What are your thoughts on a user-driven, officially unofficial radio station for Lemmy?

Psythik@lemm.ee to Asklemmy@lemmy.ml – 558 points –
radiolemmy.com

For the past few weeks I've been working on creating my own public radio station (it's been a dream of mine since I was a kid). Well now it's up and running but I don't know what to do with it. So I thought I'd see what Lemmy thinks about the concept, before I go all in and start investing in licensing fees, better servers, and more listener capacity.

If you're interested, we'll need curators to add songs to the rotation when no DJ is on air. It's simple and straightforward. Just click "Suggest" on the top right of the website and enter the Artist + Song Title on the form.

We will also need DJs and presenters to volunteer any freetime you're willing to give up and help make this happen. Click "Join" to get started.

All styles and genres are welcome. Hop on the airwaves anytime you want. Take requests, or don't. Mix and scratch, or just play one tune after another. Host a talk show/podcast if it suits you. Up to you. You can either use your own DJ/broadcasting software, otherwise there is a Web DJ interface for those with no software/experience.

https://radiolemmy.com | Temporary URL if the first one isn't working

Click Join to sign up to be DJ/presenter, or Suggest to submit your own song suggestions for regular rotation (no signup required to suggest a tune).

FAQ for potential DJs
Lemmy Community: !radiolemmy@lemm.ee
Discord

EDIT: Thanks for all the song submissions so far! I've added them to the rotation. Feel free to suggest any tunes for removal as well.

EDIT 2: Looks like I'm going to have to upgrade web servers sooner than expected. If you're having issues connecting, try the temporary URL

EDIT 3: Gonna take awhile to go through the applications. I'll take care of as many as I can tonight. Check your inbox (and don't forget the @ in your username when applying. I can't reply if I don't know what instance you're using.)

EDIT 4: All DJ applications have been processed so far. Check your inboxes! Gonna spend the next few hours uploading more of your song suggestions. This takes awhile because I have to manually check every tune to make sure it's suitable for airplay! Upon approval, your tune(s) will play at regular intervals. It may take a few hours for it to play for the first time. BTW, remember to use the "Submit" button. "Request" is for one time requests when a DJ is live. I'm brainstorming ideas on streamlining this so that the tune always goes to the right place.

EDIT 5: Well this blew up bigger than I could have hoped for. Gonna call it a night, but I'll be back tomorrow to upload more of your suggestions!

Also I'm going to dust off the turntables and do a live show tomorrow @ 7-9pm EST (00:00-02:00 GMT, check the schedule on the website). Requests accepted. Catch you on the airwaves then!

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Nice, now I can share obscure indie underground music like taylor swift with the rest of the world

lol go for it. Play whatever you want, so long as it isn't annoying or supports bigotry.

Yeah dont worry lol. Also how do you plan to deal with trolls who post annoying or hateful music?

Good question! At the moment I will be personally monitoring peoples' broadcasts at random intervals. If I suspect foul play, I can pull up a recording of their show to check for the offending content.

Everybody makes mistakes, so you will get a warning at first. If need be, I can kick a DJ off immediately. You can report any foul play either in the Discord, or by messaging me here on Lemmy. Eventually I will have moderators to handle things, but for now it's just me.

I vote that Rick Astley be your "He's off the rails! Cut to commercial!!"

I have absolutely no interest in this whatsoever, but I hope you and those that do, enjoy it.

This is a cool idea and I'll be submitting some songs as soon as I'm back on my laptop.

But in the meantime, since this thread is full of people who apparently appreciate both internet radio and the Fediverse, you should check out https://radiofreefedi.net as well! Music from actual fellow Fedizens, it's kind of great.

Damn, and here I thought I had an original idea. Maybe we should get together and do a collab! Their website could use some modernization.

You're not wrong there! Yeah I didn't mean to draw attention away from your thing, it sounds like a very different project so they're not really competitors, just wanted to put it out there to support Fediverse artists :)

What's the legal basis around this project? One can't just hop on as a DJ and start broadcasting the newest Taylor Swift songs without getting DMCA'd, can they?

