Digital DJ’s have been able to tweet track names for some time now, it was something that was brought to us first by the very popular techno legend and tech geek, Richie Hawtin (I use the word geek in the most affectionate way). Richie devised a computer program that could read the track names from Traktor and automatically tweet your DJ Set song titles. I previously covered a different app from a lesser know character, the traktor Scrobbler, but this seems to be getting no support or updates. For this reason I wanted to let you in on the original Radr app from Richie himself.

What is Radr

Radr is an app that was designed by Richie Hawtin to connect with your Twitter account. It reads the Artist Name and Track name from the Meta tag inside the music file you are playing. Once installed and set up, you ‘broadcast’ the information from Traktor to Radr, which in-turn tweets it out to your twitter feed.

Why Tweet your DJ Set?

Social media is a huge influencer and an integral part of society these days. Many might prefer it not to be, but for the foreseeable future, it will definitely remain high on the list of ways we can connect with the world.
As social media channels infiltrate our lives, many people have jumped on the bandwagon only to fail and fall flat on their face with social media. Whilst there isn’t necessarily a right way to use social media, there certainly is a wrong way.

There are many resources out there to help you out with your social media efforts and as such I won’t make this post about social media success. I will however explain how you can responsibly use twitter with Traktor to increase your exposure and support your favourite producers.
Tweeting tracks works great in conjunction with a live performance. Either you are in a club and want to tell the people present what tracks you are currently playing, or perhaps you are broadcasting live on the radio or mixlr and want to pass on your playlist to your audience all over the world.

Whatever your reasons, tweeting tracks can either help you or hinder you on social media, you need to get the balance right so as not to annoy your followers. I will explain a little more on this later in the article.

Setting Up Radr with Traktor

Setting up Radr is relatively easy. If like me, you always like to rush into things without reading the instructions, you will fail and wonder why it’s not working! So to make it easier for you I suggest following these instructions:-

1. Head over to RADR and download the app (there is a Mac or Windows version)
2. Run the installation process.
   
3. The App will then ask you to connect with Twitter – (Make sure you are logged in with the account you want to use).
   
   
4. Once you authorize the account, you will be presented with a pin number – Type this into the small box in the top right of the screen in the above screenshot.
5. Head to the Radr Preferences and make sure  in the ‘Listeners‘ Tab that you have Traktor set to ‘Activate‘ and on port 8000.
   
   
6. In the ‘Twitter’ section make sure the ‘Active’ box is checked. In this screen you can also change the text that each tweet displays before the name of the track.
   
   
   
7. Inside of Traktor you need to head to the ‘Broadcast’ Preferences.
   
   
8. Here you need to set the Proxy to ‘None‘.
9. Set the Server address to: 127.0.0.1
10. Set the mount path to: stream.ogg
11. Set the format to the lowest as we are only sending track data: Ogg Vorbis, 11025 Hz, 32 kBit/s
12. Leave the Stream URL and Stream Name blank.
13. It doesn’t matter about the Stream Description or Genre.
14. In the Transport section of the preferences, you must set the Play Count. The Play Count is the number of seconds that a track must play before RADR picks it up to tweet it. As you may be playing the track fro some time in the headphones to cue it up, you will want to set this quite high, maybe to 30 seconds or more.

    
    Now all the setting are as you need them, you can start testing it out.

• I found that closing down both programs before testing helped.
• Open up RADR App and hit ‘Start‘.
  
  
• Open up Traktor and hit the broadcast button – It should turn a solid blue.

• Load in a track and press play. Once the allotted amount of time has passed (that you previously set in the ‘Play Count‘ preferences), you should see the details of the track display in the RADR window.

You should now be tweeting your Tracks to your Twitter followers! Feels Good right!!

• There is also an option in RADR of setting the HUD to be on. 

• This will give you a Head Up Display, showing the track names that RADR is picking up.

You can also send a tweet right from the RADR app without having to load up a web browser. This limits the need for having too much open on your desktop whilst DJ’ing.

Use Twitter and RADR Responsibly

As I mentioned above, you want to get the right balance when tweeting your tracks. If you are playing a mashup and you are changing the tracks every minute your twitter stream is going to be a little too much for many of your followers to handle. Whilst you want to stand out in the crowd you also don’t want to be taking up the entire twitter feed.
I would suggest using the RADR App sparingly.

• Perhaps use RADR to introduce a live set, tweet the first 3 or 4 tracks only then encourage people to tune in live to your audio broadcast.
• If you are playing a long set, maybe turn RADR on and off sporadically through out the set to broadcast a few tracks at a time.
• You can change the default message on the fly to change it up a little
• Be sure to use hashtags to get noticed in streams that others follow.
• Don’t be selfish – Maybe throw out some mentions to producers of the tracks you are playing, encouraging others to follow them. 

Edit: Following publication of this article I received a Tweet From DJ Endo and thought this was a wise addition to the tips in this article and wanted to share this with you below:-

@traktortips What I do is tweet every track but once the broadcast is done, I go and delete all my tweets so it doesn’t clog everyone’s feed

— Endo (@DJEndoLive) September 19, 2013

If you use RADR well, you can increase your twitter following, if you use it badly, you may lose some followers. Be sure to monitor your use of this app and use it to benefit others.

If you have used this app before and want to offer any advice to other Traktor Tips’ readers, please add your thoughts below.