#audiomack

Examples:

Everyone is likely pretty familiar with playlists in general, but there’s a lot of variety in terms of presentation you may want to consider. For maximum customization, you can make physical mixtapes or CDs, like these or these with digitally designed labels, or these with fantastic hand-drawn labels. 

Digital playlists have their advantages as well, and are great options. This fanmade playlist for the TV show Heated Rivalry is an excellent example of how to post on AO3 - the playlist is posted on spotify and embedded directly into the work, followed by an annotated copy of the song list explaining why each song was included and how it relates to their inspiration.

Resources, tutorials, and where to look for inspiration:

As fun as it can be, building a playlist from scratch can be a little intimidating. Check out this video for a quick guide to getting started. 

While the exact method of curation will depend on your format (see instructions for tapes and CDs below), a few general rules apply for any kind of playlist. Things you’ll want to be aware of are flow, variety, tone, and relevance to the fic serving as your inspiration.

If your playlist is meant to be listened to in a specific order rather than shuffled - a playlist designed to follow the plot’s progression or the development of a relationship, or a playlist meant to serve as a soundtrack or score for the fic – flow will be key. This refers to how all of your songs fit together and transition from one to the next. Ideally, you’re aiming for a smooth transition that makes sense logically and feels natural. This is also something you can manipulate and use as a storytelling tool: go against the grain and use a jarring transition to show a twist in the narrative or a sudden shift in the fic’s tone, for example.

To ensure your playlist flows well, think of the songs like a color gradient. A playlist that shows a progression moves the listener from the starting point to an ending point via music, in the same manner as the plot, character, or relationship development you’re trying to mirror does with prose. (If the journey that you’re adapting isn’t smooth, your flow doesn’t necessarily need to be, either – aim to match the source!) You can use changes in tone (light and cheery to gloomy and reflective, then back again, for example), genre, lyrical content (or absence of lyrics) to translate the fic’s progression to music. As with a gradient, the starting and end point can be entirely different. You can start with bubblegum pop and end with death metal and still have a cohesive playlist if the transition is gradual and each song leads into the next in a way that makes sense sonically and thematically. 

With mixtapes and CDs, you have much more control over flow than with digital playlists - you can add longer spaces between songs or drop the listener immediately from one to the next, cut songs off at just the right lyric, duplicate a chunk of the song for emphasis, or add in static and other sounds between songs. You can even drop in recordings of quotes from the fic that fit with the songs you’ve compiled.

If your playlist is designed to be shuffled - an unstructured playlist that’s simply a compilation of songs that remind you of the fic, for example - flow goes out the window. Instead of worrying about how songs transition into each other, your main focus can be on finding songs that fit the vibe, themes, and tone of the fic, and making sure they fit together however they might be shuffled.

Variety is key in all cases - try not to lean too hard on any one artist, and make sure you’re mixing it up a little to keep things interesting.

There are a lot of things you can draw from to find the right songs - a fic’s themes, characters, genre, tone, settings, symbols and important objects, etc. Making a playlist for a fluffy coffee shop AU set in Ontario? Find some lighthearted pop by Canadian artists, and maybe some songs that reference coffee shops and romance, songs with a cozy, comforting feel. If you’re making a playlist for a long, dramatic, plot-heavy fic with lots of twists and turns, you may want to lean more on orchestral and instrumental tracks, gloomier rock and metal. Look for songs that feature lyrics referencing similar themes, events, or emotions. Is the fic set in a certain year or time period? Pick songs that came out during that time period or otherwise evoke the feeling of the era. 

Try to keep things relevant and stick to your artistic vision over your desire to share certain songs that may not fit. Be prepared to kill your darlings here - does that song you love actually fit the playlist, or do you just really want people to listen to Toilet Rats? (I really want people to listen to Toilet Rats.)

Not sure quite what you’re going for yet? You can find a lot of great examples, inspiration, ideas, and help on reddit at r/playlists.

If you’re looking to find new music for your playlists, or songs with specific themes, Bandcamp is a good place to start. Their desktop site allows you to search by genre (and subgenres), artist location, and theme tags. Typing related terms into Bandcamp.com/discover/INSERTYOURWORDHERE can yield useful and interesting results. Writing a fic that prominently features a specific symbol, object, theme, or color? Drop that in and see what comes up. Click around until you find something that fits the sound and vibe you’re looking for. Found a song you like that’s not quite right? Scroll down to see both related artists/albums and sometimes a few recommended by the artist you’re listening to.

