According to the forgetting curve of human brain, around ¾ of information received will be forgotten after one day. Thus, the initial length of each music playlist is usually set at an optimal level, that it takes more than one day to finish one round. In this way, fatigue or tiredness due to hearing repetitive tracks can be avoided.
Each trimester, a considerable part of the existing tracks will be replaced by new tracks. Again, the update rate and frequency are also optimized in order to provide continuous freshness without any drastic change.
In addition, thanks to the Smart Random Algorithm of SPECTRE, the order of tracks is optimized to provide the audience with maximum freshness.
Your music selection should always follow the CLIENT-centric principle. To create an integrated customer experience, you should stimulate their different senses as much as possible. Music offers a magnificent and straightforward way to draw clients’ attention and make them dream.
This is why audience identification is important when briefing to SPECTRE team. According to the client profile, we can design dedicated music vibes for them, and simultaneously for your brand to communicate with them about your DNA, and interact with your them emotionally.
Music designed uniquely for your brand/location is a powerful communication tool to reach and appeal to your clients; while random, inappropriate and inconsistent music can hurt your brand image, confuse and even disappoint them.
If music experience is essential in your establishment / for your brand, then Live sessions with real DJs is definitely essential, even if you have a music provider. However, a music provider like SPECTRE can help you provide a music experience that corresponds to your brand’s reputation even when your DJ is not present, or during your quiet hours and days. By unifying the music experience, SPECTRE helps you enhance your brand image. Even at nights with DJ Live sessions, having properly selected music played before and after the show, could help heat up the venue and shorten the perceptive waiting time for DJ set-up, and offer a soft landing to your clients after show.
Sound system refers to all the materials and equipment that broadcast sound in a certain area, mainly including speakers and amplifiers. There are four key issues to consider in order to create a good sound system: sound quality, reliability, control, and room acoustics.
/ Sound quality:
Having audio broadcasted with obvious noises or low-fi quality is not cool. It upsets your client and can damage your brand image. To create a pleasant sonic experience in your business area, fidelity of sound reproduction might be the first thing to pay attention to.
When your amplifier or speakers translate sound signals back into sounds, the less information they lose, the truer and the more pleasant the sound will you hear. This requires both an audio source of high quality (usually MP3 320kbps, or lossless codec), and a speaker/amplifier that can reproduce sounds with only minor or inaudible noise and distortion.
/ Reliability:
Can you imagine your hotel or retail place suddenly without music, or the music or voice message broadcasted are fitful from time to time due to streaming, unstable connection or system failure? To avoid unexpected failure or breakdown of your broadcasting, you should make sure of the compatibility and function of your equipment, as well as the reliability of audio source.
The best solution is to have audio content locally stored on an independent player that can be plugged directly to your trust-worthy amplifier/speakers. This creates a relatively closed system and will be able to maximize the stability of your audio broadcasting.
/ Control
Finding a balance between security and simplicity of your sound control system is not easy. Once the brand sonic identity has been defined for the business area, the last thing you would want is to let other people tamper with the audio content while broadcasting. Meanwhile, you and your local managers would need the flexibility to adjust easily volume, content, or mood of your music experience. Discover SPECTRE’s solutions for players and control interface.
/ Room acoustics
Room acoustics refer to the way a physical space interacts with sounds. Shape, size, furniture, construction and decoration materials, they all play important roles in affecting the transmission and reverberation of soundwaves inside the space. The installation of speakers should then be designed and adapted according to the room acoustics in order to offer an audience experience of quality. To create such a consistent, balanced and immersive audio experience to your clients/employees, the number of speakers and the location of each should all be carefully calculated and scientifically optimized by a professional.
Sound volume is a crucial feature to consider when you decide to immerse your clients with music experience. However, there is no universal answer about the best volume for your business area. Your optimized sound volume will be determined by the nature of your business, your target clients, your brand image as well as your audio system.
/ 100dB for craziness and revelry
For nightclubs, bars with live DJ, or places where you require a dynamic, vibrant and lively atmosphere to encourage your clients to dance or move in a fast pace, or when your target clients are mainly youngsters chasing after binge, you may turn your volume up to around 100dB (+-10dB). The high volume can excite human brains, thus help to create a highly interactive atmosphere. However, according to WTO, staying in such loudness level for more than 15 minutes might lead to permanent hearing damage. In this case, please make sure that you provide proper protective equipment (ear plugs) to your staff.
/ 60-80dB for lively restaurants and bars.
In a crowded and lively restaurant or bar, music at this volume level is loud enough to penetrate the hubbub of human voices, while still remaining bearable to ears. Clients can thus be immersed in the atmosphere created by music, and at the same time be able to stay for long time.
