Its a Journey to … Journeys

News Brief focus for Mondays is now dedicated to the format for DJ sets and the art & science of DJing - and now up and online. This is the first version with lots of good recommendations for streaming online sets from around the internet (mostly YouTube, but will expand to SoundCloud etc. eventually).

https://robtronik.fm/news/journeys-the-art-of-the-dj-set-recommendations

Tomorrow will be a focus on house music as mentioned in a prior ChangeBlog from last week. Journeys streaming show will be a dialy offereing - taking a bit of time to build that library, but its being worked on to get it live ASAP.

Lets go!

Save Your Sunday - Now Live

Added a new show that I have been wanting to put up for a long time - Save Your Sunday. I really wanted a spot on Sunday mornings that focused on the ambient, downtempo and super deep of the deepest house (and yes, an occasional full on gospel inspired house track to inject a bit of faith in the mix.

The point behind this show is to tell you - if you are still out at 7a from the night before and you dial into the stream is to, well, go home! You have had your fun - now is the time for the unwind. Get in a good state of mind to go home, check the cat or dog’s well being, maybe down a huge bottle of Gatorade and start counting sheep.

This is your soundtrack.

I will be adding a lot of my favorite tracks from over the decades, but this initial batch includes a lot of tracks from the SF’s own Imperial Dub library, a focus on Sunshine Jone’s beautiful tracks as a solo artist, some James Bernard ambient excursions, Future Sound of London (of course!) and the like.

This is the station’s only 3 hour show - 7a to 10a PST. I also added another show slot from 10a to noon, after Save Your Sunday, for Deeper Shades of House latest episode of the week. That’s something like 5 hours of true Sunday ramp down, smooth out, and get to rest vibe.

Hope you enjoy.

p.s. I know the station IDs are at odds with this show’s intended vibe. I actually need to revamp the station IDs and sweepers to be more in line with the vision of the station’s personality - so apologies if that has a bit of a jarring effect for this show (and the station in general. I am working on it! Thanks for listening!

Finally.

Ok, after much thought and experiments - I have finally settled on a news approach that segments each day’s focus around what dedicated genre streaming shows are playing that day. That makes more sense thematically and allows deeper dives per day into any particualur genre. It will also tie directly into each day’s news segments on air (forthcoming - had to get this news approach finally sorted!).

So, basically it works out like this: Sundays and Mondays off (for now), but….

• Tuesdays: Focus on House music news worldwide - with Deeper Shades of House anchoring that day’s dedicated show.

• Wednesday: Focus on remixed classics and nudisco vibe wtih FlashDance being that anchor for the day.

• Thursdays: Focus on Indie dance news via Factory Floor.

• Fridays: Focus on breaks, drum and bass, dub step, etc. via WidStyle news and cultural items

• Saturdays: All techno, hard, minimal, industrial, related news via Razor and Compression lens. Latest example of that is here.

This upcoming week will have that news approach above now - which I feel is not only more focused, but provides a deeper view into those genres of dance music each day rather than trying to cram everything across the spectrum every day. I was fighting with repeat daily stories and that’s not great for value add for anyone. Each post should be interesting either every day (with a depth of coverage) or once a week per genre if that’s of interest to a reader.

That’s it for today!

Better Focus.

New News Formatting: Today I have migrated the News section to be more in line with the show focus we have on the station - so now Global News is pretty much hard sync’d to House music as its foundation (just like what is played on the station as the default genre between shows and spotlight sections) - and the Essentials section has all the news, articles, videos and labels that relevant to the genre focus of the shows now grouped together. This is the latest format update here in today’s posting.

I think that gives the News section less of a generic news dump feel and more specific to the goals of the station and the focus of each of the shows.

I rather like it - much better now - although I need to fix the header graphic icons to be more design proportionate to the text content and page dimensions. But for now, I like this direction much better. It feels more integrated into the station’s identity and objectives.

Shows on air: I do want to add a few more streaming shows soon. I have an idea for foundational / transformational dance tracks that really are milestone releases over the decades to have an hour show (or maybe simply a single spotlight or three throughout the day to keep things interesting. But that grouping of tracks would be called Axioms.

I also think it would be great to have a show dedicated to Trance (I have a working name idea, but still mulling it over). I also need to get Journeys up and running with quality DJ mixes too - that’s really the priority as there is a back end effort in the real world to support that with a true blue event here in Vegas as well. The event would be intrinsincly tied into the show.

Live Broadcasting: This is a huge aspect of the station that is coming next. I have all the hardware and functional capability already in hand, but I need to purposefully launch that next phase with the right show/event focus so it makes sense to do across streaming platforms like YouTube, Twitch, etc.

News… sort of.

