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I built a music discovery app for Tidal and Qobuz users. A lot has changed since launch.

Some of you might remember my first post about Sonic Oracle. I built it because I personally needed it and nothing like it existed. I wanted to type in an artist I love and get back a playlist of artists I’ve never heard of who share something with them. Not algorithmic "people also listened to" suggestions. Deeper connections based on sound, style, and taste.
Since launch, the app has grown significantly.
Genre coverage expanded to 44+ sub-genres across 10 genre families. K-pop, city pop, gypsy jazz, acid jazz, darkwave, krautrock, fado, klezmer, djent, sludge metal, flamenco, cumbia... if your taste runs deep, Sonic Oracle goes there now.
Niche and cross-genre artists work much better. Obscure composers, experimental artists, soundtrack creators. Seeds like these used to return thin results. Not anymore.
The newest feature is click-to-discover. When your playlist comes back, click any artist in the results to start a new search from them. Chain one discovery into the next without going back to the search bar.
Three discovery depths: Essential (closest matches), Balanced (a mix), Adventurous (deep cuts you won’t find elsewhere). Adventurous is where it gets interesting.
Playlists land directly in your Tidal or Qobuz library. Roon, Audirvana, Bluesound, WiiM, and every other app or streamer picks them up instantly.
Still a solo developer. Still improving it every week.
Free to try at sonicoracle.music

Three playlists, no credit card needed
Alessandro

panyc77
toro3's avatar
toro3
511 posts
 

Pretty awesome, Alessandro. I was able to create a Tidal playlist from a rather obscure Russian band to test its limitations - the results were more than impressive given the genre (Post-Punk, Dark Wave) and artist exposure, which is very much non-mainstream - even within their own sub-genre. 

From my understanding related artists’ recommendations are reliant on the size of the user base, and now AI, which is why I’ve found better recommendation results from Spotify (751 million) in comparison to Tidal (5 - 7.5 million), Quboz (250k- 500k), and Roon (100k - 150k) - guesstimates per Gemini AI.

Even then, your results were more focused under the “balanced” playlist creator than Spotify’s recommendations within an established playlist of the same artist. 

Maybe I was lucky with that first search, but the results, integration with Tidal, and slick UI are impressive - wicked job there, sir. 

panyc77 OP
75 posts
 

Really appreciate you putting it through its paces with something that obscure. Post-punk and darkwave are exactly the kind of genres where mainstream recommendation engines fall short because, as you noted, their models depend heavily on user base size.

 

Sonic Oracle's engine isn't constrained by a single listening pool, which is why it holds up even for non-mainstream artists with small followings.

 

Glad the Tidal integration and UI landed well. More updates on the way.

 

Alessandro

jmalen123
247 posts
 

Impressive. See a need, fill the need and then start improving the solution. The only problem is that the music I was hoping for shows up so much sooner I have more time to do chores. 

panyc77 OP
75 posts
 

Haha

I'll add "saves time on music hunting, loses time on chores" to the feature list. Appreciate the kind words.

Alessandro

soix
11,233 posts
 

A year ago I was at a friend’s house where he had one great song after another playing such that I was constantly whipping out Shazam to catch as many as I could.  I asked what playlist he was using and he said it was just a Spotify-generated playlist based on a song he played, and I so wished Qobuz had something remotely as cool as that and this sounds like it might be exactly what I’ve been waiting for so will definitely give it a try.  Thanks for creating this and sharing!

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