Discover
Discover is Aurral’s home page. It shows personal recommendations, trending artists, tags, recent and upcoming releases, playlists, artist news, and recently added artists. When an admin configures Ticketmaster, Discover also shows nearby events.
Aurral recommends artists that fit your taste but are not in your Library yet. It uses your Library, your listening history, and similar-artist data from ListenBrainz, or from Last.fm when an admin adds a Last.fm API key.
What shapes recommendations
Section titled “What shapes recommendations”Each user gets their own recommendations. Aurral picks a set of seed artists for you and looks up artists similar to them. The seeds come from:
- Artists you marked More like this
- Your listening history in Aurral, and from Last.fm, ListenBrainz, or Koito
- A sample of your Library. Recently added artists are always in the sample, and the rest changes on every refresh.
Aurral then ranks the results by how similar they are, how well their genres match your seeds, and how many of your seeds point to them. Aurral only uses tags that name a genre on MusicBrainz, plus a few broad ones like indie and rap, so tags like “seen live” or “female vocalists” don’t show up as genres or count toward matches. Trending artists are the same for everyone.
Each recommendation shows a match percentage. It says how a pick ranks against your other recommendations, from 99% for your top pick down to 55% for the last one. It is not a ListenBrainz or Last.fm score, and it can change after you give feedback. Trending artists have no percentage.
More like this makes the artist a seed and moves artists like it up your list. Less like this moves the artist and related picks down, and stops Aurral from using the artist as a seed. Neither one hides an artist.
Block artist excludes an artist for you only. Aurral removes that artist from your recommendations, playlist previews, and future downloads. To manage the list, open Blocklist in the sidebar.
Feedback reorders your list right away. Aurral saves it for the next scheduled rebuild, which uses artists you liked as seeds to bring in new picks. An admin sets the schedule in Settings > Discover. A new user sees Building your personal recommendations until their first set is ready.
ListenBrainz and Last.fm
Section titled “ListenBrainz and Last.fm”Discover works without an account or API key. Aurral finds similar and trending artists on ListenBrainz, genres on MusicBrainz, and the top tracks that flows use on Deezer.
ListenBrainz similar artists lean toward well-known names, so Last.fm usually gives closer matches. When an admin adds a Last.fm API key in Settings > Connect > Last.fm, Aurral uses Last.fm for recommendations, trending artists, tag search, and flows. Settings > Discover shows which one is in use. When an admin adds or removes the key, Aurral rebuilds everyone’s recommendations.
Discovery modes
Section titled “Discovery modes”An admin sets the mode in Settings > Discover.
| Mode | Best for |
|---|---|
| Safer | Familiar recommendations with high confidence |
| Balanced | A mix of familiar picks and new ground |
| Deeper | More artists outside your usual library |
Customize the page
Section titled “Customize the page”To choose and order the sections on your Discover page, select Customize Discover. Each user has their own layout.
Recently added
Section titled “Recently added”Recently added lists the 20 artists whose music most recently entered your Library, newest first. It uses the same file times as the Library’s Recently added sorting, so an artist moves to the front when a new album finishes downloading. Artists without downloaded music don’t appear. The list updates after each library scan.
Recent and upcoming releases
Section titled “Recent and upcoming releases”Recent & upcoming releases lists new and upcoming albums from library artists that have a MusicBrainz ID. Aurral builds this list from BrainzMash, its hosted metadata service. Lidarr is not required.
Aurral checks each artist’s releases about once a day. New artists are checked when they first appear, after a library scan or when you add them. If BrainzMash can’t load an artist, Aurral tries that artist again after an hour. It leaves out albums that are already in your Library. If BrainzMash is unavailable, Aurral keeps the last list that it loaded.
To get a release, select Download album. Lidarr downloads it when Lidarr is connected, and Aurral downloads it otherwise. See Who manages your library.
Artist news
Section titled “Artist news”When an admin turns on news in Settings > RSS news, Discover shows recent stories from the enabled feeds. Stories that mention a library artist or a recommended artist are highlighted with the artist’s name. Aurral keeps stories for 30 days, even after they leave a feed.
Aurral highlights a story when an artist’s full name appears in its headline, or when the publisher tags the story with that artist. One-word names such as Ghost or Live are common words, so for publishers that tag their stories, Aurral highlights those artists only when the tag names them.
To open the full news page, select the Artist news title or Show all, or News in the sidebar. Select Highlighted only to list only the stories that mention your artists. If a feed has no photo for a story, Aurral takes one from the story’s page, or uses the artist’s image. Admins can turn off a feed for everyone with the disable icon beside the publisher name on a story.
Open artists and albums
Section titled “Open artists and albums”Select an artist or album card to open its Discover page. To open an artist card’s menu instead, right-click it or press and hold it on a touch screen. If the artist or album is in your Library, select Open in library to open its Library page. There you can play tracks and mark favorites.
Playlists
Section titled “Playlists”Discover > Playlists shows playlists made by Deezer’s editors, grouped by genre. They need no account or API key. When Aurral knows your top genres and tags, For you shows the editor playlists that match them. The Discover page shows a few of these playlists too. Open one to play the Deezer previews for its tracks.
Select Add synced playlist to save it as a synced playlist. Aurral checks Deezer for changes every 24 hours. When the editor removes a track, it leaves your playlist but its file stays in your Library. See Sync schedule and removed tracks.
To keep only some tracks, use a track’s menu to add it to your Library or to a playlist. To add several at once, select the tracks first. Selecting an artist or album name looks it up in MusicBrainz and opens its page.
Earlier versions built their own playlists, such as Discover Weekly and Release Radar, during each discovery refresh. Those are now flow templates. See Flows. Flows you created from editorial Last.fm playlists keep their tracks, but they no longer update.
Per-user listening history
Section titled “Per-user listening history”Each user chooses a listening-history provider in Profile > Listening history. Choose Local only, enter a Last.fm or ListenBrainz username, or enter a Koito URL. Aurral always uses the plays recorded in Aurral, and adds history from the selected provider. When you change the provider, Aurral rebuilds your recommendations.
When an admin configures Ticketmaster, Discover shows nearby events for recommended, trending, and library artists. See Ticketmaster.