Station Library
On the left sidebar is the Tools menu. An important additional tool is Station Library. This feature provides a solution for broadcasters seeking more fields for their SoundExchange reports, such as Album Name, Marketing Label, or ISRC number.
After you login to your Analytics & Reporting Manager (ARM) account and select a specific station, navigate to Station Library from the left-side menu.
Click the Upload button in the top right corner.
Download the sample .CSV file to your computer. This file includes all the required columns in the correct format: Artist, Song_Title, Album_Name, Marketing_Label and ISRC.
Using your favorite CSV editor like Excel or Google Sheets, modify the file and add your songs and their details to each column. Make sure to remove duplicates, there should be only one entry for each song.
Save the file in .CSV format. If your editor asks for encryption type, select UTF-8.
Upload the new .CSV file.
If there are no issues with the file, the Station Library should populate with the entries from the CSV file.
The Analytics & Reporting Manager will parse your Station Library CSV uploaded with the needed track details and then automatically update the SoundExchange report with additional information. It does this by uniquely matching a Station's Artist - Title that comes through via a station's encoder, and uses it on the export.
Track Info
A station must send a unique metadata update for each copyrighted performance via their encoder. For customers with redundant ingests and/or distribution across multiple streaming edges, we utilize the first event where a unique metadata update is captured for performance calculation. Should customers wish to configure this differently, please contact support.
DJ Mixes
A common mis-use of metadata updates are DJ mixes, whereas multiple copyrighted performances are included in a single "track". For a workaround, we recommend:
- Backfilling Metadata by exporting the automation log from your station and sending it to SoundStack Support
- 3rd party audio fingerprinting solution, which is available as an add-on. Please contact your Account Manager or reach out to support if you'd like to explore this option.
Common Issues with Metadata
Customers may see issues coming through their metadata due to misconfigured encoders at the studio location. Should you see any of this, please reach out to support. We can clean up the data as well as work with you to properly configure your encoder for transmitting clean data.
Example of poor metadata configured improperly on encoder:
StreamTitle='YOUTUBE @ THE BEATLES
Backfilling Metadata
Sometimes metadata updates can be missing from the streaming server logs, there can be encoder synchronization problem, streaming server issues or other aspects that may create gaps in the metadata updates.
SoundStack provides a simple process that allows publishers to fill the gaps of metadata updates by uploading those in a CSV file. To kick off this process, the proper CSV files can be shared over email to support@soundstack.com, and must be provided to SoundStack a minimum of 7 (seven) days after the end of the calendar month.
The CSV file should be in the following format:
Field Name | Mandatory | Description |
stream_name | yes | |
start_time | yes | Time should respect ISO 8601 format ISO 8601 |
artist | yes | |
title | yes | |
album | Recommended | |
isrc | Recommended | International Standard Recording Code |
record_label | Recommended | Record label |
Post-report Augmentation
For customers not utilizing the Track Library feature or sending additional fields such as ISRC, prior to your submission to SoundExchange, you must ensure all fields are properly included before uploading to Licensee Direct or SoundExchange SFTP. You can read more directly on SoundExchange's website at https://www.soundexchange.com/service-provider/reporting-requirements/