Oh boy, this was supposed to be quite the special episode and oh, did it turn out special—but not in any way I wanted…

The plan was to play a set from a hotel room at the Baltic Sea because it was my wife’s birthday and we decided to take a short vacation. So last week I tested the equipment which went quite well, and I spend all of Tuesday evening packing up all the stuff.

As you no doubt have noticed, I did not manage to play a show last weekend. I wanted it to be outside, as a change of scenery, but it was raining all weekend long, and I didn’t want to play from the living room so I simply didn’t play at all. However, that still left all the equipment untested so I had to do that today, lest I procrastinate it to the weekend again…

Setting this up was not really a big ordeal, there were no major problems that a reboot didn’t fix, and the hardware itself seems to be working absolutely wonderfully. Nobody reported any problems so I’ll assume there weren’t any.

And during the show there were no complaints, either! Unfortunately the hardware itself is not much to look at, it has no blinking lights, no exciting bar graphs, see for yourself:

The top device is the receiver unit for the wireless microphones and while there is a bit of movement on those displays, it is not synced to the music and thus very boring. The soundcard below that is not any better, either, and we don’t talk about the switch below that.

Anyway, the show itself — while technically an absolute marvel — was again rather uneventful. No incoming raids, some chatting was going on (which was lovely), and no large, glaring fuckups from my side. Splendid!

The next show is going to be on next Wednesday, September 28, at 19:00 CEST/UTC+2. It’s also going to be live from a hotel at the Baltic Sea because it’s my wife’s birthday and we’re taking a short vacation. Because we can!

Another quiet, yet energetic show! No cats were feeling like visiting but at least we had a raid by Nirmana! Thank you!

I might play a show this weekend, in order to test the travel setup that I’m putting together for the show on September 28th which will be broadcast live from a hotel at the Baltic Sea! It’s my wife’s birthday and I will be joining her for a short holiday, away from the big city. I’m quite looking forward to all of those things—testing the setup, the show from the hotel, and not having to work for three days!

Anyway, the next Top of the Week show will be on next Wednesday, September 21, at 19:00 CEST/UTC+2. However, stay tuned for a short-noticed announcement of a show this weekend. Read your Twitch mails!

Today’s show was rather uneventful… the temperatures were not high enough to stress the encoder, we only had some very short off-camera visits by The New Cat™, and then my intended raid target (@mayor_dj) finished his stream right before I did!

The next Top of the Week show will be on next Wednesday, September 14, at 19:00 CEST/UTC+2. In three weeks, on September 28, I will play a special show from a hotel at the Baltic Sea because it’s my wife’s birthday and we’re making a short holiday. I still need to work out a reduced setup because I have no intention of taking a 48-channel digital mixer with me, a multichannel USB audio card should really be enough…

The extremely high temperatures of the last week seem to be over (for now), neither the video encode nor myself actually needed extra cooling today!

And we had one of the cats visiting today; Die Katze took her rightful place on my chair and napped like a champion while I was playing tunes for you. The other, new cat also made a short appearance, jumping on the couch and then exiting the room to the other side. Still a bit shy but he’ll come around, I’m sure. He is getting more and more cuddly, too!

The next Top of the Week show will be on next Wednesday, September 7, at 19:00 CEST/UTC+2.

Today the weather was slightly more appropriate for streaming so this week the video encoder had to work again after all. And it did so quite admirably and without any faults. I’m proud of you, video encoder!

Otherwise today was a fresh show, the oldest track has been with us for a mere seven weeks, and the second-oldest only four weeks. I’d say that is quite an improvement!

The next Top of the Week show will be on next Wednesday, August 31, at 19:00 CEST/UTC+2.

It was so incredibly warm today that I again had to deactivate all video sources that would put any strain on the video encoder, i.e. no background video, no live cams, just a black screen and some text.

The next Top of the Week show will be on next Wednesday, August 24, at 19:00 CEST/UTC+2.

After last week’s unexpected break I was very much looking forward to this week’s show because The Algorithm™ began to be applied to other tracks as well! The current remix of Above & Beyond’s “Can’t Sleep” has been with us for 10 weeks now which is more than 60 days so we can expect to see it heading out of the charts, every week a bit more. Exciting! And fresh!

The next Top of the Week show will be on next Wednesday, August 17, at 19:00 CEST/UTC+2.

Changes have been made!

Well, one change only, really, but an important one: the scoring algorithm of the tool I use to create the playlist for my shows. For every day, every tracks get a certain amount of points depending on its placement, and for the final charts all those points are added up and the top 100 tracks are chosen. At least that’s what The Algorithm™ has done before this week, and it didn’t really change much but in a very significant way… because now time (or rather, time in chart) is also being considered! So if a track has been in the charts for quite a long time (and I think we all know which one I’m talking about) its daily score is now reduced by quite the amount and I must say I am happy with the results. All the other tracks around that one track are completely unchanged, only that one track has disappeared. Perfect!

The next Top of the Week show will be on next Wednesday, August 3, at 19:00 CEST/UTC+2.

Holy moly, I did not forget to record this week’s show!

I will have to do something about old tracks popping back up, though… not only did Tinlicker climb again (because it’s still in the Top 15 – almost 100 weeks after the release! Madness!) but no, Ben Nicky also made an appearance again and that will not stand. So I will develop something that will weaken the impact of tracks that have in the charts more often than other tracks and I hope I’ll have it ready by next week.

The next Top of the Week show will be on next Wednesday, July 27, at 19:00 CEST/UTC+2.