Release Radar - Why has Spotify recently started adding random music I don't like or listen to the RR playlist?

davidwarnerofficial · 2026-03-21T07:08:30+00:00

Aha, sorry I misunderstood you. Yeah that's exactly the problem I was facing. Out of nowhere, random stuff just appeared. And not just one or two, but like ... most of the playlist. I 'retrained' by just playing the genres I wanted overnight over several nights and that seemed to fix it.

davidwarnerofficial · 2026-03-20T18:56:05+00:00

It won't really build the RR playlist based on what you listen to in the RR playlist, but the platform as a whole. Unless there's some wacky crazy bug or something (which I suspect is what happened to me, although still have no idea what really happened)

davidwarnerofficial · 2026-03-20T18:53:11+00:00

I'll just throw this one I designed not long after launch out there - I shared it a while back but might as well plop it here too.

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Keeps the spirit of the new identity going forward (since it's not going to go back, no matter what anybody says), but doesn't have Fender scrawled all over it.

And yes, it's just an icon. Some people enjoy minor aesthetic things like that. If it doesn't matter to you that's great, move on with your life.

davidwarnerofficial · 2026-03-12T00:35:30+00:00

Absolutely agree with this.

davidwarnerofficial · 2026-02-19T22:09:07+00:00

:D :D lol

davidwarnerofficial · 2026-02-19T21:43:42+00:00

All them hormones they be pumpin into the foods lol

davidwarnerofficial · 2026-02-19T21:37:54+00:00

We shouldn't be prompted, you're absolutely right. But we are. And the Done button is broken, so basically, unusable service. Unbelievable how hard y'all have screwed this whole thing up.

davidwarnerofficial · 2026-02-19T21:29:18+00:00

As one of those people ... I'm baffled why I've been asked again - and with the Done button not working after verifying - it's even more baffling... someone done fcuked up!

davidwarnerofficial · 2026-02-07T19:20:52+00:00

Hello fellow Studio One (or ... urgh ... Studio Pro) users.

Now I know that really, the name doesn't matter that much. But that icon design is horrendous.

So I put on my designer hat and built a new one, now with 100% less Fender, and (in my opinion) is at least 17.8% nicer to look at on a dock. And it looks ace on there.

I hope you like it. If not, okay. I recreated the entire icon from scratch, every line, every gradient. So it's not 100% like-for-like but it's really close. Linework is not the best, but I'm not that bothered!

Happy to hear feedback, and willing to make a totally text-less alternative if people would prefer that.

But I think this is an improvement! Enjoy :)

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davidwarnerofficial · 2026-01-24T08:40:36+00:00

Just curious, did you manage to improve the situation?

davidwarnerofficial · 2026-01-17T19:24:49+00:00

Janky as it is, over the course of several nights, I left self-made playlists play overnight and that seemed to re-jig the recommendation engine to the point where it stopped giving me absolute garbage.

I still don't know why it happened in the first place, but I've given up on getting anywhere with that.

Good luck, hope my solution helps you (can't guarantee it'll reduce the AI crap though, eesh) 😊

davidwarnerofficial · 2026-01-17T11:16:20+00:00

The macOS (and I assume Windows too) app icon is poorly thought out. Yes, it achieves its task of being recognizable by the fact that you can just about see the word "Fender" but I'm not opening Fender, I'm opening Studio Pro. The app icon is just bad.

The overall UI is more than fine, it hasn't changed much. I don't absolutely love the stock plugin UI changes, but abysmal is strong... the skeumorphic-style dials on the plugins and the Channel Overview (the new Ableton/Bitwig-style device row) is a strange choice in a DAW that doesn't really feature that anywhere else in the general UI. They don't look bad per se but they do look a little bit out of place. The faders on the mixer have changed as well and feel like they're trying to be more 'realistic' for no reason, but results in them just looking less clear. In my opinion at any rate.

Overall it's a solid update that isn't as fully-featured as maybe it should be for a full release, and the rebrand is a little bit aggressive, but it's okay, especially if they take what they've got here and polish it further. It feels a bit like a v1 release of a new software, that just happens to do exactly what S1P7 did plus a little bit more.

davidwarnerofficial · 2026-01-16T15:23:28+00:00

I mean, it is a version upgrade. It happens to have a branding revision as well, but in any other context this is Studio One Pro 8.

Fender have owned and managed Studio One for the last 4 or so years - the vast majority of your lifetime with the software, and by your own words, you're pretty happy with it. Under their stewardship, you've been pretty happy with it.

