Cloud DSP processes the sound of everything your AutoDJ station airs: library tracks, live DJs and relays. DSP stands for digital signal processing. It runs inside your station, before the stream is encoded, so every output and every listener hears the same sound.
Cloud DSP is in beta. It is available on the CloudRadio One and Custom AutoDJ plans. Stations on other plans do not have the Sound page.
Quick answer
- Go to Sound in your station's left sidebar, under Management.
- A station starts on Bypass (off): your audio goes out exactly as it comes in.
- Pick Level only or a preset: Natural, Smooth, Balanced, Punchy, Bass, Club or Talk.
- On a preset, adjust Loudness, Amount and the 8-band equalizer if you want. Some presets have more sliders.
- Click Save as to keep the result as one of your own sounds.
A change applies at once. Players run about 20 seconds behind live, so your listeners hear it about 20 seconds after you make it.
Before you start
Cloud DSP stays off until you pick something other than Bypass (off). While it is in beta:
- The presets are still being tuned.
- Your sound never changes on its own. When CloudRadio improves a preset, your station keeps playing what it had, and that copy is kept under Your sounds as an earlier version. See When a preset is updated.
Choose what your station runs
The Sound page lists everything you can pick on the left (above, on a phone): Off or level only, then Presets, then Your sounds. Each entry has a short line on the music it suits. Click one to put it on air.
The right side shows the sound you picked: its name and description, a map of the processing chain, Rename and Delete for one of your own sounds, the Levels meter, then Adjustments: the Reset, Save and Save as buttons, the controls and the equalizer. The note under the Adjustments heading reads Applied now. Your player is about 20 seconds behind once your station confirms the change.
Bypass and Level only
| Choice | What it does |
|---|---|
| Bypass (off) | Your audio goes out exactly as it comes in, with no processing at all. For stations that already process their sound themselves. |
| Level only | Only evens out the volume between songs, live shows and relays, slowly, with a safety net on loud peaks. The tone stays exactly as recorded. |
Neither has settings to adjust, so the page shows no controls for them.
Presets
| Preset | What it does | Loudness |
|---|---|---|
| Natural | Leaves your music as it was recorded: it only evens out the volume, gently lifting quiet passages, and softens harsh "s" sounds. For classical, jazz, acoustic and anything you want left untouched. | -14 LUFS, up to -11 |
| Smooth | A warm, relaxed sound that stays easy on the ears for hours. For soft pop, oldies, lounge and late night shows. | -14 LUFS, up to -9.5 |
| Balanced | Evens out every song and keeps it clear and full, with moderate compression. A good starting point for most stations, and for shows that mix music and talk. | -14 LUFS, up to -11 |
| Punchy | Keeps the punch of the record: kicks and snares land with the attack they were mixed with, on a deep low end. For rock, funk, hip-hop and electronic. | -14 LUFS, up to -12 |
| Bass | Deep, steady low end with clear vocals on top. For hip-hop, R&B, reggae and afrobeats. | -14 LUFS, up to -10 |
| Club | Big kick, extra bass and crisp highs, with heavy compression that makes the music pump around the beat like on a dance floor. For house, techno, EDM and DJ sets. | -14 LUFS, up to -10 |
| Talk | Clear, even voices with less boom, and pauses that stay quiet. For talk shows, news, sermons and podcasts. Music may sound thin on it. | -14 LUFS, up to -10 |
Every preset starts at -14 LUFS, the level CloudRadio normalizes your uploads to, so switching between presets, Level only and Bypass keeps the same volume. The Loudness column shows how far each preset's Loudness control goes when you want your station louder. LUFS (Loudness Units relative to Full Scale) measures perceived loudness.
Every preset and Level only keep peaks under -2 dBTP (decibels true peak). That leaves room for the encoder, so the stream does not clip.
Picking a preset gives your station its own copy of it, with every control at its starting position. Your station keeps running that copy until you pick something else.
What each preset runs
Under its description, the sound you pick shows a map of the processing chain: every step our presets use, in the order your audio goes through them. The steps this sound runs are lit in blue; the others are dimmed. Click or tap any step to read what it does.
An effect slider at 0% dims that effect. Amount at 0% dims the compressor and the effects it scales: Tube, Kick pump, Warmth and Harshness control. The 8-band EQ is lit on every preset, since the equalizer is always there to adjust. When every band is at 0 dB, its description says it is flat in this sound. Bypass (off) and Level only do not show the map.
| Preset | Low cut | Leveler | Tube | 8-band EQ | 5-band compressor | Kick pump | Warmth | Transient shaper | Stereo enhancer | De-esser | Harshness control | Limiter |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Natural | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | |||||||
| Smooth | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | ||||
| Balanced | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | ||||||
| Punchy | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | ||||
| Bass | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | |||||
| Club | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | |||
| Talk | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
- Low cut removes the lowest rumble on every sound. Talk cuts higher, everything under 100 Hz.
