How OpenDJ.FM works

Three steps to listening, three more to DJing.

1. Roll a nickname on the splash page → walk into any Curated Set → listen.
2. To DJ, you need a real account. Visit /signup — drop your email, click the magic link.
3. To play music you need a SoundCloud playlist (yours or someone else's public one). Keep reading if that's new.

OpenDJ.FM plays music by embedding the SoundCloud player. You don't strictly need a SoundCloud account just to listen in a room (the SoundCloud widget plays for everyone), but you need one to queue tracks as a DJ.

1. Go to soundcloud.com/signup and create a free account.
2. Confirm your email when SoundCloud sends you a verification message.
3. That's it — you're ready to favorite tracks and build playlists.

A SoundCloud playlist is just a saved list of tracks — yours, other people's, or a mix. OpenDJ.FM accepts single track URLs or a whole playlist URL, so playlists are by far the easiest way to queue up a set.

Find some tracks

1. Search SoundCloud for an artist, a genre, or a mood (e.g. "ambient techno", "atmospheric drum and bass").
2. Click into a track page. Below the waveform you'll see an Add to Playlist button (sometimes shown behind the ••• menu).
3. First time you add: SoundCloud asks you to name the new playlist + set it Public (very important — OpenDJ.FM can only see public playlists). Set the title to something like "My Friday Night Set."
4. Keep adding tracks. SoundCloud lets you reorder them on the playlist page once you have a few.

Get the playlist URL

Go to your profile → Playlists → click your playlist → copy the URL from the browser address bar. It looks like:

https://soundcloud.com/your-username/sets/my-friday-night-set

That's the URL you paste into your room's queue.

OpenDJ.FM has two tiers — pick whichever fits.

Roll a nickname (Casual)

1. Visit opendj.fm → scroll to the "Roll a nickname" section.
2. Tap 🎲 Roll again until you like the suggestion.
3. Enter → you're in.

Upgrade to a real account (Regular)

1. Go to /signup.
2. If you've already rolled a nickname, you'll see an Upgrade your account form — your nickname is already locked in, just drop your email.
3. Check your inbox. Click the magic link (it's good for 15 minutes).
4. You're a Regular. The TopNav shows your nickname; the /profile page now shows the full feature set.

Every account gets a pixel-art avatar generated deterministically from a random seed. You can re-roll it from /profile:

1. Scroll to Your avatar.
2. You'll see 9 options in a grid.
3. Click 🎲 Show me 9 more to roll a fresh batch.
4. Click an avatar you like → it highlights → click Save this avatar.

Your chosen avatar shows up in the DJ booth, on the dance floor, in chat — anywhere a sprite of you appears.

Community rooms are user-run rooms where anyone in the room can take the booth. You must be a Regular (verified email) to create one.

1. Go to /rooms → click + Create a room in the Community section header.
2. Give it a name (2–40 characters). The URL slug is derived automatically — "Saturday Night Session" becomes /room/saturday-night-session.
3. Submit. You're dropped straight into the room, already seated behind the deck.

Once you're behind the booth, your queue panel sits in the left rail. Paste SoundCloud URLs into it.

1. Paste a track URL (single song) or a playlist URL (a whole set of songs at once).
2. Hit submit. Each track is fingerprinted for originality; verified tracks land in your queue.
3. Queue runs top-to-bottom. When the current track ends, the next one in your queue plays automatically.

You don't have to load your whole set at once — queue 3–4 tracks deep and add more as you go. Reading the room.

Every queued track is audio-fingerprinted against ACRCloud's commercial-music database before it can play. The platform is for original music — sets built from your own productions or other indie creators' work — not for streaming the top 40.

What happens to each submitted track:

• No commercial match → allow. The track enters your queue and will play when its turn comes.
• Match found → hold. The track is rejected at submission time. You'll see the matched artist + title so you know which one tripped the filter.
• Couldn't fetch audio → allow. SoundCloud occasionally restricts API stream access (typically on major-label-controlled accounts). When we can't fingerprint, we admit the track — known limitation.

