As a listener...

[MopTopMike]

I've been kicking around an idea, and I thought this thread would be a more appropriate spot to post - not to clog up the 60's garage and teenbeat section of the forum with my nutty ideas that plow firmly into the land of the insane...

While I'm working on TBM related projects, I prefer to listen to '60s music, garage / beat, etc.
As I have thousands of tunes now digitally archived, I recently designed a rough program "random shuffle" mode to select various songs for playback based upon set preferences instead of the typical total random shuffle system. The programming concept is akin to the old days of AM Top 40 radio, as heard (well, if you are old enough) during the 1960s.

Back then, the most popular songs aired far more frequently than the songs that were not as popular. Selections were based upon the radio station weekly "chart" or "survey" ranking of the most popular current songs, mixed with recurrents (recent big hits), older hit songs, plus new debuts. Savvy program directors / music directors were able to devise a carefully calculated music selection process (formatics) that allowed for a precision selection of songs per broadcast hour, with chosen variables implemented (i.e, no more than two slow songs aired back to back; no slow songs aired at the top of the hour; never two instrumental songs back to back....etc.).

Having been employed at a successful radio station years ago, I am still interested in the old days of radio programming. Today, with internet radio podcasts, and preference by most people to listen to direct downloads and music streams, the old broadcast elements performed by the on-air DJ's heard during the 1960s is now extinct. However, the programming elements first developed and refined are still widely in use in 2016. I cannot stand to even TRY and listen to today's top 40 commercial radio, but the song selection & hour by hour formatics still follow a similar process utilized 50 years ago. It's just that today's music, for the most part, is of zero interest to me.

So, here I am, thinking, and after a few hours of messin' around, I came up with a TBM style radio format. If I ever can manage it, I'd love to have an on-line radio station, mostly automated, of course, where listeners would be able to hear all the songs listed in both books, or as many as possible. For TBM, that means a potential of 16,230+ songs as it stands at the moment. For the time being, I'm merely trying to gauge the mind and preferences of someone who would be interested enough to listen in on a regular basis.

The song selections are based upon the TBM ratings (decimal format). Just like the Top 40 radio formats of the 1960s, the higher rated songs in TBM get selected for play far more often than the lower rated songs.
Thus, you would hear more of the 7-10 rated tunes per hour than the songs rated 3 or lower, with a strong mix of the middle rated tunes 4, 5, and 6 added accordingly.

My question to the folks here on G45 - just how many of the "rated 3 and lower" song brigade would you be able to tolerate during, say, a three hour listening time period? Would you want more of the 7 to 10 tunes, or a more equal distribution all around per hour?

I know some people only want to hear the "creme de la creme" and hardly anything else; some want to hear unfamiliar songs regardless of how low they rated in TBM, etc.

Here is a 1 hour TBM format song list, based upon my rough calculation mix as explained above.

Have a look-see. All comments are welcomed. The approximate running times of each track have not been incorporated so meeting an exact 60 minute running time is not important for the moment.
The TBM rating is also listed so you can get a grasp on the weighted selection process I have discussed.

Sorry for lower case, as this was copied from the text log:

1. she took my oldsmobile - romancers 7.1
2. moving out - blades 6.6
3. long long time - a.j. & savages 5.4
4. pretty little thing - deepest blue 8.0
5. confined congragation - jades 6.1
6. i don't want to see you - blue embers 7.1
7. whenever i'm feelin' low - emblems 3.8
8. talkin' baby - kokays 4.3
9. he's in love with himself - system 7.2
10. writing on the wall- five canadians 10
11. the leader - marke v 5.4
12. i'm higher than i'm down - aardvarks 8.3
13. we almost made it - cascades 2.9
14. (a non-U.S. garage 45, randomly selected) - painted ship - audience reflections
15. tomorrow's song - endless 6.6
16. cold cold world - x-25 3.6
17. don't leave me this way - blue velvets 5.6
18. want ta be your lovin' man - dudley & doo-rites 4.8

 

[Alexander]

Fantastic idea Mike. Whichever way you chose to shape it will be fine by me, as it will be an education judging by your initial playlist!
I would definitely be "tuning in", hoping to hear top drawer bangers as well as tunes I'm unlikely to hear anywhere else .
Sounds like a lot of work, but from your post I get the impression this has got wings.
Hope this happens. Best of luck.

 

[greenfuzz]

I'd definitively vote for a handful of "three" or so rated tunes....maybe one an hour? To your point, those are likely to be unfamiliar to most of us. Everything else you proposed sounds good to me.

 

[Michael W]

Based on the sample list, I like the idea.

 

[MopTopMike]

Thanks, guys.
Just want to make sure I'm headed in the right direction.