Looking for songs with something specific in the lyrics? Plug the terms you need into the search at Genius and check the lyric matches for some options. If you’d like to use music in other languages, you can do the same kind of search at lyricstranslate to find songs and artists you may not have considered, but are perfect for your playlist.

Reddit is also a great place to discover new music - the music lovers over at r/musicsuggestions and r/listentothis can be very helpful, and both subreddits have an impressive backlog of recommendations - search related terms/symbols/vibes or anything else you’re looking for and you can likely find a thread with some ideas.

Digital Playlists - Commonly-used platforms and other options

Depending on the type of playlist you’re looking to make, different sites and formats might be better options for you - all the available options have their own strengths and drawbacks. If the themes and vibes of the music that connect to the fic are also present in the music videos/visualizers, Youtube is a great option, but you may need to add some warnings for strobing/gore/etc. depending on the content of the videos in your playlist. If you’re making a playlist that follows a progression or is designed to be played while reading the fic, a physical option like a mixtape or CD that locks the listener in to your order and vision is a great choice. Similarly, if you want to add a lot of personal flair/art into the cover art/packaging, physical media is a good way to go. Digital playlists are generally best in terms of accessibility and ease of distribution and often allow for customized cover art, but the available platforms all come with different drawbacks.

For playlist sharing, the most commonly-used platforms are YouTube, Spotify, and Soundcloud as they are easily embedded into various platforms, including Ao3. Each of these platforms now come with the downsides of allowing AI-generated content, offering generative AI tools for creators, limiting music listening to account holders in the case of Spotify, and in the case of Youtube, your listeners may be required to verify their age to access certain videos.

Alternative free (and partially-free) host sites include Deezer, Bandcamp and Audiomack, which have similar UI designs to Spotify. However, Deezer requires a paid account to listen to full songs, and Audiomack restricts full access to their music library to paid accounts only. We also tested Freefy, a newer option, but it was so riddled with issues that we can't in good conscience recommend it.

For a quick comparison of the available options, we tried making the same playlist on multiple sites. Here’s our base playlist on Spotify and Youtube, and the alternates - Deezer, Soundcloud, and Audiomack.

Spotify is relatively easy to link in a tumblr post or on embed AO3, see below:

The others, being newer and less well-known, can be a little trickier to work with. Of the options we tested, only Spotify, Soundcloud, and Youtube embed properly on AO3. This image shows how these options look in an AO3 work.

Deezer had everything on the base playlist, but without a paid account, users can only listen to 30 seconds of each song. However, this is still a decent option for building your playlists because of their universal sharing option - anyone who opens your link can easily port your playlist to Spotify, Youtube Music, or Apple Music, depending on which service they use. It offers embedding options, but these are not tumblr-friendly and do not appear to work on AO3, either.

Soundcloud had 90% of the base playlist - one missing track, and one track for which we had to opt for a live version. Due to its murky AI policy, many artists understandably skip Soundcloud for distribution and have removed their work from the platform, so this may be an issue if you choose to use Soundcloud.

Audiomack is even worse in terms of song availability - it only had about 60% of the base playlist, several tracks appear locked to paid accounts, and in one case we had to resort to a live version of a track. While it does allow for extensive customization of the playlist, including the URL, and is one of the better options in terms of artist pay, their library is quite limited, so depending on what you’d like to include on your playlist, Audiomack may not be your best option. It also doesn't offer an embed feature that works on either tumblr or AO3.

Bandcamp may be the most socially-responsible option in terms of artist pay and lack of AI, but it’s also the most expensive option as songs can only be added to a playlist if you own each one. This is a great choice if you already have an extensive library on Bandcamp to pull from! (Note: While this isn’t necessarily a cheap option if you’re starting from scratch, many artists, especially smaller ones, often offer albums and in some cases, their entire catalog, for just a few dollars or pay-what-you-want. Many record companies and distributors on Bandcamp also offer free/pay-what-you-want samplers featuring their artists which can help you build out a library.) Here are Bandcamp's instructions for making a playlist on Bandcamp.

For shorter playlists, you can upload a total of 10 MP3 files under 10MB to Tumblr or link to 10 website URLs per post (it is unclear if there’s a per-day limit for URL linking). You can then embed each individual audio file from your Tumblr post into Ao3. This is not particularly recommended, though we do have a guide in our Uploading Audio and Video to Ao3 tutorial.