In your own room you take the booth automatically on creation. In someone else's community room, you can take the booth when nobody else is on it:

1. Take the booth button — top-right of the stage area, only visible when the slot is empty.
2. The demo/resident sprite steps aside; you're up.
3. Queue tracks, hit play. The current song starts within a few seconds (and at the right offset for any listeners who joined mid-track).
4. Leave booth when you're done — the slot opens for the next DJ.

While you're on the booth in your community room, you have three colour controls — a small panel appears inline above the stage:

• Accent — the bright neon punctuating the UI (buttons, marquees, highlights). Use vivid hot colours.
• Stage lights — the spotlights bathing the booth. Soft, lighter tones work best.
• House lights — the dim ambient wash filling the rest of the page. Deep, dark tones (navy, plum, near-black) keep contrast readable.

Each colour change broadcasts to everyone in the room in realtime — pick what fits the mood.

Two big speaker cabinets flank the booth. Each has the word TAP in the middle.

• Click TAP in time with the beat of the current track. The DJ avatar + everyone dancing on the floor will lock to that BPM and animate to your beat.
• Tap at least 3 times. Stop tapping for 2 seconds and the window resets — start over with a new tempo for the next song.
• The BPM persists per room — once anyone taps, every listener sees synchronised dance until someone re-taps.

Below the booth, five emoji buttons let listeners rate the current track:

• The floor reacts visually: 4–5 (Nice / Love) animate dancing, 1 (No) makes avatars face the camera with a frown, 2–3 (Meh / OK) stand neutrally.
• The Room Vibe card on the left rail shows the running average score, with the tile's background shifting red → orange → green → pink as the average moves.
• In Curated Sets, synthetic-audience bots also vote and chat so the floor never feels dead.

As the active DJ, you have a small Skip button on the bottom-right of the booth. Tapping it ends the current track immediately and advances to the next one in your queue. Useful when:

• You misjudged a track and want to move on.
• The Room Vibe is in the red — read the room.
• The track was a 10-minute deep cut and you want the energy back.

Admins can also skip via the chat command /skip.

Anywhere you see a DJ's name in the "Now Playing" header, there's a small heart icon next to it. Tap it to favourite that DJ.

• All your favourites show up at /profile under Favorite DJs.
• If you're a Regular with notifications enabled, you get an email when one of your favourites starts a set. Throttled to once per favourite per 24 hours so a long DJ session doesn't spam you.
• Manage email opt-ins on /profile under Notifications.

When your set is over and you don't plan to keep the room around:

1. Go to /rooms.
2. Find your room's card. In the top-right corner you'll see a small 🗑 Delete button (visible only to you, the creator).
3. Click → confirm the prompt. The room and its chat, queue, and vote history are removed. Your queued tracks are preserved so you can use them in a future room.

A few things that distinguish a good set from a forgettable one:

• Cue 3-4 tracks deep, not your whole catalog. You want flexibility to read the floor and switch direction.
• Pick a coherent palette. The Accent / Stage / House colour controls feel small but completely change the mood of the room. Match them to the genre.
• Tap the BPM early. Dance floors come alive when the dancers' bounce locks to the music. Tap on the first track and re-tap whenever you change tempo.
• Watch the Vibe meter. If it's drifting orange / red for a couple of tracks, the floor is telling you something. Skip or shift.
• Chat as you spin. The chat panel is open by default. A short note explaining a track, a callout to a dancer's reaction, a thanks for the favourite — listeners come back for that.
• Share the room URL early. Anyone with the link can join — DM it before you start so people are there for track 1, not joining mid-set.
• Step away when you're done. Click Leave booth rather than just closing the tab — that opens the slot for the next DJ instead of leaving the room in an ambiguous state.

• The track plays for me but not for new listeners. Browsers block autoplay until they see a user gesture. New listeners see a "▶ Tune in" overlay on the player — they have to tap it once.
• My SoundCloud playlist URL is rejected. Make sure the playlist is Public on SoundCloud, and the URL has /sets/ in it (not just a single track).
• I'm a Regular but I can't take the booth. The room may already have a DJ. Wait for them to leave, or create your own room.
• I don't see the delete button on my room. Only the original creator (or a platform admin) can delete a room. Pre-launch rooms created before this feature shipped don't carry a creator ID — email support for those.
• Still stuck? Drop a note at /support and we'll get back to you.