SoniQR FAQ

This page tries to solve the most common questions of yours. If there are any open questions from your side, you can send an e-mail to carlos@soniqr.com so that it can be resolved.

General question.

As i do not want this sound too shizophrenic, i am going to answer this personally: i am Carlos. I am a webdeveloper, app designer, paint arcylic QR codes on canvas and currently i live on Canary Islands in Spain. So, SoniQR currently is made and maintained by one person only.

You are more then welcome to support the development with a small donation by clicking on the button below.

Donate via Paypal

General question.

As a teenager i created several tunes on Fasttracker II and a friend of mine introduced me to the world of creating music with the AMIGA computer. At the same time i created a lifestyle magazine that i you could get via BBS or buy it from me as a 3.5" Diskette. The magazine called izain was made with a tool called Neobook and apart of scene and lifestyle infos, it also contained small MODs and MIDI Tracks that you could listen to.

General question.

At an ordinary shopping session in a supermarket my 7 year old son asked me what song was playing through the supermarket's PA. I scanned it and it was Cake by the Ocean by DNCE.
In that moment i asked myself why retail always play the same music.
Later that night while in bed i rememberd this and started to think about alternatives. That is how i came up with idea to offer music downloads in retail by scanning a QR code and at the same time spreading indy artists.

General question.

I would love to give musicians a platform that offers them details about the usage of their music. Imagine a french musician realising that his music is mainly downloaded in Athens, the capital of Greece. With these numbers he or his netlabel could contact local spots in Athens to play his music. I would love to see these concerts happen.

General question.

I would love to force that bonding between customers and stores through SoniQR. I imagine shoppers getting into a store and automatically checking to see if the store uses SoniQR for its music.

General question.

I hope to give the whole netlabel movement a new push and bring those thousands of young artists closer to the concept of Creative Commons and how important and easier it is to work with netlabels. From my point of view more singer songwriters should know about netlabels as alternative to major labels.

General question.

Though it is clear that most of the mockups look shit AF, at the time of this writing this was the only way to visualize the whole project. There were no stores yet that could have been asked to take photos at, but there is hope that this will change soon.

General question.

SoniQR is not about competition among the artists. The idea is to bring music they would probably never heard of, to the people. Maybe even new music genres, that people never really listend to before. The goal is to offer a musical journey and diversity and not to create the next Justin Bieber or the next Taylor Swift.

Registration question.

Indeed it is. Users can register and use the website and the player for free. There are no hidden fees somewhere or a so called member area with extra services.

Registration question.

SoniQR is dedicated to people who own some kind of retail store, studio or service. This could be a boutique, streetwear store, skateshop, vinly record store, tattoo studio, food-trucks, hairdresser and alike.

Registration question.

Because this would fake the listening or download numbers per song that everyone can see on the website. By telling us what kind of store or studio you are, each artist can get some detailed information about where and by whom his music is downloaded at.

Registration question.

That there will ever be a fee to pay is close to impossible, as many music tracks used for this project are published under a Creative Commons Non-Commercial license.

Registration question.

Due to the CC BY-NC license there is no way to monetize the project. I must hope that users and stores back the project up by their Paypal donations, when necessary.

Website or player question.

To break the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) rules that so many websites and companies work with these days. SEO kills diversity, because you will always stick to what you know, but it is important to examine the unknown.
Creating your own playlist would mean that other artists would not have the chance of being heard. Creating a personal playlist at the end is just another form of hot-rotation - and SoniQR hates hot-rotation.

Website or player question.

No. There are only three types of music-feelings that you can choose from depending on the speed and content of your preferable shopping-experience.

Website or player question.

You need an internet connection, a tablet with a web browser, loudspeakers and a user account at SoniQR.

Website or player question.

With iOS only the iPad Air, iPad Mini, and classic iPad still have a standard headphone jack with a 3.5mm entrance. Nearly all Android tablets have a head phone jack.
So you need:

1 x tablet
1 x 3.5mm jack to jack extension cable
loudspeakers

Website or player question.