For sharing playlists on Ao3, there are a couple of other options. The first is directly embedding the playlist (see our example here) or playlist songs in the work itself, so people can listen to the playlist without leaving Ao3. (Clicking ‘share’ on your playlist on any of the larger music platforms should give you an option to grab an embed code which you can simply copy and paste into Ao3.) This may not be your best option as some platforms, like Spotify and Soundcloud, require an account to listen to full songs. You can also list out the songs with links to an outside platform, or simply list the songs without links. With any of these options, you should include analytical commentary explaining why these songs are on this playlist and reference the fic throughout. Simply posting a list of songs without providing additional commentary or links to a place to listen to them is not significantly transformative and will likely result in your list being removed by Ao3 for violating their terms of service.

Physical playlists - Mixtapes and CDs

While digital playlists are the usual option these days and a great way to fill the playlist prompts, you can also make a physical version with either CDs or cassettes (or 8-tracks, vinyl, etc. if you happen to have a more complicated set-up.)

If you have a computer newer than a few years old, you may need to get an external disc drive in order to burn CDs, however, you may also be able to do this at a computer center at your school, university, or local library. Your local library may also have external disc drives that you can check out via a library of things program, or your school/university may have an AV department/club from which you can rent equipment. This video is a pretty thorough guide for creating a mix CD. This one has instructions for making a mix CD using iTunes, and this one has instructions for using Windows Media Player.

For making a mixtape, you’ll need some form of cassette player with a record function. Any of the resources mentioned above may work for acquiring this if you don’t already have one, but you can also find good quality cassette players online, in thrift stores, or at local garage sales if you’ve got time to trawl those. New tape players do exist, but there is currently only one option for the internal mechanisms for anyone manufacturing cassette players, and it’s not a very good one. The new players are not great quality, generally can’t be repaired easily (if at all), and may eat your tapes. You’re much better off buying an older or refurbished model if you’re looking to get into tapes or make mixtapes with any frequency. If you only want to make a few, or just want to try it out for the event, the above-mentioned resources are likely your best bet. You may also have a local AV nerd in your community who will make you a single mixtape for a fairly reasonable price, but the process of making your own is very fun and I highly recommend trying it yourself to get the full experience. This video outlines the easiest method, and this thread on r/cassetteculture details a few more you may want to try.

You can get blank tapes, CDs, and cases for both online, at thrift stores, and local record shops if they’re cool. Most big box and warehouse stores still sell blank CDs, and you can also get them at office supply and electronics stores. 

Half the fun of making a mixtape or CD is designing the look of your tape/CD and the packaging - adding your own art, decorations, and flair. This is a great place to add further connection to the fic you’re working with - themed cover art, stickers or little doodles of significant symbols/objects from the fic, characters, settings, etc.

For tapes, there are a lot of options for packaging styles, from the traditional plastic case with a J-Card to cassingle sleeves and more. This site has all the templates you need for designing your covers digitally or on paper once printed. I recommend printing on thick cardstock if you’re making a sleeve or U-Card style packaging. For CDs, your options are a bit more limited but no less fun. You can find some options and templates here. Once you’ve picked a style, all you need to do is load up your design program of choice, or pull out the colored sharpies and stickers, and go nuts.

Here's an example from us featuring our sample playlist:

If you run into any problems burning your CDs or recording your mixtapes, drop a reply here, ask on our subreddit or discord server, or check out one of these helpful reddit communities - r/cassette and r/cassetteculture for tapes, and r/CDs or r/CD_Collectors for CDs.

For other resources, never underestimate your local library. Librarians are your friends and will not bite you - ask them for help in finding CDs and any devices or equipment you may need! Many libraries offer additional resources such as computers with disc drives, audio software, laser cutting, or a ‘library of things’ where you can rent stereos, cassette or CD players, and other crafting equipment.

If you find any tutorials or guides helpful when making art for the event, please show the creator some love and leave a comment!

What to avoid: 

AI-generated and AI-modified content are not allowed in Fanart Frenzy. Please do not include any AI music in your playlists or use AI in your cover art/packaging. You can read more about our AI stance in our FAQ here.

Stuck or confused? Drop a reply here, or check out our discord server and subreddit for help from other participants!