- Leveler evens out the volume between songs and passages.
- Tube adds the soft warmth of tube equipment to the lows and mids.
- 8-band EQ sets the tone, with your equalizer changes on top. It is lit on every preset. On Natural and Smooth every band starts at 0 dB, so it is flat until you move a slider under 8-band equalizer.
- 5-band compressor holds five parts of the sound, from bass to treble, near a set level.
- Kick pump, Warmth and Stereo enhancer are the effects described in Adjust the effects.
- Transient shaper makes each syllable stand out (the Clarity slider on Talk).
- De-esser softens harsh "s" sounds.
- Harshness control tames harsh upper mids when they stick out.
- Limiter keeps peaks under the ceiling.
When a preset is updated
Your sound never changes on its own. When CloudRadio improves a preset, your station keeps playing what it had, and we keep that copy for you under Your sounds, named after the preset, for example Club (earlier version). It stays selected. To hear our newest version, pick the preset again. The earlier version stays in your sounds, so you can go back to it, rename it or delete it. To keep a sound under a name of your own, use Save as.
Adjust a preset
Every control saves as you move it. Listeners hear the change about 20 seconds later.
| Control | Range | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Loudness | -18 LUFS up to the preset's limit | How loud your station plays. Most streaming services play at about -14 LUFS. Louder leaves less dynamics. |
| Amount | 0 to 150% (100% on Natural) | How much of the preset's processing you get, from light to full at 100%. Above 100% the sound gets denser and a little louder, and some music may distort: see below. |
Each preset has its own loudness limit, listed in the table above. See Audio Processing for how CloudRadio levels your library at upload.
Turning Amount down also plays your station a little quieter, by up to 4 dB at 0%. With lighter processing there is less room under the peak ceiling, and the lower level keeps the sound clean.
Turn Amount past 100%
Amount goes up to 150% on every preset except Natural. Past 100%, the preset is pushed harder, the way the top of a broadcast processor's range is: its compressor and its own effects work harder (the pump on Club gets deeper, the bass warmth on Punchy, Bass and Club gets stronger, the tube on Smooth gets thicker), and the last stage before the stream, the clipper and the limiter, gets more of the signal. Up to 140%, your station plays less than 1 LU louder on average: the peaks come down instead, so the sound gets denser. At 150% it plays about 1 to 2 LU louder than at 100%, up to 3 LU on some music. A sound kept from an earlier preset version, and any sound saved before Amount went past 100%, stops at 100%: pick the preset again for its newest version.
Above 100%, some music may distort. Whether you hear it depends on the music, and near 150% you will often hear it. The top of the slider is meant to go too far, so you can hear what too far is.
The part of the slider's track above 100% is light amber. When you drag past 100%, the filled part of the track and the value turn amber, and a line under the slider reads Above 100%, some music may distort.
From 125%, the processing chain map lights the Clipper.
Natural leaves the frequency bands alone, so Amount has nothing to turn down and is switched off for that preset.
The curve above the equalizer runs from bass on the left to treble on the right. Where the line rises, that part of the sound is louder. Where it dips, it is quieter. It shows the preset's own tone with your equalizer changes on top, and a flat line means nothing is added or removed. The curve does not show what the rest of the preset's processing does to the sound.
Adjust the effects
Some presets run effects of their own. For them, an Effects group appears under Amount:
| Control | Presets | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Pump | Club | How deep the music dips on each kick before it swells back. |
| Warmth | Punchy, Bass, Club | How much the loudest bass is rounded off, for a fuller low end. |
| Width | Punchy, Club | How much wider the stereo sounds than the recording. |
Each slider goes from 0%, where the effect is off, to 100%, the preset's own setting. Only Amount goes past 100%. A preset that does not run an effect does not show its slider. One of your own sounds shows the sliders of the preset it was saved from.
Amount turns Pump and Warmth down and up with the rest of the processing. With Amount at 50% and Pump at 100%, the pump is half as deep as the preset's. With Amount at 110%, it is a tenth deeper. Width does not follow Amount.
Adjust clarity on Talk
Talk has a Clarity slider, from 0 to 100%, starting at 33%. It sets how much each syllable stands out. Higher is clearer and drier. A music bed under the voice gets thinner as you raise it. The other presets do not show it.
Fine-tune with the equalizer
The 8-band equalizer has eight sliders from the deepest bass (60 Hz) on the left to the highest treble (14 kHz) on the right. Each one turns one part of the sound up or down. A slider shows that part's level in dB and starts where the preset sets it, so on a preset with its own tone the sliders are not all at 0. All eight share one scale, from -6 dB at the bottom to +6 dB at the top, so you can read each level from the slider's height.
