electronic", or hasn't that genre been added yet :)?

Here are the genres I put into the "electromix" station:

'dance', 'drum-n-bass', 'house', 'techno', 'trance', 'video-game', 'new-wave', 'dubstep', 'chipstep'

At 2/24/15 01:05 PM, MetalRenard wrote: I've been listening for 10 minutes and all I've heard so far is pretty terrible, I feel unlucky. :(

Yeah, it's crazy, I've heard some of the BEST metal tracks on there, then stuff like this. This is quite mild in comparison to some of the stuff that has come up...

In terms of feedback I'd say an actual "radio" is a bad idea...and a "vote to skip" button is bad
Why not call it NG Radio but have it work as a random song player instead, with a skip button?

I'm confused - have a radio with skip, or don't have a radio with skip? :)

Right now, each radio station is simply a random song player within the selected genres. The skip button is a possibility later on.

My playlist generator is simply pulling a playlist of songs rated 2.5 stars and up for each station. I have some ideas on how to make the song selection better though:

- Prefer higher rated songs to lower rated songs e.g. play more 4-5 star than 3-4, and 2-3

- Prefer newer (say, submitted within the last month) to older songs

- Use playlists to have users help curate the stations

And ultimately:

- Add interactive elements, like "Vote to skip" etc.

At 2/24/15 02:41 PM, BrenTheMan wrote: lots of stuff

All that sounds pretty awesome! :D

Sounds good to me, Bren. :)

I've brought radio back as it was, and will be working on developing it more and integrating it into chat. I'm thinking about consolidating radio down to one station with a schedule (easier to maintain).

Right now the playlist generation is really simple: it gets all songs in a genre with a rating of 2.5 up. @BrokenDeck suggested a while ago that I ignore ratings. If any of you guys have any suggestions as to how to program the radio stations I'd love to hear them.