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Fix Track Mix/Track Radio

  • 7 December 2019
  • 20 replies
  • 357 views
solstice_outcry
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So excited you finally have released this, but I have recommendations to make it competitive with other services versions. 

  • When choosing track mix, the user generally wants to hear the song they used to generate the mix. It would be good practice to test this feature with that in mind for premium or hifi subscribers. 
  • Track mix is used primarily for music discovery. The idea of track mix is to hear more of what the user likes but hasn’t heard. From my short time with the feature, it very frequently will play 3-4 songs from the artist which seeded the mix. Causing the user to skip tracks that could have been avoided by not playing the seeded artist for ~3-4 tracks into the mix. This could greatly be improved with a global feature of having a slider where one side is “artist only” and the other “discovery”. The middle would act as a mix between the two. 
  • On a more general note that feels almost silly to put, is that the mixes aren’t very accurate to the track that was chosen to create the mix. A lot of times it’ll play something not even remotely close from another genre. I understand this is the hardest part to overcome and will actively be worked on as time goes on. I do look forward to see where it goes. 

Thank you for doing all that you do!

20 replies

Rudi
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Hey @solstice_outcry 

Great piece of feedback - thank you. Because it includes different improvements, I've moved forums - will be passing it on to our relevant teams here regardless :blush:

Now, when you mentioned the user wants to listen to the track generating the mix, that's what should happen now - for paid subscribers. Do you mean during that mix, again? Let me know how you'd prefer the experience to work on this.

Really like the slider idea, and I agree with you that the recommendations can improve - it's a continuous work from the responsible team :thumbsup_tone2:

solstice_outcry
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@Rudi Thanks! I couldn’t tell immediatally where to post. 

And no, on every device I playback on (using HiFi sub) it doesn’t play the track I selected first to start the mix off. Meaning if I started a track mix off of Devin Townsend’s track “Genesis”, it should play that song and then start the mix after that. As of right now, it plays a song related to “Genesis” and I never hear the song I selected.

Thanks for liking the slider idea! I’ve wanted it since flow was launched and posted the idea under a different account when the forums were first launched, but it faded into obscurity haha

Oh, and sorry, I read the third bullet point and it came off kind of rude where that wasn’t the intent. I meant it felt silly to put because I know that your teams are always actively working on it.

 

Rudi
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Hi there @solstice_outcry 

It didn't come out rude at all, I just wanted to give you the reassurance it's a continuous work in developing the best experience possible :wink:

Apologies for the misunderstanding. I was referring to when you start playing a single track from search and the queue is populated with a track mix - my own personal experience. I'm glad I asked you to explain yours. Our product managers were able to pick this up and are very grateful for your feedback :nerd:

Playing the track you firstly selected is something to be considered - at the moment the team is open to ideas and this one is appreciated. So when we're planning to release an improvement, we'll keep the community in the loop, and hopefully, you'll be pleased with the result :stuck_out_tongue:

Thanks for being so active in the community and sharing your experience with all of us. I'll be keeping my eye on you!

D
Rank

 

Lounch track mix….. Really? When I saw the new update I was so happy to see track mix ... But I have to say it’s not working it’s absolutely terrible and I hope it’s going to be fixed very soon.

solstice_outcry
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Hey @DETAILBOX, I have a thread over on the Feedback forum, click here and give them some ideas and constructive criticisms to help them improve. It’ll help them much better than just saying it’s terrible! :thumbsup:

D
Rank

Hi, you right. I agree and with your feedback you gave them. 

Sometime it looks like that Deezer team is trying  to make something new, which is great… But,  it look like, nobody’s never try it before, they let it out….  so, we’ll see.…

 

solstice_outcry
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@DETAILBOX haha I know what you mean. Such is the life of the tech world with it’s consumers. Always have to iron out those bugs in a never ending battle.

R
Rank

I also think that users that choose to play a track mix would like to start the mix with the song they selected. That's how it works with all the other stream services. I know that's what I'd want. 

solstice_outcry
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@Rudi Just leaving this here in case it doesn’t get seen in the other thread. 

 

I dislike how the “Not happy with your mix” button in flow or especially track radio works. 

For instance I start a mix on a metal song, the next song plays me Led Zeppelin, I LOVE Led Zeppelin, but they don’t belong in my ultra heavy metal mix. So I click the “Not happy with your mix” button and it offers: “Do not recommend this track, or “Do not recommend this artist”.