There is a system implemented that tracks every song played for licensing purposes. Anyone can jump on with their own music and I get sent the bill afterword. I'm more than happy to pay for the licensing fees for the time being. I'll probably start begging for donations eventually.

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This website is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

If I was a lawyer, I'd say that this sentence could be interpreted in a way that the audio stream is licensed as cc-by-nc-sa, too, i.e. you are sublicensing the songs to anybody. This is even more illegal than simply broadcasting music without licensing it. It's a fun and games until RIAA comes to break your knee caps.

Good to know. I thought the "this website is licensed" part would cover it, but maybe I should just remove the license for now...

FWIW there is a system in place to track plays for music licensing purposes. I will be paying this out of pocket.

Definitely provide a visible way to accept donations. No reason you should have to pay for all the costs of running this completely on your own. It's the fediverse, spreading the load is kinda the point!

Oh don't worry, I will. I want to eventually implement a system where people can donate to their favorite DJs and the station gets a cut to help with operating fees. But I will need developers to help me with this. In the meantime I ask for nothing but your ears.

I submitted a song and also submitted a form to be a dj. I'm a musician and did a radio station on twitch for a while (I really should start that up again when I have time).

Mostly I'd be spinning synthwave, industrial, electro, future pop, etc if accepted. Stuff like that.

Sweet. I'll process the form tonight. Keep an eye on your inbox.

EDIT: Done. Looking forward to your reply.

I managed to get wifi on this long haul international flight and it sure made my whole 18 hour flight to hop in right as Ass-N-Titties was played. Gave me a great laugh, thanks for that person who suggested and you for allowing it 😂

I joined the Discord. Now, let's see if I can spread my garbage music taste.

I'm assuming you mean the band, Garbage?

No, I meant my garbage music taste as in the classic Hank Hill "Mother of God, it's all toilet sounds!"

This is so cool!! It's a great initiative, people need to take back control of their live and its individual initiative like that are part of the solution.

We cannot expect any thing from big Corp or government, it will have to come from us. I really see a decentralised future. I wish it was that easy to find comparable alternatives for other areas of lives.

Thanks OP it might just be a radio station , but it's really inspiring.

Exactly! You get it. Big radio will just play the same 10 songs over and over, all day long, for always and forever. My idea for the station is to escape from the corporate BS and play what people want to actually hear.

Ngl sounds super interesting and I want to host something but idk what I’d even do.

You don't have to do much. Just share your favorite tunes with the listeners. Hop on the mic every few songs to announce the song title if you'd like. Since we're just getting started, I don't expect much. I just want you on the air!

Cheers to whoever suggested Insomnia (Monster Mix) by Faithless - great taste! I was about to suggest it myself!

This looks pretty fun. I used to dabble this shoutcast radio broadcasting for an old roleplaying server in San Andreas Multiplayer.

I've used b.u.t.t. for NeosVR shows, and it's really easy to use.

I'll have to sign up for some night time EDM slots. :)

Fo sho. And yes BUTT is one of the easiest ways to connect to the stream, while still being able to use whatever DJ software or media player you're comfortable with (if you don't want to use the Web DJ). Thanks for your interest!

Dett! We should see if we can have some more beat syndicate djs put in some slots too

That would be great! @Psythik got back to me pretty quick, so I'm going in the air tonight.

SAMP, omg. I was a regular player for a while, about 15 years ago now; MTA, too. GTA 3 was the first game I ever modded, and so after a few months it blew my mind that I could play mp in a sp game. Really fun communities.

Aside from the awesome concept, seeing the first song playing after clicking on your link is B.O.B. by Outkast... you got an instant fan!

reminds me of an irc-connected system i wrote once.. used some kind of audio casting (spatial audio and some winamp casting plugin).. but you could request/search/dedicate/query current status from the website or irc channel etc

this was ~1999

whats old is new again

FWIW, it's cause I've been planning this exact concept since 2002 lol. Finally worked up the courage to make it happen. I remember the days of using Winamp and running the entire thing off your own PC. We've come quite a long way.

