Over the last two weeks, we’ve restored the display of station metadata (with some caveats), released a new store product, and prepared for a couple upcoming collaborations. For more details, read on!
Over the past several months, we’ve worked on molding a third-party station management software into something that more closely mimics the system we used in 2023. Back then, we colocated a server using our own hardware to maximize flexibility in terms of storage space, quality, and autonomous song selection.
In early 2024, we transitioned to using a VPS which has been more limiting, and it’s been a challenge to bring this system up to the standard we had previously. We’ve battled with limited file space and attempted to implement workarounds for a system that’s inherently less flexible than what we had before. This has led to strange scenarios like garbled metadata, no eligible media for playback (resulting in the TOHO Clock song playing on-air), and in the present case, lack of precise control over what plays and when.
We were recently able to restore the display of metadata; songs that once appeared garbled now display and are identified correctly so that listeners can rate these songs. The caveat with this is we needed to rip out our custom configuration to do this. As such, the station is effectively set to random playback. We are regularly rotating available music on the station so that all songs will still play over time, but there will be times when the order is not optimal (same circle plays in a row, one song plays again too soon, etc). We will be looking at our options and testing a few things before moving forward.
In other news, we recently released our newest store product with a familiar design. Now you can find our best selling T-shirt design we’ve dubbed “Digital Miko” on a color-matched ceramic coffee mug! Find it and the rest of our merch in-stock at https://gensokyo.store.
Finally, we’ve got a couple behind-the-scenes things that we’ve been working on which we’ll be announcing later this week, so stay tuned to Discord and our regular social channels, and thanks for listening!
[Knowledge #188]