You simply pair your tablet with your PA or bluetooth loudspeaker. In case that your PA does not offer a bluetooth connection, there are cheap adapters that you can plug into the PA to add Blueooth to the speakers. So you need:

1 x tablet
1 x Bluetooth 3.5mm jack adapter (optional)
loudspeakers

Website or player question.

SoniQR does not offer this and will never offer this as this would again lead back to the hot-rotation well that we fall in.

Website or player question.

Not really. It sounds harsh, but at the end we want to create a platform where there is a win-win situation for the artists and retail. A good example would be Gabbba music. Imagine going into a store where a song at 220 BPM is being played. Your inner soul would be like "Let's quickly get in, put the shirt on, buy it, and get OUT as fuckign quick as possible!" That's not really a positive shopping experience.

Website or player question.

SoniQR implements own tags via Musicbrainz Picard into the mp3 file. We do so to avoid adapt the music better to the SoniQR database. But as every song is listend and its id3 tags edited manually, it helps a lot if you, as musician or netlabel, provide as much information as possible.

Website or player question.

You can find detailed information on how Musicbrainz Picard uses their standard tags by visiting this page at their documentation.

Furthermore Musicbrainz has set up a website with the tag mapping standard by system or software that you can check out here.

Website or player question.

We tried many tools under Linux and Windows but at the end stick to Musicbrainz Picard. That tool allows you to not only use more widely spread tags, abut also add your own tags to the audio file.

Website or player question.

The tagger script that is used with SoniQR can be read below. Please be aware that there are many more ID3 tags available but we stick to those to be used with SoniQR. If for whatever reason you think that we should a missing tag, please get in contact with carlos@soniqr.com

$if($not(%title%),$set(title,***** UNSET *****))
$if($not(%artist%),$set(artist,***** UNSET *****))
$if($not(%album%),$set(album,***** UNSET *****))
$if($not(%genre%),$set(genre,***** UNSET *****))
$if($not(%license%),$set(license,***** UNSET *****))
$if($not(%label%),$set(label,***** UNSET *****))
$if($not(%releasedate%),$set(releasedate,***** UNSET *****))
$if($not(%bpm%),$set(BPM,***** UNSET *****))

Website or player question.

Many artist might describe their type of music differently than what is is used under with SoniQR. The is because of the fact that music genres are often difficult to be named, but SoniQR needs a clear specification to select a random song.

As example: many songs have been categorized by an artist as "Techno". But as it is a mellow, more chill type of Techno, we put it inside the "Minimal" category.
This way a store can decide by itself if they want more pumping beats or something smooth to be played in the background.

Website or player question.

The SoniQR mood types used within the mp3 files as ID3 tag are these:

/// Band: Acoustic, Alternative, Jazz, Pop, Rock /// Beats: Downtempo, Trip-Hop /// Breakbeats: Drum and Bass, Jungle /// Electronic: Electro, Deep House, House /// Hip-Hop: Hip-Hop Vocal, Hip-Hop Instrumental /// Jamaica: Dub, Reggae, Roots /// Techno: Minimal, Pumping

SoniQR FAQ Frequently asked questions.

General questions. About the project and related to it.

Registration. Everything about registering with SoniQR and its backend.

Website & Player. Related to the website and the SoniQR player.

In retail. Answers and manuals for in-store questions.

For netlabels. Anything netlabel related.

Imprint

Support SoniQR
Help to keep SoniQR free and support the development.

Links

Netlabel lists

SoniQR FAQ Frequently asked questions.

General questions. About the project and related to it.

Registration. Everything about registering with SoniQR and its backend.

Website & Player. Related to the website and the SoniQR player.

In retail. Answers and manuals for in-store questions.

For netlabels. Anything netlabel related.

Imprint

Support SoniQR Help to keep SoniQR free and support the development.

Links

Netlabel lists

Support SoniQR
Help to keep SoniQR free and support the development.