The Audials API enables manufacturers of entertainment solutions to enhance their offerings with little effort.
Audials AG is a manufacturer of highly successful entertainment applications worldwide. The Audials applications run on all kinds of platforms. Starting with the classic Windows PC, through Android and iOS to the pure web application in the browser, all common platforms are served. The Audials app has also been integrated into the Bosch “mySPIN” platform for car infotainment.
Others – such as integration into home assistants, support for other vehicle infotainment systems, SmartTVs, etc. are currently being planned. In order to efficiently implement this variety of applications and platforms, Audials has developed the so-called Audials API, which can be used to conveniently access the content. The applications themselves then only take care of the optimal, platform-dependent presentation of the content.
However, the real trump card behind the Audials API is the unique data that is provided in this form. The simple, well-structured JSON-based API provides access to a veritable treasure trove of data. The intelligent linking of the diverse data often opens up completely new possibilities and areas of application for the systems that use the Audials API. Some important aspects of the available data are listed below.
Audials has the best and most complete database in the world. The database contains over 100,000 radio stations from all over the world. For each radio station there is a list of available mirrors as well as information on the available stream qualities and formats (mp3, WMA or AAC). There is also a precise assignment of the stations to their location and the appropriate genres, whereby Audials currently uses over 100 genres to classify the data.
As new radio stations are constantly being added and old ones disappear, it is extremely important that the database is always kept up to date. With Audials, this is done on the one hand by powerful web spiders that constantly search the Internet for new radio stations. On the other hand, the existing mirrors are monitored in real time so that failures are detected at an early stage and affected stations can be updated manually if necessary.
Only Audials is able to display which song is currently being played for more than 50,000 stations in real time, without this station currently being listened to, thanks to a sophisticated monitoring algorithm. Song changes are noticed and propagated in fractions of a second. Thanks to the title fingerprint database containing around 60 million entries, this is even possible for broadcasters who do not publish so-called meta information about their stream.
This is the only way to search in real time for radio stations that are playing a particular artist right now or particularly frequently.
In addition to real-time information, Audials can provide a track history for over 50,000 stations for the last few months, accurate to the second.
Audials enriches the data sent directly from the broadcasters with additional information. This includes cover images for music tracks, the corresponding album artist images and much more. Only thanks to Audials’ extensive discography database, which currently contains entries on more than 1.5 million artists, 1.2 million albums and over 13 million tracks, is it possible to precisely assign the often imprecise metatags of radio stations to a real existing piece of music by a particular artist.
Further classifications can be based on this. Currently, the Audials API is used, for example. the popularity of an artist on the radio, genre-specific hit lists or even the list of the most frequently played songs on the radio. More can easily be added.
Audials has even more to offer. We have an index of the most important tens of millions of music files that are accessible via the popular music portals youtube, vimeo, veoh etc.. Each piece of music is classified according to various criteria such as Studio, live or cover version.
Audials also has a comprehensive podcast catalog. More than 155,000 podcasts from all over the world are available, with a total of over 1.2 million episodes that can be searched by full-text search and played via direct link.
The TV catalog, which provides an index of TV content from recent years for all major German-language channels, is also of particular interest to the German market, provided the relevant programs are still available.
Of course, it is possible for users of Audials services to create an account to manage their personal settings. Radio favorites lists, recently listened to radio stations, subscribed podcasts and much more are then synchronized between all devices with which the user accesses the services and are therefore available at all times.
By using our API, the diverse data provided by us is already optimally prepared. Thanks to the well-defined interfaces, it is possible to integrate the features of the API into your own systems with just a few lines of code. The architecture of the API makes it possible to design the installation flexibly, depending on the specific requirements defined by the existing system.
The API natively supports both single-column navigation specifically for small, mobile displays and two-column navigation for large displays. The creation of a modern, powerful and personalized dashboard is supported, as is the maintenance of user-specific lists, such as recently used radio stations, unwanted stations, popular categories and, in particular, the management of radio favourites.
In addition, the Audials API also offers an interface for making radio recordings with song accuracy, including Information on any necessary recutting processes in order to optimally remove the fading between the moderation and music or two consecutive songs that is sometimes common on the radio.
There are already a large number of reference implementations for using the Audials API. Clients have already been realized in C# for Windows PCs, in Objective-C for iOS, in Java for Android and also in JavaScript for pure web applications.
Customized white label solutions can be easily created based on the existing implementations. Alternatively, completely new applications can be created in which the existing code is integrated as a framework for the API accesses.
Even if the Audials API already has a large number of features, individual extensions tailored to your specific application are of course possible thanks to our highly specialized software development team.
The Audials API is operated in a scalable cluster server, so that on the one hand the entire system continues to run smoothly even if individual servers fail, and on the other hand the server capacities can also be easily increased as demand increases. It is also possible to distribute the server nodes geographically.
With the help of the Audials API, it is easy to integrate our data regarding radio, podcasts, artists, music etc. into your system, but also the associated knowledge and know-how that results from linking the different data sources with each other and enriching the data with live information. Thanks to the well-structured and easy-to-integrate interface, you can expand your application with functionalities from the music sector in a diverse and attractive way with little effort.
Or do you have a completely new idea in the field of music and entertainment, but still have no idea how to obtain the necessary data? Talk to us! We look forward to supporting you in developing your ideas, creating concepts and, of course, implementing them!
We will be happy to provide you with further information about the Audials API, its use and suitable license models on request. Please use our contact form for your inquiry.
