Loading Profile...
EMPLOYEE
How can I create a Pandora station with a very specific sound?
Overheard
from a Twitter post by
devanieangel
devanieangel
I wonder if I can create a Pandora station that recognizes which style or era of the artist I want to hear? (i.e. '70s folk Dion not '50s)
I’m glad you asked!
I have this question, too!
Tell me when someone answers.
The more people who ask this question, the more it gets noticed.
The more people who ask this question, the more it gets noticed.
Create a customer community for your own organization
Plans starting at $19/month
-
Inappropriate?Great question!
The most exacting way to define a station is to start with a song title. When the Music Genome picks a starting point for a set of songs, your choice of a song title for that station's definition will give the Genome very specific information about the musical elements that you want to hear. Using more than one song title will provide some variety while maintaining specificity. You may want to listen to and tune your station for a while before adding additional song titles.
[For a station where a very specific sound is desired, we recommend not using artist names as station seeds. The more artist names you include, the more this will broaden the station's playlist, and the less specific that station's sound will be.]
Next, once your station has been created, consider only voting "Thumbs Up" when you like almost every aspect of a song, not merely when you think a song might fit that station. A good ratio for this purpose, once your station is defined as above, might be only to vote "Thumbs Up" on one out of every five songs.
Finally, to keep your station from removing songs that you like, but just don't want to hear for a while, try voting "Zzz" (from the 'Guide Us' menu in the lower right) while the song is playing, which will keep that song from playing on any of your stations for thirty days, or simply skipping it, neither of which will alter the station's playlist in any other way.
I hope that helps!
:) Lucia, from Pandora
P.S. We're @pandora_radio on Twitter!
The company says
this answers the question
-
Inappropriate?I would also advise using song titles only but adding future seeds from the thumbs-upped songs which crystallize the sound exactly. Here is one of mine
http://www.pandora.com/stations/fed32...
This started as a Matthew Sweet sounding station. I picked Girlfriend and some Soul Asylum song that I liked. I thumb-upped songs that I liked which i felt fit the station. However, as Lucia said above--when i liked almost every aspect of the song, I would add it as a seed. I never have more than 6 songs as seeds to keep the sound more concentrated. If you find the station veering in a musical direction which you may like(but don't want overtaking the station) you can seed another song as a counter balance. In this station I was starting to get too "sugar-popish" so i replaced a sweeter seed with the Yo La Tengo hard-driving song "Pass the Hatchet". This will slowly push more thumbed up songs in that direction. If it goes too far, reign it back in with--I dunno--a Byrds song. I tend to make my stations more concentrated in their sounds. I don't use a lot of artists seeds. If i want a variety of all the music I can just do a quickmix which allows me to enjoy variety and edit multiple stations at once. My "Wall-O-Sound" station for example is really the "Everything I Like About Jesus/Mary Chain". Some of their stuff i don't, but i made the station using the above method and came up with a really good concentrated sound that I like without the experimental crap I do not.
Hope this made sense,
Doug1 Comment Add a comment
This answers the question
-
Wow, great comments and tips, Doug. Thanks for chiming in! You're an "advanced" listener, for sure.
:) Lucia, from Pandora -
Inappropriate?Oh, and one more thing: the *best* way to tune a station is to make heavy use of your thumbs down.
Thumbs up usually adds (at least a little bit) more variety to the station, whereas thumbs down trims and whittles. Like pruning a bonsai tree.
:) Lucia