Speaking of which, there is a way to request tunes from the database when no DJ is connected. it's kind of hidden, but if you scroll down to the bottom of the webpage, you'll see a "send an Auto DJ request" link just below the live DJ request form.

i had these tied to company intranets, so running on big ol' internal servers.. employees could dedicated songs on the company radio, and the user would get an email letting them know their dedication was playing soon, etc.

its a lot more interactive/fun with IRC though

For now the current plans are to use Discord due to its robust bot support. But it wouldn't be a bad idea to use something less-corporate like IRC. No promises yet.

theres nothing more amazingly connective that irc! its so mature, and the OG bot writing. i once wrote an IRC to AIM connector that let me sit on IRC on a a gen1 t-mobile sidekick

Well you'll be the first person I contact to help set this up should I decide to migrate to IRC.

Get ready, I have ~250 songs, and too much free-time.

::: spoiler the comment is joking both of those things are true, but I'm not going to add all of them as I'd rather spend my ludicrous free-time playing rimworld :::

Fucking DO IT. I plan on spending all night adding your suggested tunes to the rotation!

Here's the playlist if you want, but as I said, I'm not planning to do all of them myself.

::: spoiler note

The big chunk that is just jermacore was when I merged a playlist, I wasn't just listening to only jerma for all that time. :::

Here is an alternative Piped link(s):

Here

Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.

I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.

I sent 10 jermacore tracks with the message 'JERMA KILLED (song number) PEOPLE ON STREAM'

I have like 30 of these but I'll only send 10 for now

I may be interested in being a dj/random song info guy. I'll have to think about it for a few days, and see if I can make a regular appearance.

No problem. Take all the time you need to decide. No pressure.

Would it be possible to get your station added to RadioGarden? It's essentially a collection of radio stations which you can browse by spinning a globe where all the stations are geolocated. Having it on RadioGarden will make it much easier to listen to the station from a phone! They have a submission form under Settings > Submit a Radio Station, and here's a direct link. I love the idea of unrestricted request radio stations, looking forward to requesting some favorites myself at some point! I myself listen to Rainwave every now and then which also streams 24/7 random music, though this one's strictly videogame soundtracks :)

Saving this comment so I can look into it. Thanks for the suggestion. I'd like to get as many ears as I can!

I love the initiative. This sort of thing feels REAL and I will absolutely submit some songs from my Playlist :)

I really like radiostations as well, not just for music, but the way people can talk over radio in a anonymous way (at least before caller id) . I don't know if you watched the show Midnight Caller but it was one of my favorite ones growing up.

https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0094510/

How do you intend to actually get people to tune in and listen?

Id be tempted to make a DJ application but I can already play to audiences of up to 5 people on twitch xD

Excellent question. I plan on promoting the station on as many communities as I can get away with. I'm hoping that the concept takes off and spreads throughout the fediverse. But to be honest, I can't guarantee anything. What I can tell you, though, is that there are more than 5 listeners tuning in right now. ;) (EDIT: And we don't even have any live DJs yet!)

Can you put the listener count on the page? I was curious earlier as to how many were listening but couldn't find it

I'm planning on it. Right now we average about 15-20 listeners at any given moment. It's not the most impressive number, no, but it's better than I was expecting for our first two days!

Fair enough haha.

I have DJ'd for similar things before and they struggled to get past around 12 listeners for each stream/DJ which is why I was curious what the plan was in regards to this from your end.

I'll shoot you a DJ application when I have time later on today. I don't play the most popular genre but it would help you get some diverse content going :D

I support this project, but I'd like to say, this community is not for advertising, it is for actually asking people questions.

You are absolutely right. I mulled over it for days as to whether or not I should promote the station here. Decided to do it anyway since I could not find a more suitable community. If you know of one, please let me know!

