[FEEDBACK] What do you think of "Flow"?

Here’s an idea:

Add sliders to FLOW for customization for each use. In order of preference/most useful:

1. What % of FLOW should be from your favorite tracks (0-100%)?
2. What % of FLOW should be from your favorite artists (0-100%)?
3. What % of FLOW should be from XYZ genre (0-100%)? I realize there are pre-made mixes for these sometimes, but this option would be keeping it within your favorites. Within FLOW, sometimes I want more of one genre or another. Sometimes I want to mix in some metal, sometimes not. Sometimes I want mostly relaxing music. Sometimes I want more upbeat. So I could select 100% on slider 1 above and then all metal for example. It would only play my favorite metal tracks.
4. What % of FLOW should be new releases (0-100%)?

With these sliders, I can’t think of any reason why I would ever not listen to FLOW. All of the other “daily” mixes, “playlists you’ll love”, etc. “Music” section can go away. There would be no need for any other automated mixes.

I enjoy Flow, but my biggest challenge with it is the same that I have with other streaming services playing a personalized mix for me. And that is that I listen to such a wide variety of music, that any personalized mix is bound to vary greatly in genre and mood.
 

So I can go from an absolute banger from PA Sports to mellow piano from Riopy, and that’s usually not what I’m looking for. I’m usually feeling like one or the other.
 

So I tend to find myself playing music based on an artist or a genre rather than using Flow. 
 

I feel like I get the same discovery benefits from just playing Latin music, for example, on deezer that I would with Flow. Deezer still introduces songs and artists via this method that I haven’t heard before, or at least not recently.

Overall, I’m fairly pleased with the user interface and experience with deezer, I would just love to have personal playlist support through Alexa and some type of Spotify Connect-style control.

I’m getting very good results from the daily mixes. In effect, they automatically group my music tastes into five coherent groups - and offer new tracks too. Plus I see the list in advance and can edit it - e.g. removing the songs I know I don’t like, or the ones I have heard too many times. It’s something that works really well, and not all services have. A killer feature, I think. If you have the time to edit the playlist, it can be a music discovery playlist, or “the best of”, even without sliders to customize it.

So the only reason I’d use Flow instead is like zero effort radio, e.g. when I’m in the kitchen, and can only skip the tracks occasionally. But even then I’d like to have control over the styles - e.g. some genres can be inappropriate to play out loud. So maybe the better way to use Flow would be to offer shorter daily mixes as a starting point - e.g. 20 tracks, then follow up with Flow based on the tracks you did listen to.

Thanks for sharing this @Gaffer13, awesome!

@GropplerZorn we're developing both, and the Alexa skill should be updated very soon.

For me FLOW has been bad long time.

As they now removed my Legends status I finally can be honest about it.

It does not work the way I want him to work. I do understand it’s their main product and selling point, but honestly nothing too special. I came to Deezer one year and 3 months ago and since then I and other people been complaining about poor variety in FLOW. We want to DISCOVER, not hear again.

I play FLOW weeks from now and it’s about 90 % my playlists or liked tracks.

Only 10 % is something new.

You complain here, they say Skip for a while, ban artist. Skip as fast as possible.

Unlike a track? Isn’t it even a solution? Add different tracks.

I’ve been doing that, liking different remixes, yet FLOW never played them.

It was one Remix version I added and it played on flow constantly.

I finally was so fed up with it, I changed to Spottily.

It’s not for everyone, and I do get that, but for me it solved the issue. On Deezer I had issues of not having anything new on the table. I was hard to update any lists as no recommendations.

They did add “You might like” row as we asked, but it’s just a start and seems to suggest artists I hearted or listened. So they are rarely new. On service I mentioned there is full main page of suggestions. Personally made. I feel like I finally can be lost in music and my playlists updated.

My happy hardcore playlist has been growing since 1st, so much recommendations.

FLOW Track Mixes no more playing charts.

It just works, on every radio/flow elsewhere. You generally get here nice answers like “Someone is looking into it right now”, but I’ve been here for over a year now. For how much longer to look?

Now I looked elsewhere and did I say to be happy about it.

They know it their product is not ready, and people are leaving because of this, yet they’ve seemed to be unhappy with my decision to go as Legends. I was in a way fed to be Legends in the first place, as I needed to share these empty promises and cache clearances just in case.

On the new platform I do not need to start my day with cache clearance. Ever.

Why it should be even something to try anywhere.

I kept posting bug reports, that’s a thing as Legends, but I’ve seen it’s road to nowhere.

Nothing gets implemented, only certain lives matters here and LGBT campaigns on.

This is why there is Bluetooth headphones on the market.

You do not need to go ANYWHERE to skip. As well if you use something else than Deezer, you have no need to even skip, as radios and flows are on point and they do not play same to the point of tireness. Keep listening, FLOW, in your kitchen. I couldn’t take the same music anymore playing.

My playlist update percentage grew like 50% alone when I changed platform with better discovery.

Skips went like 90% down.

I’m not buying lossy headphones for general use, and don’t like the idea of having to charge one more device. Plus I don’t actually need to go to the PC to skip tracks - I have a media remote. It’s still an unneeded distraction, and skipping tracks disrupts the flow - it’s not the experience I want when the music is meant for atmosphere. But I do need to go to the PC to check and manage the tracks.

And I actually don’t have issues with Flow. I also like daily mixes, like I already said. I did find “mixes for you” rather lacking. Maybe that’s why they’re pretty much hidden. But, again, my point is that I don’t want a lot of discovery in Flow, not that I don’t get it. I want discovery when I’m in the mood for it, and within specific genres, not all over the place.

I don’t know if this is relevant yet, but I’ll add my share.

Flow took a long flight to flow. It was a gruesomely repetitive experience at first, and it really p*ssed me off because of the insistence in the same artists and the same songs from the same artists.

Now, more than a 1000 favorite songs and several favorite albums and playlists later it’s finally catching up to my taste.

Some inputs, though:

1. Stop recommending classical music songs in Flow. That’s not the way most classical music is listened to in concerts nor the way they were intended to be listened to by the composers. It doesn’t make sense to listen to a single movement from a classical concert in the middle of pop songs, even if they have similar moods.
2. Why can’t I add songs to “Play next” in Flow? This doesn’t make any sense at all. Is it for cache reasons? Well, keep the already cached songs in cache and play them as soon as the “added next” song plays. Flow would benefit from that, should that option be available. The algorithm could be modeled in a way that a song added as next could shape the direction and mood of the next songs.

I think the issue is exactly how the algorithm would interpret this:

1. No, I don’t like what Flow is doing and would rather listen to something else, here’s an example
2. I like what Flow is doing, but would like to shift the direction a little.
3. I like what Flow is doing, and here’s a song I think is similar to what Flow is doing.
4. I like what Flow is doing, but want to listen to this particular song right now and then go back to what Flow was doing.