FAQ

Infinite radio of demos from local bands. Bands upload songs; you pick a genre (or your favs) and songs play back to back. Your ratings and favs decide which songs stay on the air.

No. Anyone can listen. You need a free account to rate, fav, chat, post, or make mixtapes.

Each listener gets their own shuffled deck, so you hear everything before repeats:

• Never the same band twice in a row on genre radio.
• Nothing you heard in the last hour, if anything else is left.
• Songs you haven't heard come first, then the ones you heard longest ago.
• Within that, a weighted shuffle: songs with fewer plays and better ratings get a small boost, and bands with lots of songs don't crowd out bands with one.
• All-time hits can be mixed in, but songs in rotation get most of the airtime.

Set your area (the pin at the top) and genre radio only plays bands from within your chosen distance. Charts can be local too.

Rate any song 0 to 100 with the slider. You can change your rating any time. Bands only ever see totals and averages, never who rated what.

Only songs a band put on the radio (in rotation now, or finished their run) can be rated. Their other songs still play on the band's page and song pages, just without ratings.

Rate a song 30 or lower (or tap the jail button next to the rating bar) and it's in jail: it won't play on your radio again (unless it's in your favs). Rate it higher to set it free.

Hearing at least 30 seconds or half the song, whichever comes first. One listen per person per song per day, so replaying a song all day doesn't inflate it.

Bands mark songs as explicit or AI-made when they upload. AI-made songs play on band pages, band radio, favs and mixtapes, but not on genre radio, local radio or the charts. See the AI policy.

Publishing a song puts it on the band's page, band radio and search. The band then picks which published songs go into rotation, up to 3 at a time: songs in rotation play on genre and local radio and appear on the charts. A review runs every day at 06:00 UTC, scores every song in rotation, and decides which songs have finished their run. Finished songs keep their final score and may earn a badge, and free up their slot.

Only listens, ratings and favs from after the song entered rotation count. Taking a song out of rotation (or unpublishing it) pauses it: the days stop counting and its slot is free; putting it back resumes where it left off. A finished song can't go back in.

The score (0 to 100) blends three parts:

• Rating (50%): the average rating, counted as if the song started with 5 extra ratings of 65. A couple of early votes can't make or break a song.
• Favs (25%): the share of listeners who fav the song. Getting 25% of listeners to fav it scores a full 100. It starts as if 5 listeners had given it 60.
• Completion (25%): how much of the song people listen to on average, counted as if it started with 5 plays at 60%. Skipping early pulls it down.

Score = 50% × rating + 25% × favs + 25% × completion. A brand-new song with no data starts at 62.5, just above the starting bar of 60, so every song gets a fair run.

Each day in rotation a song has to beat a bar that slowly rises:

• The first 4 days are safe: nothing is cut yet (unless the song already has 8 ratings, then it can be reviewed early).
• From day 5 the bar is 60, and after that it rises 1 point per day, times the genre's pressure.
• Pressure = songs in rotation in the song's genre ÷ 40, kept between 0.5 and 2. Busy genres raise the bar faster; quiet genres let songs stay longer. A song with several genres uses its least crowded one.
• A song is only cut for its score once at least 8 different people have heard it, so no song ends without a real audience.

Example: on day 15, in a genre with exactly 40 songs, the bar is 70. In a busy genre (pressure 2) it's 80; in a quiet one (pressure 0.5) it's 65.

Time limits:

• After 30 days, if the genre has at least 15 songs in rotation, the song finishes to make room.
• Every song finishes after 60 days, no matter what.

Bands see their song's day, current score and the bar it needs on their band page. In rare cases (for example a policy issue) staff can set an end date for a song.

When a song finishes rotation, its final score is frozen and it can earn a badge:

• Platinum: 90 or higher
• Gold: 80 or higher
• Silver: 70 or higher

A badge needs at least 10 ratings. Badge songs become all-time hits: they stay on the charts and can still play on radio now and then.

• In rotation: songs currently in rotation, ranked by their score from the latest daily review.
• All-time hits: finished songs that earned a badge, ranked by their final score.
• You can also sort by rating (songs with at least 8 ratings), favs, listens or newest, and filter by genre, your area, or when the song entered rotation.
• Past weeks show the chart as it stood after that week's last daily review; arrows show moves since last week.

We tune them as Demo Jail grows (for example, the bar may rise faster once genres get busy). This page always shows the current values.

Sign in, open Bands, and create your band. Invite bandmates by email; each band can have several owners and members, and one account can be in several bands. The last owner can't leave a band.

Your own original songs. MP3s up to 20 MB upload as they are. WAV, FLAC, AIFF, M4A, OGG and larger MP3s (up to 300 MB) are converted to MP3 in your browser before upload. Each song needs 1 to 3 genres from our list.

No. Songs stream only; there are no download links.

Listens, listeners, average rating, favs and completion, per song and over time, plus your songs' rotation progress. Never who listened or rated.

Uploads may get an automated check. Songs you mark as AI-made publish right away in their own lane (no rotation, radio or charts). If an unmarked song sounds clearly AI-generated it stays a draft until you mark it, or email review@demojail.com. Details in the AI policy.

Short recordings (shout-outs, intros) that play before or after your songs, or in mixtapes. Clips can be up to 60 seconds; clips that play before a song up to 15 seconds.

Bands list their own shows. We also read public concert listings (venue calendars, city music guides) every night with our bot, DemoJailBot, and add the live music we find, linking back to the listing. Acts that are on Demo Jail link to their band page; for other acts we look them up on Deezer and YouTube so you can hear them first. That's automatic, so now and then a match may be the wrong band; if you spot one, log in and tap "Suggest a fix" on the show page.

To be read, send us your calendar's address through Feedback. To opt out, ask us the same way, or block DemoJailBot in your robots.txt; we check it before every read. We only read a few public listing pages per site, never anything behind a login.

A DJ-hosted radio show or podcast. You build it segment by segment: pick songs and clips, then record your voice live while you play and mix them, or just add them to play one after another. Listeners hear it back exactly as you played it. Every recording is checked by an automated voice check before listeners can hear it.

In mixtapes you can add YouTube videos and Deezer tracks as breaks: your show pauses and that service's own player plays it, then the show continues (Deezer plays a 30-second preview unless the listener is logged in to Deezer). We can't mix other streaming services' audio into shows (their terms don't allow it).

You choose: public (listed for everyone), link only (not listed anywhere; anyone with the link can listen) or private (just you). Mixtapes are only visible to others once you publish them.

A little. Local businesses can sponsor the radio. A sponsor message is short (up to 30 seconds) and plays before a song, at most once every 15 minutes and 3 songs. Our own Demo Jail spots play at most every 20 minutes. You never hear ads around your own band's songs.

Every ad is reviewed before it runs. Want to sponsor? See Advertise.

Email and password, a magic link by email, or Google.

13 or older. We ask for your birthdate once; it's private (never shown to anyone) and only used for age rules, such as 21+ sponsors.

The area you choose for local radio, or if you haven't chosen one, an approximate city from your IP address. With each listen we keep only a rough area (about 7 miles), used for local charts and sponsor reach. Never your exact location. More in the Privacy Policy.

Use the Report button on any song, band, profile, chat message, post or mixtape. Staff review every report. Chat and posts are also checked automatically, and people who break the rules can be muted or banned.

Go to Account > Delete my account. It deletes your account, ratings, favs, listening history, messages, mixtapes and clips right away. If you're the only owner of a band with other members, you'll be asked to make someone else an owner first.