You could try one of the lemmy.radio communities, but I understand posting here instead as those communities are still very small.

Thanks. I was not aware of lemmy.radio

I have a billion playlists on Spotify. On the off chance that you need some filler someplace..check em out lol. Username is the same

Quick question - is there a limit to how many songs a person can request on the Auto DJ?

It's a brilliant feature (and if you've been enjoying R.E.M., Beastie Boys, Fleetwood Mac and Ice Cube in the last few minutes, you're welcome!) but seems like something that could be abused if someone selected hundreds of different songs.

Will be checking out your show at midnight (GMT), good luck!

EDIT to add another question...

Have discovered that you can stream the station in VLC (probably elsewhere too) using this link: https://a2.asurahosting.com:7010/radio.mp3

This is great, but doesn't pull through the artist, song title, artwork, etc - is there an alternative link that does? Not a huge issue, but it'd be cool :-)

There is a system in place to prevent a song from playing more than twice per day.

That said, every time I upload a new listener suggestion, the backend running the station resets the playlists, which can cause tunes to play more often than they're supposed to. Currently working on a fix.

Really cool idea - and I love that when I clicked the link just now, the first song that was playing was Put Your Records On by Corinne Bailey Rae.

Good job 👍

Is it the kind of radio station listeners can call and talk to on-air?

You can communicate with the DJ by sending them a message using the Request form at the bottom of the page (or in Discord). I've always liked the idea of a phone system, but trolls gonna troll. Maybe one day.

Hi. I tried to open but its stuck on loading, FYI.

Probably cause I just bought the domain last night so it may take another day for all the DNS servers around the world to update. Try this alternative URL if you're still having issues.

I suggested a few tracks, if I had more free time right now I might even volunteer as a DJ....

Edit: that may sound a bit weird but can I just post a link to a Tidal playlist? Most of the things I would suggest are in those playlists.

Thank you. I've been working hard all night to get as many listener suggestions on air as possible! (Gonna eventually need mods to help me with this).

Individual songs are preferred, but feel free to link a playlist if you want. Stick it in the "Optional Message" section of the Submission form.

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Cool! Any interesting things in the tech stack, OP? I've been meaning to set something like this up for my family, local only.

I've been getting so many ideas that it's hard to keep up with them all.

Right now I'm focusing on fixing bugs and getting as many listener suggested tunes on the airwaves as soon as possible. Keep checking the community for updates! !radiolemmy@lemm.ee

Nice! Any chance you could support playing this with desktop applications that can play internet radio stations? Tried the url with Rhythmbox but doesn't seem to work

FYI you can get it to play in VLC using this link: https://a2.asurahosting.com:7010/radio.mp3

Might work for Rhythmbox too, I'm not sure.

Yep, seems to work great! Maybe @Psythik@lemm.ee could simply redirect to this file from the main url if radio client useragents are detected? Not sure if that would be enough to get it working

I want to get the station broadcasting on as many ears as possible. I'm currently trying to get the station on TuneIn; will look into Rhythmbox.

There’s already radio free fedi for the entire fediverse

Send me the link and I'll contact them to see what they think about merging or doing a collab

Who remembers that avatar radio station where you could submit songs? Can't remember the name. You could join different types of genres.

I remember DubtrackFM. There you had rooms and users could add songs to a playlist. Don't know if that's what you mean, though.

Sounds similar but no, it wasn't that.

I've been thinking of hosting a site for a while, may I ask what hosting service are you using

and if you are using custom server software (which is what I want to do)

000webhost runs the website, and AsuraHosting for the stream.

Sounds interesting! I'll check it out.

How'd the show go? Looks like I stumbled on this too late to catch that.

Good luck everyone, it's going to be tough moderating something like that.

That it will have to compete on its own merits and that the whole lemmy tag adds nothing to it. Not to be too sarcastic but just to drive the point home, what are your thoughts on a user-driven officially unofficial radio station for IMAP/POP3.