I would love to click “Do not recommend this artist”, but I know doing so will affect them getting recommended outside of this mix as well.

This causes a lot of strain because I know my mix isn’t learning anything from my lack of interaction. I could just skip the song, but it loses the point behind the “Not happy with your mix” button. 

I feel the way Roon handles it is much better:


You could even add a “I don’t like this artist” option to the layout. 

Overall, the algorithm has definitely improved A LOT! Great job everyone! This is just some feedback to hopefully improve the user experience. 

S
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Few points I agree with and some others that might be slightly different. 

I agree that once you launch a song mix/radio, the song you selected to launch should play first - instead of now where it launches straight into another song.

Additional songs can be played by the artist, but as previously outlined, they should be played say every several songs. 

I previously mentioned Google Play Music, although it's not popular, its song radio was exceptional. YouTube music, which they say will replace Google Play Music, is nowhere near is as good. But it's ok. What both do well and Deezer could one day implement, is that when the song mix is launched, the user can see the upcoming songs from the song mix in the queue list. Similar to launching a playlist. By showing what is coming up, a user can quickly skip to several songs down, or just cancel the mix and select another song to start a song mix.

If it's a massive lot of coding and development on the background, Deezer's artist mix is actually pretty good. Until the song mix is tweaked, or further refined, you could replace the song mix with a link to the artist mix.

Song mix/radio I'm assuming is a very difficult one to get right. From what I can tell, Spotify is still hit and miss. Compared to Spotify, Tidal is more accurate. Amazon seems to have ditched the feature (as far as I can tell - but I am not on the premium plan anymore) and have focussed on artist radio - same as Deezer's artist mix.

Google Play Music I know was built on a purchase by a previous company (songza), that is brilliant. It must be difficult to do as YouTube music has some struggles with song radio. And it too can be hit and miss, so they must have difficulty integrating Google Play Music's key components. So if it's difficult for Google to do, I understand it isn't an easy fix.

So at the moment. Play music and Tidal are the top two. 

J
Rank

Your algorithm is not working.

No relation between the song I hear to your recommendations .

Please refine.

Thanks

Rudi
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Thanks for sharing all these comments with us, @Saraceno @solstice_outcry. Really good and constructive feedback, will be passing on to our devs and product managers :thumbsup_tone2:

J
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Any news? Answer? Something?

Rudi
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Thanks for your feedback @jabcka. Duly noted :wink:

H
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Fix trackmixes and artistmixes.

Any underground songs or bands, hard dance or metal, anything really. Rappers.

It can play all or in between commercial pop songs.

It seems like you do not have enough information. Radio is main to discover.

Should be working. Now I avoid listening trackmixes and artistmixes.

Rudi
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We've got that feedback from you already @hpguru thank you! :relaxed:

H
Userlevel 7
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We've got that feedback from you already @hpguru thank you! :relaxed:

Yes, there’s plenty, but it seems like I must avoid trackmixes because it plays ordinary pop songs.

I understand that I may be within 1% listening hard dance underground, but radio is not impressed.

Also tried metal music, and same thing.

I can confirm, like many, if you listen something outside radio stuff, FLOW and daily is usually best.

R
Rank

Why is “Launch Track mix” not fixed yet?
The topic is 1 year old already.

When launching a mix from a track, I would expect that the selected/originating track is played first and that the mix is populated by other tracks of the same genre/type/mood/likeness compared to that originating track.
And in case the selected track is already playing, don’t start it over, just create a new mix with it as first and playing and fill the mix after it.

H
Userlevel 7
Badge +6

Why is “Launch Track mix” not fixed yet?
The topic is 1 year old already.

When launching a mix from a track, I would expect that the selected/originating track is played first and that the mix is populated by other tracks of the same genre/type/mood/likeness compared to that originating track.
And in case the selected track is already playing, don’t start it over, just create a new mix with it as first and playing and fill the mix after it.

It may or may not be fixed this year, Deezer is improving it all big this year.

Some features I think they could/will start from the scratch.

I need all these things too, so I’d write to person who can directly talk with teams. Thanks.

R
Rank

Seems to be fixed now. I’ve several times recently used the “Launch Track mix” and it always started the mix with the selected song. Finally :)

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