Step 1: Sign up and create a station

First thing to do is sign up on Radiojar. 

You can do that from our homepage https://radiojar.com

Select the plan that best suits your needs. 

You can change your plan or select to have a yearly plan later on through the management area of your radio station at the 'Plan & Billing' section.

You may sign up through your existing Google or Facebook account, or use your email.

If you choose to signup via email you will be sent a confirmation code. 

Insert this code in the appropriate field in order to proceed.

Once you successfully signup, you will be asked to complete some details about your personal account and the station you want to create.

The final step requires your billing and credit card information, in order to proceed with the creation of the station.

Once you complete this final step, your station will be up and running and you will be directed to the management page.

Now your station is active and ready to broadcast!

Follow the next steps to get your station broadcasting using automations.

Step 2: Upload songs (all plans except Simulcast)

Now that your radio station is ready to broadcast, all you'll need to do is upload some music files. 

In the Management area of your radio station you will see a "Media Library" tab. 

The Media Library will be opened in a new tab.

You will find an "Upload tracks" option, through which you may drag & drop music files directly from your hard disk (or click the "Add Files" button on the bottom left and select them).

You can also use Dropbox to upload songs. 

Once you’ve added some files click on the "Start Upload" button to start the upload process. 

Since the Media Library is open in a different tab, you can leave this working in the background while getting to know other features of your Station.

You can visit this window again from time to time to check the upload status and/or add more files until you're done.

Once your files are uploaded, you should see them listed and be able to edit their metadata and add tags. 

Tagging will enable you to categorize your music files and create track selection rules in Pilots. 

Pilots are rule-based playlists that you can schedule when there are no live shows playing. 

Radiojar will try to automatically assign tags when processing your uploaded tracks.

Let’s see how you can add tags. First select one or more songs that you want to tag. 

Click on the "Tag" menu item. You should see a list of the available tags in the dropdown that appears. 

You can check any of the listed tags if you wish to include these tracks under it, or add a new one.

Step 3:  Create a default pilot (All Plans except Simulcast)

Pilots are a way to automatically generate playlists based on rules you define.

Go to the "Pilots" tab in the radio station's management area and you will see a Default pilot. 

The default pilot will play during the times when you haven't scheduled anything.

You can add a new pilot and set its rules. 

Each rule leads to the selection of a group of tracks, that correspond to that characteristic. 

There are several choices here; the track that will be selected can be tagged with one or more specific tags, can belong to a certain artist, album or be searched based on a keyword, or even from a combination of them (all the rules you enter here will apply to the selection of a song). 

Note that, the more complicated the rules you enter, the narrower the selection of songs that will fit these rules become, so your pilots become less varied.

Click "Done" in order to save your rules. 

Your pilot is now ready. 

According to the tracks you have in your library and the rules you've entered for your pilot, Radiojar will show you an estimate of how many unique playlists your pilot can create.

This is indicated under "unique loops"; for example, the indication "unique loops: 5" means that the specific pilot can generate 5 different playlists without repeating any track.

More tutorials on pilots here.

Step 4: Check your radio station's stream

Visit your microsite and check your radio station's player. Here is how you can customize the microsite of your radio station. 

Step 5: Go live!

The next step is to start a live show. You can do this in two ways:

Connect now using Radiojar's virtual studio or a direct link from your computer, using your own software or hardware for mixing.

To connect now using Radiojar's virtual studio, use the "Virtual Studio" button on the overview page of your radio station's management area. 

Learn more on the virtual studio and its operation on this tutorial. 

To connect using your own equipment, use the configuration settings you can find on the "Settings" section of your radio station's management area, under the "Broadcast" pane.

If you want a producer/DJ to go live on a specific time, you can create a proper show (this applies for the Professional plan or higher). 

Schedule it and the producer/DJ will be able to "go live" at the time you decide.

More regarding the "Shows" feature in this tutorial.

Have fun!