Say Goodbye to Awkward Silence: We do in store radio, the right way.

How to choose an in store radio provider.

When it comes to in store radio, the difference between a simple playlist and a professionally mixed radio experience is significant. Sonair Radio offers more than just background music for retail. It provides a fully dynamic, expertly crafted audio experience that elevates your store’s atmosphere to new heights.

To prove our theory that Sonair stands alone, we tested four in store music providers. We assessed how they handle the basics: playing music, mixing from one item into another, and sound quality.

Playing and Mixing music and jingles.

We believe that one of the crucial factors of an in store radio experience is something that sounds “polished” and “tight”. Something that doesn’t just feel like you’re experiencing random jump cuts from one playlist item to another. The entire broadcast should feel just like a real radio station, because after all, your brand deserves it.

Unfortunately, the four platforms we experimented with just played one item after another. This left awkward gaps in between songs, jingles and adverts. They’re not long gaps, but enough for a customer to notice silence while every last second of a song plays.

One provider did have a crossfading feature which helped a little bit, but it was static. You set the crossfade duration to something you like, let’s say three seconds, and that’s it. Now the last 1.5 seconds, and the first 1.5 seconds of each song will be mixed across. It’s better than nothing at all, for sure. But it’s hard to get the crossfading time right. It will sound awful depending on which songs its being applied on, and when it’s applied to your branding elements…ouch.

So, whats the right way to do it?

With Sonair Radio, we use advanced AI to analyze each track. We determine the best points to fade and mix jingles seamlessly. We mark key points in the audio such hooks and vocals within music. This allows sweepers play right up until the vocal of the next song kicks in! We analyze fades, and we even detect keys and tempos of music to ensure a seamless audio experience.

While we can’t show direct recordings from our competitors systems, we’ve recreated two of the examples we heard. Then, we’ve put together an example of how Sonair handles mixing.

Example 1: Audio with no mixing, songs are left to fade, sweepers are not mixed into the intro.

Example 2: Audio with fixed crossfading, it’s better for sure, but listen to the fading on the branded sweepers. Ouch.

Example 3: The Sonair way. The outgoing song fades quickly and mixes into the incoming song. The sweepers are triggered and mixed so that they “hit the vocal”. This sounds fluid!

While deciding which approach is best is a subjective topic, we believe that the Sonair way is tighter. But if you don’t agree, that’s fine too. Because Sonair is so flexible that it can run in either of these 3 ways.

Sound Quality Findings

Realistically speaking, unless you’re listening on headphones or good speakers, high fidelity audio isn’t as apparent. As your customers are walking around, they’re not going to notice a song is only 96kbps as opposed to 320kbps.

All the providers we tested delivered audio between 96kbps and 320kbps, using either MP3, AAC+ or OGG/FLAC. Audiophiles may expect full lossless files as they marshal audio through their perfectly calibrated and warmed up tube amplifiers. But for in store radio, and casual listening, the qualities we’re talking about here were perfect. All providers consistently hit the mark. Well done everyone!

Audio processing: A requirement for consistent in store radio.

Audio processing, also known as audio signal processing, is the manipulation of sound signals using a DSP (digital signal processor). Its a process whereby a DSP will clean up and optimize the audio signals, adding things like bass boosting, volume normalization etc.

You may think that it’s useless in an in store environment, that it’d only ever be noticeable if you’re listening with good speakers or headphones. Unfortunately, it seems a lot of other providers thought that too. I would argue, that audio processing is even more important when you’re in an in store environment.

Why is audio processing so important for in store radio?

All music is inherently mastered differently. They’re mastered to be played on big powerful speakers, or headphones. They’re meant to be enjoyed. However, this can lead to inconsistent audio quality in a noisy in store environment where the speakers may not be right above you.

Without proper processing, some audio can get lost, while others boom out over the speakers like crazy. That’s not a good look, or, should we say…sound. So how do we handle it compared to the others?

Introducing Sonair Nebula

All Sonair stations come equipped with Sonair Nebula as standard. This processing standard adds punch and sparkle to the audio. It also normalizes volume, ensuring there are no excessively loud or quiet bits.

The providers we tested did not offer any audio processing services even as an optional extra.

In the displays below, you can note the difference between an unprocessed audio stream and one with Sonair Nebula applied.

While the pictures below can say a thousand words, the audio below can say a lot more. Take a look at the images below and see the difference, then scroll a little further to hear it.

Example 1: No audio processing applied.

Example 2: The Sonair way. Sonair Nebula applied, with bass boost, stereo imaging and azimuth correction, automatic gain control and compression/limiting.

Again, audio is very subjective, so there’s never an answer that will satisfy everyone. But Sonair Nebula boosts presence, creates an airier sound, and ensures consistent volume levels, allowing your brand to shine through.

Orban, a leading provider of broadcast audio technology agree that audio processing is the key to consistency.

Audio processing provides a few benefits that radio or television listeners are sometimes not even aware of. For example, the reduction of dynamic range caused by processing makes listening in noisy environments much less difficult. In music having a wide dynamic range, soft passages are often lost completely in the presence of background noise. Few listeners listen in a perfectly quiet environment. If the volume is turned up, subsequent louder passages can be uncomfortably loud. In the automobile, dynamic range cannot exceed 20 dB without causing these problems. Competent audio processing can reduce the dynamic range of the program without introducing objectionable side effects.

Orban Labs – Advantages of Audio Processing

So, what are the conclusions?

Originally, this article is not what we had planned. We planned to discuss the benefits of in store radio and how Sonair helps you achieve a consistent branded audio experience. However, for us to do that, we needed to know more about the competition.

While we had researched our competitive space, we never expected to discover just how far Sonair Radio stands out. Many providers offer in store radio services that play music for your business, but not all services deliver the same quality.

Sonair’s in store radio service is a unique player in the market. It uses powerful mixing technology, clean audio, and tailored audio processing for retail and leisure environments. That’s not just in our opinion either. Many of our clients praise how easy Sonair Radio is to use, and how good it sounds.

As our business has grown over the last 10-15 years, we have been searching for a solution for our audio players on our sites throughout the UK that allowed us to have centralized control but that was not overly onerous to manage. Our search took us far and wide until we found the Sonair system. A bespoke radio service that allows us to completely customize the music we play in our sites. Our perfect solution! An amazing product with service from the Sonair team that matches. I cannot recommend the product and company enough!

Dave Rich – Facilities and Projects Director, TeamSport Indoor Karting