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DroppedNeedle: Music Discovery & Streaming

DroppedNeedle is the primary music discovery and streaming service for The Nest. It searches across multiple sources—including local storage, Usenet, and Soulseek peer-to-peer shares—to help you find, play, and build your music collection. Think of it as your personal, self-hosted streaming service powered by community-shared media!

1. Getting Started & Signing In

  1. Open heron.mynest.love in your Web browser or mobile app.
  2. Switch to the SSO tab on the sign-in screen.
  3. Click Continue with SSO.
  4. Authenticate using your central Nest passkey.

2. Streaming Music & Mobile Apps

DroppedNeedle acts as a Subsonic-compatible music server. This means you can stream music directly in your Web browser or connect any Subsonic-supported mobile application!

  • Web Player: Stream lossless audio directly from your Web browser with no setup required.
  • Mobile Apps: Choose from any Subsonic-compatible client (such as Symfonium, Feishin, or Ample) to stream on iOS or Android.
  • Automated Transcoding: High-fidelity FLAC files are automatically transcoded to high-efficiency 160 kbps Opus when streaming to save mobile data and storage space.

3. How Music Discovery & Requests Work

Unlike movie or TV requests, DroppedNeedle lets you search and request music directly—no additional service needed!

  1. Use the main search bar to search for a song, album, or artist.
  2. DroppedNeedle queries multiple sources simultaneously:
  3. Local Library: Music already stored in The Nest's shared collection.
  4. Usenet Indexers: High-speed indexers for full releases and albums.
  5. Soulseek (slskd): Peer-to-peer network search for rare tracks and obscure releases.
  6. YouTube: Stream music directly from YouTube if it's available, or preview songs before adding them to your library.
  7. Click Play to stream immediately, or Download to pull the track into the library.

Help Keep the Library Clean!

Occasionally, DroppedNeedle needs help matching a rare file. Visit the Downloads tab to review pending downloads, select correct releases, or verify track tagging. Helping review downloads ensures the library stays organized for everyone!

4. Recommendations & Scrobbling (ListenBrainz & Last.fm)

Want weekly mixes and personalized artist recommendations? DroppedNeedle supports scrobbling (listening history sync) with ListenBrainz and Last.fm:

  1. Create a free account on ListenBrainz or Last.fm.
  2. Navigate to your Profile Settings inside DroppedNeedle.
  3. Log into your ListenBrainz and/or Last.fm account and enable Scrobbling.

Once connected, DroppedNeedle will automatically generate custom weekly mixes and artist recommendations based on your listening habits!

Privacy Note

Scrobbling technically causes your listening habit data to leave The Nest. In the future we may stand up local ListenBrainz and a MusicBrainz DB sync, but as it stands, getting weekly recommendations/playlists requires sending this data to an external source.

ListenBrainz (and Last.fm to a lesser extend) has very comprehensive privacy settings. Please review them to keep your data from being sold/scraped.

5. Following Artists & Local Concert Tracking

Keep up with your favorite musicians directly inside DroppedNeedle:

  • New Release Alerts: Follow an artist to receive notifications when new singles or albums are released.
  • Local Concert & Event Tracking: Navigate to the Following tab and select Coming Up. Enter your location, and DroppedNeedle will aggregate upcoming concerts and live events near you via sources like Ticketmaster!

6. Syncing Spotify Playlists

You can sync your existing Spotify playlists directly over to DroppedNeedle! However, please note:

  • Developer API Limit: Spotify limits developer apps to a maximum of 5 connected accounts simultaneously.
  • Setup Request: Because of API constraints, Spotify playlist sync must be enabled manually by an admin. If you would like to connect your Spotify account, drop a request in the Matrix "Ask an Admin" room!
Component URL / Endpoint Purpose
DroppedNeedle Web UI heron.mynest.love Web streaming, music search, and library management
DroppedNeedle Official Docs DroppedNeedle Docs DroppedNeedle's Official Docs