Lo-fi & Linting

Lo-fi & Linting is lo-fi radio, hosted by @lofilinter. Some weeks the playlist is meticulously planned; other weeks it is a group chat argument that somehow turns into a show. Our schedule is built in blocks, with softer sounds in the morning and heavier beats after dark.

Lessons from the studio

We run on a tiny budget, a lot of goodwill and a very generous hosting sponsor. Radio has always been about company, and that has not changed just because the transmitter is now a rack of servers. The studio is small, the monitors are loud and the coffee machine has its own on-call rotation. Behind the scenes, the playout system is a small pile of open source tools glued together with very careful shell scripts. Accessibility matters to us, so every show gets a transcript and every page works with a keyboard.

We record every show, trim the talk, and publish it as a podcast by the next morning. We test new segments live, keep what works and quietly retire what does not. Accessibility matters to us, so every show gets a transcript and every page works with a keyboard. Our community Discord is where most show ideas start and where most bad puns go to live forever.

• No autoplay, ever
• Keyboard-friendly player controls
• New shows every weekday at 06:00
• Podcast feed updated nightly

Accessibility matters to us, so every show gets a transcript and every page works with a keyboard. We believe the music should never stop just because you clicked a link. Behind the scenes, the playout system is a small pile of open source tools glued together with very careful shell scripts. We still print the weekly playlist and pin it on the studio wall, mostly out of habit.

The long version

The studio is small, the monitors are loud and the coffee machine has its own on-call rotation. We still print the weekly playlist and pin it on the studio wall, mostly out of habit. We keep the stream running around the clock, which means someone is always awake, caffeinated and slightly too excited about a B-side.

We test new segments live, keep what works and quietly retire what does not. We believe the music should never stop just because you clicked a link. Good radio sounds effortless, but every minute on air has at least ten minutes of prep behind it. Nothing beats the feeling of a track dropping at exactly the right moment and the chat exploding with fire emojis.

The music never stops. That is not a slogan, it is a technical requirement.

The archive now holds more than two thousand hours of shows, all searchable by track and guest. Accessibility matters to us, so every show gets a transcript and every page works with a keyboard. Listeners tell us they tune in while they code, study, drive, cook and occasionally while they should be sleeping.

Questions we keep getting

We keep the stream running around the clock, which means someone is always awake, caffeinated and slightly too excited about a B-side. Behind the scenes, the playout system is a small pile of open source tools glued together with very careful shell scripts. A good transition is invisible: you only notice it when it goes wrong, like a page that flashes white between clicks.

Our community Discord is where most show ideas start and where most bad puns go to live forever. Every Friday we look at the numbers, and every Friday the numbers say people want more synthwave. The best feedback we ever got was a single line: “you made my deploy go faster”.

The short version

We measure success in hours listened, not clicks, which keeps us honest about what actually matters. The station started as a side project in a spare room and a borrowed microphone. Listeners tell us they tune in while they code, study, drive, cook and occasionally while they should be sleeping. The studio is small, the monitors are loud and the coffee machine has its own on-call rotation. Our engineers obsess over latency because a stream that stutters is a stream people switch off.

When a listener sends a track we have never heard, it goes straight into the next hour. Accessibility matters to us, so every show gets a transcript and every page works with a keyboard. Most of our DJs have day jobs in software, design or support, which explains the jokes. We keep the site lightweight on purpose, so it loads fast on a train, a tired laptop or a phone at 5% battery. Behind the scenes, the playout system is a small pile of open source tools glued together with very careful shell scripts.

The numbers

We believe the music should never stop just because you clicked a link. Every Friday we look at the numbers, and every Friday the numbers say people want more synthwave. Good radio sounds effortless, but every minute on air has at least ten minutes of prep behind it.

Late nights are for experiments: long mixes, ambient sets and the occasional field recording. The mixing desk is older than some of our interns, and it still sounds better than anything new. We test new segments live, keep what works and quietly retire what does not.

Listeners tell us they tune in while they code, study, drive, cook and occasionally while they should be sleeping. We run on a tiny budget, a lot of goodwill and a very generous hosting sponsor. A radio station is really a promise: that there will be something good playing whenever you tune in. If you have ever wondered why a song sounds warmer on air, the answer is a ridiculous amount of compression. Radio has always been about company, and that has not changed just because the transmitter is now a rack of servers.

Behind the scenes

The best feedback we ever got was a single line: “you made my deploy go faster”. A radio station is really a promise: that there will be something good playing whenever you tune in. Behind the scenes, the playout system is a small pile of open source tools glued together with very careful shell scripts. We measure success in hours listened, not clicks, which keeps us honest about what actually matters.

Radio has always been about company, and that has not changed just because the transmitter is now a rack of servers. The archive now holds more than two thousand hours of shows, all searchable by track and guest. Our schedule is built in blocks, with softer sounds in the morning and heavier beats after dark. Our favourite metric is the number of listeners who stay through the ad break. Nothing beats the feeling of a track dropping at exactly the right moment and the chat exploding with fire emojis.

• Chat moderated by real people
• New shows every weekday at 06:00
• Transcripts for every talk segment
• Request a song from any page

We learned early that a stable stream matters more than a fancy one. Our engineers obsess over latency because a stream that stutters is a stream people switch off. Most of our DJs have day jobs in software, design or support, which explains the jokes. Our community Discord is where most show ideas start and where most bad puns go to live forever. The request line gets more messages than ever, and our DJs read every single one on air.

Why we did it

Late nights are for experiments: long mixes, ambient sets and the occasional field recording. A radio station is really a promise: that there will be something good playing whenever you tune in. The best feedback we ever got was a single line: “you made my deploy go faster”.

The archive now holds more than two thousand hours of shows, all searchable by track and guest. A radio station is really a promise: that there will be something good playing whenever you tune in. Good radio sounds effortless, but every minute on air has at least ten minutes of prep behind it. The chat is moderated by humans, which keeps it friendly, weird and welcoming. Our favourite metric is the number of listeners who stay through the ad break.

If the page reloads, the song stops. So the page does not reload.

We test new segments live, keep what works and quietly retire what does not. Some weeks the playlist is meticulously planned; other weeks it is a group chat argument that somehow turns into a show. Accessibility matters to us, so every show gets a transcript and every page works with a keyboard.