I’ve always been into publishing (print is my first love, but boy is that outdated in today’s world) but to bridge that passion into Robtronik.FM I have developed a News section that is updated Monday through Friday as well. Built out of the Blog template function on the site, I update with the help of some AI prompts I have developed so I can sort through what news has popped up over the internet, social media sites, etc.

I wanted to make sure I attribute the sources so it drives traffic to them and I sort of view this News section as a hub of summary information and direct links (where available). I have no illusions that this will replace dedicated electronic dance music sites like We Rave You or Resident Advisor, but I do want there some daily real world added value that is curated a bit. I really like the Essentials section that recommends good reading, good watching, and DJ culture stuff as I feel that allows this section to fill the cracks of culture and information regarding dance music.

Still more work to be done here as I would like to start tying the week day updates to the show formats (like Compression. WildStyle, etc.) directly the formatting and focus of stories underneath those genre/vibe focus that each represents.

This section will evolve, but I am just glad to get it started - progress over perfection!

To Date.

I should have started this ChangeBlog way back when I launched the website to capture all the work that has been done to get Robtronik.FM up and running. But since I didn’t, I think that works mostly in anyone’s favor who might be reading this now. If I had been maintaining a blog on changes you might have suffered all my complaining and minutiae of working through technican details to get the station up and running.

So, here is the short list of (mostly) everything done to date to get a stablized streaming platform running - and not really in chronological order. This is stuff I had to do:

• Source music tracks - lots of them, most from my personal library collected over the decades. Lots of tracks from my Bandcamp page too. Go check them out. I have a ton from Beatport going way back to 2006 when you first ordered CDs with tracks on them and they sent them out to you. I think they should do that again - CDs making a comeback (with Beatport branding etc.). Right now there is close to 4k tracks on rotation.

• Set up cloud based server that serves the stream to Live365.com that handles all my licensing and geographic requirements. I use PlayIt Live software to manage the back end playlists, track management, clock programming for every hour of the day for streaming, LUFS and a track preparation (for those that care, I’m running at -15 LUFS which is what most of the streaming services run at - running too hot distorts the audio getting to you via web or mobile devices).

• Created iOS and Android apps so you can have mobile experience for this station instead of just web based. Honestly, the mobile version is best - I highly recommend it.

• Created focused music shows to pepper throughout the day - focused on genres of dance music that I love: Techno, House, Breaks, Bass, Drum and Bass, post-punk, eighties, etc. That’s all found on the schedule page now. I’ve also added Lars Behrenroth as our first dedicated (syndicated?) show Deeper Shades of House on Tuesdays. I will probably add his show to Sundays too. Its really really good. I intend to add a Rave, Trance, and probably downtempo breaks spotlight or show still. I am currently working on a DJ mix show called Journeys which will run every day (like Razor does at Midnight PST) and I think it will be amazing. I’ve got some really good sets to always put on rotation - I promise you will never get bored. Shedule is here.

• Oh, had to create station IDs and sweepers for identity purposes - Personality - Stationality - This has been a grand experiment to date. If I am being honest, and I am, I don’t really like them too much. They are way too, um, hype sounding - probably borderline cheesy and more work is needed to dial in the right vibe and sound with them and for each of the shows. But I choose progress over perfection with this effort, so for now, they work well enough.

• What else? Working on events in Las Vegas to be a footprint in the real world for the streaming shows - Compression is coming back to Pachi Pachi soon. I needed a break after doing 6 shows over 6 months - and figuring out what to do next. I decided that Robtronik.FM was next, but now that this is really starting to develop, I can pivot back to shows with the station being the umbrella that ties everything together.

There is more to cover - but I’m done writing now for the day. In the future I will tackle why I called this station Robtronik.FM (ego? accountability? asshole move?) and my stance on AI in the “radio” streaming space that I am currently exploring too.

Drop me a line at robtronik@robtronik.fm for any suggestions or feedback. Thanks for reading!

Hello World.

Hello world: This will be a first of many updates to keep track of the changes to Robtronik.FM - a sort of heads up on the improvements made to the station, added staff and partners, events, and features/shows. Basically anything worthwhile to mention.

Label & Track additions: Today I added Butane’s work and his Extrasketch label offerings to the station. You can hear his tracks, amongst others, during the Compression shows that are currently on for two hours Saturday morning at 8a and evening, at 8p. Right now the station has about 4k tracks in rotation; this is by design so you hopefully will never get bored by replicated tracks - and the history of dance music has tens of thousands of tracks and songs to draw from, so that’s a goal to keep adding and refreshing without end. That’s pretty fun and exciting work for me to do, honestly. Programming and track selection is pretty close to what I would do as a DJ for a set, but the goal is make it interesting 24/7, 365 - no small task, but I do love it.

New Website content: I added the About section - first draft as I need to get expanded bios from our friends and maybe even better pictures. Certianly more to add in that section as time goes by.

ChangeBlog added today as well to keep track and inform those who care what’s going on around here.

More soon.