User Guide

Radio made by
the crowd

CrowdControl turns everyone in the same place into a shared DJ. Your GPS determines your stations. Your playlists feed the trackpool. No algorithm, no curator — just the actual taste of your local crowd.

Overview

What is CrowdControl?

CrowdControl is a location-based collaborative radio platform for iOS, Android, web, Apple TV, Android TV, and visionOS. Open it, and you're automatically placed in up to five community radio stations based on where you are.

The trackpool for each station is drawn live from the Spotify libraries of everyone tuned in. The next track is picked on demand by selecting a random listener, then a random song from their active playlist. There's no stored queue and no recommendation engine — the music is whoever's there.

Premium members can create private stations: fixed-location venues, mobile DJ sets, invite-only sessions. Private stations come with full control over filters, DJ Mode, track pool weights, and listener permissions.

Geo stations

Community Stations

Five station levels are created automatically from your GPS position. You're a member of all of them at once — tune into any level at any time.

World Every CrowdControl listener on Earth
Country Everyone in your country
State / Region Your state or regional area
City Your metro area
ZIP Code Your immediate neighborhood

Station membership updates automatically as you move. On Apple TV, Android TV, and visionOS — where GPS hardware isn't available — a city picker lets you set your location manually.

No listeners, no tracks. The trackpool is the live Spotify libraries of whoever is tuned in. An empty station has nothing to play — join it, and your music immediately enters the rotation.

Listener features

For Listeners

Tap any station on the home screen to open its detail view. Tap Tune In — Spotify starts playing the current track at the exact position the rest of the crowd is at. You're in sync from the moment you join.

Track Reactions

♥

Like

Saves the track to your App Favorites playlist — separate from your Spotify Liked Songs, and editable from the Playlists tab.

✕

Dislike Coming Soon

Signals the track isn't for you. Contributes to the station's dislike count, which can trigger auto-moderation on private stations.

⏭

Skip Request Coming Soon

Vote to move on. The button shows your running vote count and the threshold — e.g. Skip (1/2). When the threshold is reached, the track advances automatically. Uses one skip credit.

Fast Pass Premium Coming Soon

Browse the station's track pool and queue a specific song to play next. Your request is stored server-side — the next time the station advances, your track plays first before the random algorithm runs. One Fast Pass credit per slot; one request per listener at a time.

Now Playing Details

The Now Playing screen shows the current track's play count, like count, and Spotify popularity. The full audio fingerprint — BPM, musical key and mode, energy, mood (valence), danceability, acousticness, liveness, and speechiness — is available via the analysis toggle button. Genre tagging and time signature display are Coming Soon.

Play History

The History tab shows every track played in the last seven days. The history automatically refreshes each time a new track starts. Once Skip Request voting is enabled, tracks voted off before finishing will display a skipped badge.

No-Repeat Window

The same song won't play twice within six hours on any station — even as the listener pool changes throughout the day. If the pool runs low enough that no fresh tracks remain, the filter is relaxed and the full pool is used.

Tuning Out

Tap the active headset icon in the station header to tune out. This stops CrowdControl from tracking the station's now-playing and resets your skip vote count — Spotify continues playing whatever's already in your queue.

Private stations Premium

For Station Owners

Create a private station from the My Radio tab. Only one of your stations can be live at a time. Hit Go Live to activate it — nearby listeners can discover it, or you can keep it invite-only with a password.

Station Setup

Name & Icon Custom display name and icon URL shown in station lists and on the detail card.
Location Mode Static — pinned to a fixed address (venue, home studio). Dynamic — follows your current GPS position in real time, useful for street performances, beach sessions, and mobile DJ sets.
Visibility & Radius Public stations are discoverable by listeners within your set radius. Private stations require a password. The radius (in metres) determines how far a listener must be to join.

Sound Filters

Filters run on every candidate track before it's eligible to play. All active conditions must pass. The advanced query builder lets you combine rules with and/or logic across any audio feature.

Genre Coming Soon Whitelist specific genres. Tracks without a matching genre tag are excluded entirely. Genre data is pending a reliable tagging source.
BPM Range Min/max BPM window. Tracks outside the range don't enter the pool.
Release Year Minimum release year — useful for era-specific or decade stations.
Explicit Content Allow or block tracks flagged explicit on Spotify.
Advanced Query And/or rule trees across any audio feature: BPM, energy, valence, danceability, acousticness, instrumentalness, liveness, speechiness, popularity, key, mode, time signature, duration, release year, explicit.

DJ Mode

When enabled, the next track is scored against the current one for harmonic continuity. Candidates are ranked and the winner is drawn from the top-scoring quartile — controlled randomness, not pure chance.

BPM Tolerance Maximum BPM difference allowed from the current track. Lower = tighter energy continuity.
Exact ±1 ±3 ±5 ±10 ±15 ±20 Any
Key Compatibility
Any Same key Camelot wheel
Camelot wheel matches harmonically adjacent keys — the method DJs use for transitions that never clash.
Genre Strictness Coming Soon
Any Related Exact
Related requires at least one shared genre tag. Exact requires a majority of the current track's genres to match.

Track Pool Weights

Control whose music gets prioritised. The two weights must sum to 100% or less — the remainder goes to fully random listener selection.

Owner Music % Probability the next track is drawn from the owner's own library. Set to 100% for a fully personal station; 0% to stay random.
Recent Listener % Probability of drawing from one of the most recently joined N listeners. Gives new arrivals immediate representation in the mix.
Default Playlist Which of your playlists to use when the owner-music path fires. Defaults to all active playlists if unset.

Auto-Mod & Access Coming Soon

Skip Threshold Coming Soon Number of skip-request votes needed to advance the track. Smaller values give listeners more collective control.
Disable Skip Voting Coming Soon Hides the Skip button for all listeners. The owner is the sole decision-maker on track changes.
Disable Fast Pass Coming Soon Prevents listeners from queuing specific tracks. Keeps the mix fully algorithmic — only the filters, weights, and DJ Mode decide what plays.

New here?

Quick Start

From zero to listening in under two minutes.

1

Open the app and allow location

CrowdControl places you in up to five community stations instantly — world, country, state, city, and ZIP code. No account needed to browse. On TV or visionOS, use the city picker instead of GPS.

2

Sign in with Spotify

Tap the Profile tab and connect your account. Your playlists immediately become part of the trackpool for every community station you're a member of. You contribute; the crowd contributes back.

3

Tap a station, then Tune In

Open any station from the home screen. Tap Tune In — Spotify starts playing the current track at the exact position everyone else is at.

4

React to what's playing

Heart it to save to your App Favorites. Dislike and Skip Request voting are coming soon — the backend is ready, they'll be enabled in a near-term update.

5

Activate your playlists

Go to the Playlists tab. Create a playlist or sync one from Spotify. Toggle it active — your tracks enter the rotation for every station you're in.

6

Create a private station Premium

Open My Radio and tap +. Name your station, set its location mode (static venue or dynamic GPS), configure filters and DJ Mode, then tap Go Live. Share the link, or let nearby listeners discover it on their own.