SoundExchange: Studio Requirements

Creek needs two data sources from the studio in order to produce SoundExchange reports.

1. Listener logs: we need access to the Icecast log files.
2. Song metadata: artist, title, album, label for each song played. We can get this directly from automation systems, or from DJ's entering their tracks by hand, or from the stream itself.

These two data streams can then be combined to create, for example, a SoundExchange Report of Use. This report is a spreadsheet that contains a list of all songs played, each with the total number of listens across each time the song was played.

Listener Logs

We can retrieve and process listener log files from your Icecast server through SSH. If you can allow SSH access to the server that's running Icecast, then we're covered.

If not, then we can help you set up a simple Linux stream server on a VPS provider. We point stations to DigitalOcean for this, and we have a tutorial here: Icecast Server Tutorial (For most LPFM stations, the $5/mo server is more than enough to run Icecast.)

Song metadata

The music information (artist, title, album, label, etc.) can come from two sources:

1. Automation: You can set your automation system to send track info directly to Creek through the Tracks API. Tutorials are here: Integrating with Automation

2. Manual entry (similar to Spinitron): DJs enter tracks that they play: Intro to creating playlists in Creek

3. Automatic music detection: Songs detected from the stream.

Each of these methods will add track rows to the tracks database in Creek, and you can use a mix of both methods at the same time.