Hey there,
Thanks for contacting the Live365 support team.
Periods of silence or having the same tracks repeating too frequently throughout the day, can usually be fixed by keeping a few things in mind.
AutoDJ must operate within the framework of the DMCA . Silence can happen when AutoDJ has run out of material to play while trying to comply with the DMCA. Repeat tracks can happen when there are not enough unique tracks to pick from, or the track metadata (artist, title or album) and are incorrect. If you do not know the correct album for them, you can assign them as “ - Single” or similar to avoid DMCA problems.
Similar errors, such as silence, can occur when your AutoDJ is forecasting that it is going to need to play that track again within a 4 hour period. The reason is because there are not enough tracks in your library to avoid repeats.
Here are the DMCA rules that have to be followed by AutoDJ and when making playlists:
- No more than 3 songs consecutively from the same artist
- No more than 2 songs consecutively from the same album
- No more than 4 songs from the same artist in a 3 hour period
- No more than 3 songs from the same album in a 3 hour period
If you only have 2 hours of music uploaded, AutoDJ will not know what to play next. Encountering silence would be an expected outcome. AutoDJ will then wait for the 3 hour period to pass and the DMCA restrictions reset. In other words, it already played everything in the last 4 hours and now has to wait until it’s OK to play them all again.
If you use a large portion of your tracks in a playlist and then AutoDJ takes over once the Playlist is done, AutoDJ will have a smaller pool of tracks to pick from while sticking to the DMCA rules.
Ensuring that you have accurate metadata (artist, title and album) will also help to ensure that AutoDJ runs smoothly. It can seem as if you don’t have enough material if many of your tracks are from “Untitled Album”. The system thinks that these are all from the same album called “Untitled Album” and can’t play them because of the rules. Having the right metadata also makes sure that the musician or artist receives royalty and credit for you broadcasting their material.
You will find information on how to update the metadata on your uploaded tracks here . We do not currently have a way to bulk-adjust track metadata but it’s possible to edit the metadata prior to uploading the tracks to Live365. You can do this with a program called MusicBrainz or MP3Tag. These programs find the right track names, album names, artwork automatically and then you write the changes to the files before uploading.
Also keep in mind that the more tracks you have in your library, the better AutoDJ will work, and the easier it will be for you to schedule Playlists. If you have 3 to 4 hours of material, the station will certainly play the same tracks several times in a 24-hour period, even with following the rules mentioned above. If you have 6 to 8 hours worth of material, the chance of hearing a song repeat is much less.