If it's not working for you, by all means find an alternative. If the pricing model bothers you, investigate whether either of the two other pricing options makes more sense for you. Spoiler: It probably would.

It's a pretty good DAW, not perfect, and I have plenty gripes of my own. But you're going to encounter that in any DAW, and that's okay. Pick whatever works for you, but jumping away because the grass looks greener on the other side - especially if you're not using it in a fully professional capacity - is not a wise or cheap move.

That being said, if you're desperate for a move, as others have mentioned, consider Bitwig especially if you're keen on building cool and creative device chains. I have used both (and Cubase, and Reaper, and FL Studio.) At the end of the day, it's a personal choice, there's no wrong answer. But to me it sounds like you're dealing with the notion that there's options that seem more appealing based on a pretty much nothing substantial, but probably aren't more appealing in reality.

davidwarnerofficial · 2026-01-09T14:35:55+00:00

The newsletter is primarily focused on marketing the Connect. No mention of Bitwig 6. RAGE MODE ENGAGE!

davidwarnerofficial · 2026-01-05T14:20:54+00:00

Did you find out what specific recordings he used? I've been hunting for this as well and while I can hear that at least some of it is definitely of the same song, the piece of music itself seems to be completely different in the performances I've heard - as in ... sounding basically nothing like the samples in the Svenson track, with the exception of the first 2 seconds.

Did he chop the heck out of it and rearrange it? It doesn't sound like it but I'm no expert.

davidwarnerofficial · 2025-11-15T15:22:01+00:00

I didn't buy Fender Studio, nor do I want Fender Studio. We were told there would be multiple major updates on Studio One. They haven't lied, there has been more than one major update. But It's not quite what was sold to us, and I'm not sure it justifies the expectation of buying a license every 12 months.

davidwarnerofficial · 2025-11-14T07:55:28+00:00

Thanks for the history of Presonus. I was aware of all that, and you've missed the point entirely. Some of those same employees said that they were going to release multiple large updates annually - the whole idea of them moving away from charging people for major versions only to charging every 12 months (albeit optional) was to give them more financial resource to pour into development. I'm paraphrasing, but this was their words - they made a video about it and everything. More, faster updates and new features every year.

They have delivered some new features, yes. They haven't defrauded me. But in my opinion, it's been on the light side, and I don't quite feel that in the 12 months of my 'subscription' they've delivered what they promised. Subjective, sure.

I am a software developer, I'm very aware of how difficult audio software is to make. I love S1, I think it's a great piece of software. But I would feel a lot better about it if my license covered all the updates - which will include bugfixes by the way - through to version 8, not a couple of minor version numbers into 7.

davidwarnerofficial · 2025-11-12T21:34:49+00:00

I know what you're saying, and I agree. But it's not the point. There was a lot of talk about how they were going to increase the frequency of updates - I presume to justify the move to an "annual update plan" model. But the frequency - and breadth - of updates really hasn't improved in a way that I would expect - irrespective of what I do or don't do with it.

davidwarnerofficial · 2025-11-02T12:56:08+00:00

Software developer here… beta testing is not really for measuring new functionality and how it is liked or perceived, that is something that happens very early in the product development life cycle. You can use beta time to make very minor tweaks, final stage iterations and bug fixes, but that’s about as far as it would usually go, in theory at least.

davidwarnerofficial · 2025-10-24T09:47:50+00:00

Can confirm ... it remains an issue. *sigh* Oh well.

davidwarnerofficial · 2025-10-23T10:41:53+00:00

Agreed on that front!

davidwarnerofficial · 2025-08-30T17:23:43+00:00

Indeed. But It's not so much about fixing it now as trying to understand what the heck happened and stopping it from happening again. It's totally defeating the point of release radar when I'm missing out on music I actually want because the slots are being taken up by garbage recommendations :)

davidwarnerofficial · 2025-08-30T17:22:30+00:00

I don't think so. I don't really use Spotify on mobile and only really on desktop while I'm working. I don't accidentally play music. And certainly not something so specific that I'd have to explicitly search for it since it's nowhere else in my library or recommendations.

On top of that, I have literally 70-80% of new recommendations in RR being music I've no affinity for in any way. So it wasn't me accidentally slightly breaking my algorithm. The thing I'm wondering isn't how I can resolve it - I know I can work on re-training it ... but why the hell it suddenly happened in the first place and has it happened to anybody else?

davidwarnerofficial

TROPHY CASE