Each hour is broken up into 16 slots, a set number of slots contain the highest rated tunes, etc. for selection.
Since a TBM rated 1 identifies a tune that most listeners will find barely tolerable, I'll keep the 1s 2s and 3s together in one slot for selection (it might take an entire year of continuous 24 hours of listening to hear nearly all 1 rated tunes). 3s alone get another, and still another slot pairs a choice from both 3 and 4 ratings. The higher rated a tune according to TBM, the more chances it can get selected within an hourly slot. A few slots have selections from a single rating (5s, 6s), while others combine several ratings (the highest rated songs).
I will prevent "overkill" on the highest rated tunes - 9s and 10s only amount to 118 songs in TBM. In a 24 hour constant broadcast period with 2 played per hour, the tunes would eventually repeat every 2 1/2 days, unless an allowance is made to repeat a song already played before the entire library of 9s and 10s have played.

I may toy around with the comp vs non comp attribute to allow for an even more diverse selection process. Have a slot allotted for a "non comp" song no matter what the TBM rating is a possibility.

Keep posting any suggestions. I'd love to have some custom jingles, I have some connections in the radio biz, hopefully they would return a favor or two to help out.

Getting an online station up and running won't take a lot of time, just some $$$, a reliable music licensing deal for internet radio broadcast and some equipment (a new laptop to run the station, a stand alone hard drive to store all of the songs...). My vision would be different from the long-running Beyond The Beat Generation website - Obviously, I'd have none of the FM radio type famous groups, and songs would not repeat anywhere near as often as they do on that site. For those who have some experience, let me know some of your preferences on programs for running live broadcasts, equipment, etc.

 

[bosshoss]

Great!

But I would like to see 6 out of 18 tracks assigned to non-USA 60s garage selections. That ratio more accurately reflects the relative "greatness" or "importance" of USA garage vs rest-of-the world, in my book. To limit it to one in 18 would severely undervalue the rest of the world. Unless you want the idea to be USA specific, of course. In that case, I wouldn't bother having any from the rest of the world, rather than a token inclusion which could be misleading for novices.

Regarding 3-and-under selections, personally I have a higher-than-average tolerance for the lesser rated songs. Now after so many years of hearing my favourites over and over, I'm always interested to hear the lesser knowns, and lesser rated songs. Usually they each have some aspect to admire and inspire.

 

[vinyl01]

I wouldn't mind hearing all of them as there are some rated at 5 that I don't like and some at 1 that I do like.

 

[Outside_Lookin_in]

The songs in your sample playlist which I know, I consider all to be killers or outstanding, the ones I don't know, I can't comment on, but would like to hear. In theory I'd like to hear more somewhat lower rated songs in the mix. After all, the best songs stand out more if the crowd is average. There's also the fact that there are some lower rated songs which I highly esteem. Some of the 4.x rated songs I consider to be 8-10. I also prefer to hear more unknown songs than known, so your list is good from that perspective as I didn't recognise half of them by name.

On the question of radio however, if you're talking internet radio, I tried listening to it a couple of times, but found I couldn't tolerate the high compression / low sampling rates. Air to air radio, however, seems to have come of age, but still depends on how it's done at the station end, as well as how good the receiver is; but a sixties garage radio station isn't going to appear around my neck of the woods anytime soon.

What I would really like to see - because that's how I like to hear my music* - is a digital music database, like iTunes, but one which unlike iTunes does in fact shuffle music properly. iTunes is always resetting itself, so I never get to hear every song once before the deck gets reshuffled. If there is another option out there that shuffles properly as well as play more than just MP3 format, I'l like to know about it.

I also like the idea of thematic or mood patterning, so that you get maybe five or six songs in one mood or style before there's a shift to another, with the option of selecting and locking in a given style when you want.

* I actually prefer to hear it played from vinyl on a good hi-fi, but modern life scarcely affords that privilege, that's why a digital database player is normally my preferred option.

 

[MopTopMike]

Thank you for the suggestions.
I will tweak the formula to allow for more lower rated songs, then post a sample hour when I work out the kinks, so to speak. I should call upon the services of mathematician Ph.D whiz Alessandro, but I think I drove him crazy with the TBM rating calculator....

The sample hour I worked on will not be static, the 16 spot "slices" will change per each hour. some hour formatics will allow for more lower rated songs, another clock hour will allow for some other variable.
Noting that:

OutsideLookinIn: Yes, a mood aspect would be cool, didn't think of that. The only flaw I can vision is whenever the psych genre gets called, might lose listeners especially if the tunes are not highly rated.

The musical 60s garage virtual jukebox is an excellent idea, in theory at least.
However, with copyright and licensing law here in the U.S.A. funding such an enterprise to address the legalities would require a direct bank account from a willing millionaire. It isn't so much the creation and operation, it is the legal costs.

Legal fees required for streaming music differ for on-line jukebox methodology vs. the virtual on-line broadcast methodology. With a jukebox, the listener makes his/her own selections. Having this choice affects the publishing, thus, costs are much, much higher. We're talking in the thousands per month for a daily operation.