/ 50-60dB for ambience and conversation
For restaurants or bars of a more chilling style, or retail places, music is a key to create a pleasant and unique ambience corresponding to your brand image. Meanwhile, your clients should still be able to easily talk to and hear each other without being disturbed or having to raise their voices. In this case, an optimal broadcasting volume should be within the range of 55-60dB. Generally, lower volume goes better with classical, elegant, downtempo music, while modern, hip, exotic or strongly characterized music needs higher volume. When your background music exceeds 65dB, your clients will easily feel stressed and tired.
/ For concentration and efficiency, 40-50dB but most importantly, constant and consistent music
This volume level is around the white noise a baby would hear in his mother’s womb. It is neither too loud nor weirdly quiet. With constant music, the sonic environment could help your employees concentrate and work more efficiently. Read Music x Corporate
/ 25-40dB for full relaxation and meditation
In a great SPA, a nice clinic, or a meditation room, you should be able to ignore and forget the existence of music, while still be immersed in the mood brought by it. In this case, both the genre and the volume matter. At the volume level of 25-40dB, your clients can be fully relaxed, soothed in mood yet not feel awkward by silence.
Once you decide on the volume range of your business are, as a manager, you should continuously monitor the decibel level, as well as the responses of your clients to adjust dynamically the sound volume of your venue.
Reference:
https://cpdp.debatpublic.fr/cpdp-contournement-nice/docs/pdf/documents/scetauroute/iii6.pdf
https://www.who.int/pbd/deafness/activities/MLS_Brochure_English_lowres_for_web.pdf
The answer is “NO”. Streaming platforms only provide you with the right to listen to the music to yourself or between families and friends in a non-profit-making context. Performance Rights, i.e., the rights to broadcast music in public, is not included even if you subscribe to streaming platforms.
There are in general two rights you need to know about in order to broadcast music publicly in your business area: Reproduction rights (music producer’s rights) and Public Performance Rights (author, editor, or composer’s right). Reproduction rights refer to the rights to duplicate, transcribe, imitate, or simulate a work in a fixed form. These are the rights that everyone needs to pay when one does music playlist curation. Performance rights refer to the rights to publicly play or broadcast music. In each country, there is usually one or several organizations managing the rights for artists and producers. For instance, the SCPP, SPPF, SACEM in France, where SCPP and SPPF manage the rights of producers (e.g., reproduction right), and SACEM, the rights of authors/composers/editors (e.g., public performance right).
SPECTRE, as a music curator, takes care of the reproduction right. By entering agreements with both SCPP and SPPF, SPECTRE guarantees that all music tracks selected in our playlists and sonic design are authorized by their producer and paid accordingly. However, not being the immediate broadcaster of music, SPECTRE is usually not allowed to collect and pay for the “performance rights”. As a result, the immediate broadcaster should always contact the local organization of music rights management to make sure they respect artists’ work and comply with the copyright law.
The music programs provided by SPECTRE are still legal, with full authorisation from the producers. However, the performance rights should always be settled with the local music copyright management organisation by the immediate broadcaster.
There are three questions to ask yourself before choosing a SPECTRE Player:
If you have more than one stream (different music will be played in different zones simultaneously), choose SPECTRE Pulse Player. Its RCA output allows you to broadcast two mono audio streams at the same time. (Usually for hotels, groups, office building)
Your daily or weekly schedule of music program is pre-set, but you still want to switch frequently between playlists and songs? Choose SPECTRE Mobile Player (APP) to gain a more in-time, visible, flexible control of your music experience. (Usually for SPAs, bars, independent restaurants)
Ethernet for the reliability, Wi-Fi for the liberty. If you or your group uses Ethernet to connect all equipment, you should definitely go for a Pulse Player. Together, your system remains secured and reliable. If you would enjoy more freedom putting or carrying your player around, choose SPECTRE Mobile Player. It allows you to play music, download content and all updates anywhere at any time, in a simple and cable-free way.
Your SPECTRE Pulse Player does not require internet connection to function within a pre-set period of time. However, we highly recommend you to keep it connected to internet, in order that it receives in time software updates, security updates, and most importantly content updates. Only when your device is connected to internet, can it appear on your SPECTRE Dashboard, and can you benefit from all functionalities provided by SPECTRE Ecosystem.
DOs:
DON’TS:
Consider sound and music a communicational tool rather than a mere decoration. A tailored soundtrack can not only create atmosphere, but bear stories, values and visions of your brand, and deliver them to your clients in a pressure-less way. By playing a montage and remix of evoking speech, historical audio materials and sound samples related to your establishment or a certain situation, in places where clients are usually alone and in relax, you can more easily pull your clients closer to your brand, and build a stronger emotional band with them.