A new update for the iPhone App has been submitted for release

Over the weekend, I decided to update XCode to the latest version and update the iPhone app for Florida Beat Radio by slightly increasing the buffer size.  The buffer controls how much of the music is temporarily stored on the phone before it starts playing the music.  In more straightforward terms, what you hear when listening to the station on the iPhone and Android app actually arrived at your phone 30 seconds prior because of the buffer setting.  SiriusXM uses a similar buffer for their satellite radio so that in situations where you're driving and go under a bridge, you can keep listening because the radio had x number of seconds of programming buffered.

Anyways, the process for an Apple iPhone App is straight up crazy.  XCode itself is no picnic, you have to learn how to program in that environment and language and they're constantly updating it to keep up with the latest iPhones and iPads and the capabilities of the new devices.  If your job/hobby is nothing but iPhone development, this isn't such a big deal for you.  But since I hadn't messed around in XCode for probably two years, I had to refresh my memory on my own application and what it does and how it does it.  Lot's of fun. :)

Once I had the app updated and finally building without errors, I had to submit the new revision to the iTunes connect server and now I wait for Apple to eventually get around to reviewing it for approval in the store.  Apple makes you jump through all of their hoops to get an App submitted for the first time or updated with a new revision.  It's a pain in the a$$ to someone like me that doesn't update very often.  The upside is that you keep 70% of the proceeds for an app that you can sell in the store so if you can create an app that people are willing to spend money on, you can build an entire business around just making and updating iPhone apps.

Helps to watch the screen

Apparently the station was online but quiet this afternoon for about an hour.  I added some new tracks to the library and accidentally switch the software to manual mode and then didn't notice the screen, I was busy on some remixes and other things.  It finished playing the Frequency mix it was playing and then stopped because I hadn't told it the next song to play.

Fun fun..

New tracks and more Frequency

I added the last couple of Frequency shows to the server plus a bunch of new tracks.  The server won't start playing them right away, it just takes them into account when building the hour by hour playlist.  There's a setting to tell it how much weight to give to the newer tracks and I have it set to medium so it'll start to work them in over the next couple of days.

Other than that, it's business as usual.  The server pretty much runs itself.  I have all of the tracks grouped in together and it has very loose parameters on how to build the hourly playlists; it's just doing its thing and picking stuff at random.  I hate the concept of repeating a song every couple of hours like commercial radio so you'll never get that FBR. :)

Interesting trend

I've noticed an interesting trend since I decided to have the server run 4 hours of Frequency everyday.  The average listener count seems to drop while the Frequency block is on the air.  I'm not monitoring it every day, every week but I've been watching the stats enough in the past few weeks to notice a trend.  I don't really care either way since the whole point of the station is for me to have something to listen whenever I feel like it but I do find the trend fascinating.

The 4 hour Frequency block

I've decided to have the server run 4 Frequency shows back to back each day instead of the one show it was running before.  There was no real rationale for the change other than that I wanted to hear more mixing in the midday since I sometimes have it on in the background when working on stuff.  My station, my rules. ;)

The server is back to normal

So I've had a lot of fun in the studio recently.  First I come in one day and find one of the main UPS' flashing the light that its battery needs to be replaced.  So I order a battery and wait a few days.  Then when the battery came in, I thought it'd be a good time to shut everything down, clean, rearrange, etc.  The Florida Beat Radio server was powered down along with everything and the cleaning began. When it was time to fire it all back up, the FBR server wouldn't start.  No signs of life at all which usually points to a power problem.  So the station was offline last Thursday night till Saturday afternoon while waiting for yet another part to arrive. 

All power issues are now resolved and the server is back up and playing that pure house music 24/7.

Sorry for the trouble but these things happen every now and then.

New Frequency shows and tracks

The April 11 & 18 Frequency shows have been added to the server so those should show up this week.  For new music, not much cooking this week.  I've selected a new track from Lissat & Voltaxx & Block & Crown called "Dangerous Society", Dr. Space & Gianluca Motta with "My Sweet Music" and Block & Crown & Nick Fiorucci with "I Don't Know What I'd Do".

Just Want Your Love

Here is a track highlight for your consideration:

This track is part of the April 18 Frequency show and just an all around floor banger.

April 18 Frequency

The April 18th episode of Frequency features Samuele Sartini, Milk & Sugar, Dolly Rockers Deep, The Cube Guys, Ariana & The Rose, Block & Crown (one of my personal favorites), Yves Larock, Duke Dumont, Fat Sushi & Roland Clark, Tom & Jerry, Green Velvet & Riva Starr, Atilla Cetin and Nervous Kid.

Coming soon to Florida Beat Radio.

Updated show times for Frequency

The show times for Frequency have been updated.  Monday through Friday, Frequency will run at 11:00 AM EDT.  Saturdays and Sundays, it will run at 6:00 PM EDT.

I'm always looking for feedback on the programming of Florida Beat Radio so email me at floridabeatradio@gmail.com.

Thanks
Smooth

The sound of the club.

So why do I use that tagline for Florida Beat Radio?  Well it's because I program the station to run the actual, full length club tracks that you might hear when on holiday in Ibiza or similar locale.  These are un-edited mixes and the computer selects them at random based on some loose parameters I give it for date and time of the week.

I started this station so that I could listen to real, pure house music while driving around in the car.  Over the years, the audience has grown and thanks to twitter, continues to expand.

One note of advice for any artists or record labels.  FBR does not accept any music solicitation from anyone at any time for any reason.  No exceptions.  Over the years, I've developed a system for determining what songs make it into the library for FBR and it works very, very well.

Regards,
Dj Smooth
Program Director