With virtual on-line broadcasting, the listener cannot make a selection in real time - other than the choice of the musical format. He/She is subject to whatever the broadcaster airs (with requests, the law can be skirted around if the broadcaster does not announce when a request will be played during the program, or even better, he plays it during a subsequent broadcast airing on a different day).

To avoid high cost fees for broadcasting music, an on-line broadcaster cannot air more than two songs by the same performer back to back (seems really silly if you are airing non mega popular performers, but does make sense if you air Beatles songs in a 6 song set). Fees are established based on the randomly aired factor. If you broadcast an hour of Beatles music, you will have to pay a lot more.

Unfortunately, U.S. laws do not / will never recognize the big hit / well known performers vs. the home-grown little guys. It all operates under the same umbrella. Youtube comes close to the virtual jukebox idea, but they have been bought out by a huge conglomerate and therefore can absorb legal fees and such. There are now a few hosting companies for on-line broadcasting that include fees to be paid for airing music instead of someone having to submit monthly fees and paperwork. It also depends on how many listeners you have on-line checking in at the same time. More listeners at once = the more a broadcaster must pay.

Bosshoss - I'd champion more "worldwide" '60s garage sounds per clock hour. Problem is, I have nowhere near enough source material, and second, all songs would all have to be rated in the same manner as the U.S. songs listed in TBM. There are over 16,000 of those. I do not think I could begin to handle tackling the task of another 8,000 plus for the rest of the planet! That's why I kept the focus on songs in TBM, as a musical connection to the book itself.

 

[Outside_Lookin_in]

There are over 16,000 of those.

Any volunteers to start a FreakBeat Mayhem?

 

[MopTopMike]

I had some time to tinker around with an algorithm for song selection - based upon suggestions in this thread, I simplified it to see what kind of results would come up, meaning i did not weigh the algorithm to select more or less tunes based upon their TBM rating. This results in a more equal amount of bottom rated tunes being selected (songs that are 1, 2 or 3s). The only thing I would tweak is to ensure a different song by a performer / group already aired would not occur again for , say, 4 hours (note Zakary Thaks tunes are played in hour 1 and hour 2).

Here are four "clock" hours of songs that would be streamed, the far left number is the current position the song ranks within the Top 16,000 (16,336 songs rated to date). Are there too many "uninteresting" tracks per hour?

4570 randy newman - last night i had a dream
12654 flaming grace - i don't know how to love you
5710 don & goodtimes - you did it before
2057 black & the blues - i'm sad
12265 gentlemen - beg borrow or steal
11531 viceroys - tiger shark
2226 standells - why did you hurt me
2099 method - free as the wind
14811 jaguars - i never dream of you
294 human expression - calm me down [dj/promo version]
13351 don't tred on me - keys to the highway
7398 paradox - with someone to love
6572 wailers - you won't lead me on
4879 paatz - tell the world
15006 chevrons - seeing you
1732 prophets of olde - just can't wait
13474 bright lights - conversation
264 briks - it's your chioce


999 bacardis - this time
14311 cruisers - my place
11268 third stone - eruption
9419 unknown group - tell me that you love me
12605 shymen - lonely times
2656 hysterical society - come with me
8605 timothy - hard times
1847 zakary thaks - please
6442 simon t stokes - big city blues (vers 1)
234 lollipop shoppe - you must be a witch
5339 bobbyfuller 4 - little annie lou
7378 sal & continentals - i'm going away
2069 nomads - how many times
11541 renegades - keep on running
4270 grim reapers - joanne
12870 ray smithers & perpetual motion we will share
6053 vacant lot - when things go wrong
6735 chellows = somebody to love



12318 terry & chain reaction - stop stopping me
11873 keith everett - she's the one who loved you
12154 zakary thaks - outprint
13722 mamas boys - book of love
509 skip ellis - you're bad
2885 rationals - leavin here
8319 five bucks - now you're gone
3768 al's untouchables - stick around
2491 undertakers - it's my time
3180 dedications - midnight gray
8601 raves - don't chop down my tree
8271 casuals inc. move over
1363 graveyard five - graveyard theme
2159 dead or alive - run hide get away
5708 dolphins - surfing east coast
16300 young lions - to each his own
4329 dark knights - send her to me
16092 ray allen & trendells - i'm so glad


12407 21st century sound - first day
538 beatin' path - original nothing people
14883 dimensions 4 - strings of love
872 apollos - target love
3438 sincerely mindfield - i've gotta get
13680 keymen - shop around
7401 sj & crossroads - get out of my life woman
11417 blue haze / big z- blue haze blues
12860 blue creed - sugarbabe
4956 blue things - doll house
11573 in crowd - big cities
14435 turkey creek water plant - gone
1500 no-na-mees - just wanna be myself
4176 rovin flames - seven million people
623 shade - all is gone
10195 reflections - whole lotta shakin
1634 eric & norsemen - get it on
15682 new breed - fine with me

 

[greenfuzz]

Hell no! I'd listen.