The equalizer works ahead of the preset's processing. Presets that process the frequency bands hold each part of the sound near a set level, so they even out part of what you change there.
Undo your changes
While a sound has changes, Adjustments is marked Edited. Click Reset, next to the heading, to put every control back where the sound started: where the preset starts, or your saved sound as you last saved it.
Keep your own sounds
Your sounds holds the sounds you saved for this station.
- Pick a preset and adjust it.
- Click Save as, next to the Adjustments heading.
- Type a name, up to 40 characters, and click Save sound.
The sound appears under Your sounds and is selected. Saving does not change what is on air.
- Use a saved sound: click it. Listeners hear it about 20 seconds later.
- Update a saved sound: select it, adjust the controls, then click Save. To keep both versions, click Save as and give the new one another name.
- Rename: click the pencil next to the sound in the list, or Rename when the sound is selected.
- Delete: click the trash can next to the sound in the list, or Delete when the sound is selected, then confirm. You can delete the sound on air too: your station keeps playing it exactly as it sounds now, it just stops being one of your sounds. The one exception is a sound on air that is based on an earlier version of a preset, such as Club (earlier version): it stays in your sounds while it is on air, so pick another sound first.
A saved sound is a complete copy. Updating or deleting it never changes a preset, and a preset update never changes it.
An earlier version that CloudRadio keeps for you after a preset update counts toward the number of sounds you can keep. It is kept even when your list is full. To save a new sound after that, delete one you no longer need.
Switching with unsaved changes
Picking another preset or sound replaces the changes you have not saved. The page asks first:
- Save as keeps your changes as a new sound, then switches.
- Discard and switch switches without keeping them.
- Cancel stays on the current sound.
Read the levels
While your station runs anything other than Bypass (off) and the Sound page is open, Levels shows what Cloud DSP is doing:
| Row | Meaning |
|---|---|
| In | The level of your audio going in, in dBFS (decibels relative to full scale). |
| Out | The level coming out. |
| Each stage | Between the two, every stage of the chain in order, with what it is doing right now: left of the centre line is taken away, right is added, and a full side is 12 dB. A greyed stage does not run in this sound. Click a stage to see what it does. |
| Level change | The difference between In and Out. A positive value means the audio comes out louder. |
Players run about 20 seconds behind the meter. A row reads Silence when there is no audio on that side.
If Levels does not appear, your station is not reporting its levels. Cloud DSP still works without the meter.
Live DJs and relays
Cloud DSP sits after your station's source switching, so live DJs and relays go through it too.
A station you relay is often processed already by its own broadcaster. Processing it a second time can make it sound squashed. If a relay sounds too dense, pick a gentler preset such as Natural, turn Amount down, or pick Level only.
Louder jingles and ads
Tags with a loudness boost play their tracks louder. On Bypass (off), the boost is limited by each file's own headroom, so a track that already peaks near the ceiling gets little or no boost. On Level only or a preset, the full boost applies to your AutoDJ tracks, because Cloud DSP keeps the peaks under -2 dBTP. The boost does not apply to a live DJ or a relay.
Status
The status at the top of the Sound page shows what your station is doing:
| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Off | Your station runs Bypass (off) and airs its audio exactly as it comes in. |
| Waiting for the station | Your station has not confirmed Cloud DSP yet. |
| Cloud DSP on | Everything on air goes through Cloud DSP. |
| Starts with your station | Your station is off. Cloud DSP starts when you start the station. |
| Needs a restart | Your station runs a version from before Cloud DSP. |
| Restarting | Your station is restarting to load Cloud DSP. |
| Problem | The station could not apply the Cloud DSP settings. |
Restart to load Cloud DSP
A station that was started before Cloud DSP existed reads Needs a restart once you pick something other than Bypass (off).
- Click Restart station.
- Read the confirmation and click Restart.
Your station restarts once, and listeners lose the stream for a few seconds. Most players reconnect on their own. The status reads Restarting, then Cloud DSP on when the station confirms Cloud DSP is running. Your choice and your settings are kept: the station loads them as it starts.
While a station needs a restart, the note next to the controls reads Saved. Applies once the station restarts with Cloud DSP after each change.
When something goes wrong
If the status reads Problem, pick Bypass (off) to air your audio unprocessed, and contact support if it does not clear.
If the note next to the controls reads Saved. The station has not confirmed it yet, your change is saved and reaches the station when it reconnects.
Related
- Audio Processing for what CloudRadio does to your files at upload
- Bitrates and Codecs for choosing your stream quality