Just a wee bit of exaggeration, but honestly, folks, I’m so giddy about this great new release of Chavah, the best darn Messianic radio on the web.
I stayed up to 2:00am working on a very cool feature for Chavah, and I’m happy to announce the feature is now working and deployed – woot!
But Judah, what is this amazing new feature, you ask in desperation, sheer astonishment, and simple awe of my programming skills?
Community song request: you request a song, artist, or album, and Chavah will play that song for everyone listening to Chavah.
Check it out, boichik:
- Launch Chavah
- Click on the “Request a song” link:
- Chavah asks which song you’re looking for:
- Start typing the name of a song, artist, or album. Chavah, sweet as she is, will fill in the blanks for you.
Here I started typing “hope”, and Chavah suggested “David’s Hope”, “Yeshua Hope of Israel”, “Precious Hope”, “Hope of Glory”, and a few other famous Messianic tunes:
- Click which song you want. In this case, I told Chavah I wanted to hear Roman & Alaina’s “Bless G-d” song:
- Click the giant “Request this song” link.
Bam! Chavah is instantly playing your desired tune for Messiah; not only for you, but for everyone listening to Chavah.
If that weren’t enough, Chavah is intelligent about this whole process: if someone requests a song you’ve previously thumbed-down, she won’t force you to listen to it; she’ll discreetly honor your musical preferences, skipping that song request for you, while still playing it for others.
Additionally, Chavah won’t interrupt the song you’re currently listening to. She’ll patiently wait for your song to finish before playing song requests from others in the Messianic community.
Fine blog readers, Chavah is the best darn Messianic radio on the web. If you haven’t tried it out, now’s the time, dear Messianic blog reader! It’s a totally free service, 100% open source, doesn’t require registration or other nonsense, works on Mac and PC, and it’s got a massive library of over 2000 tunes for Messiah streaming; to hear every song, you’d have to listen to Chavah for a week straight without sleeping. 
Is there a mobile version of Chavah yet? Last time I tried to get it on Joel's droid it didn't work.
ReplyDeleteIt's finally here. :-) Check out the Chavah v2 beta. It works on mobile, including Droid, iPhone, and iPad.
DeleteHey Tami.
ReplyDeleteAfraid not yet! It's in the works, but likely won't be available to this fall sometime.
In the meantime, it does work on PCs, Macs, and Linux boxes.
I'm assuming this is legal because people cannot download the songs? Did you have to get some sort of license to broadcast the songs online? Just curious.
ReplyDeleteI'm loving it, by the way. My wife keeps it on all day (sometimes all night). I've added a link to our community website and our folks dig it. (http://frontrangemessianic.org/)
Thanks for doing this.
Hey Michael,
ReplyDeleteGlad you like it! And thanks for linking to it on your site, that's really encouraging to see. Very cool.
Regarding legality:
Yeah, I don't allow download of the songs.
I've spoken with many of the artists: Aviad Cohen, Avner & Rachel Boskey, Sharon Wilbur, Rivka Whitten, for example, and they are cool with it. It raises awareness of their music, plus there's a "Buy" link next to each song that will take you to the artists' website where you can purchase their music.
Additionally, a lot of this music is available freely online: Liberated Wailing Wall offers most of their old albums for free on their website. Aviad Cohen offers free streaming of his music through YouTube.
Another bit is, a lot of this music is so old and in such a niche that it's no longer available for purchase! Some of the stuff from the Roytman's, for example.
So, legally speaking, I think I'm alright. But there is a possibility out there that someone has a problem with this; if that happens, I'd be glad to either take down their music or offer them some kind of reasonable compensation. But I do hope artists will continue to be gracious enough to let their music stream online.
A few years ago we had an issue with a Paul Wilbur song on a podcast. Even though it was only a few seconds of music, since it was being downloaded we had to pay.
ReplyDeleteHeh, interesting. How much were you required to pay?
ReplyDeleteNot a lot really. Since it was just a short piece of the song (the same sample that Sid Roth uses) they charged us around $150-$200 a year. I later phased that out and started using the Shabbat Song from the Zaslow's (T'shuvah).
ReplyDeleteYikes! I consider that a lot of money. And for a clip used in a podcast. Man.
ReplyDeleteEh. Well that's a little disconcerting. I guess we'll see where this goes. :-) Like I said, my goal here isn't to rip people off, but rather raise the awareness of Messianic music and encourage the Messianic community with it.
If certain artists aren't down with that, I'm willing to come to some reasonable agreement or, if that fails, remove their music from the station if necessary.
At 52 podcasts a year it ended up being about $3 per podcast. But then again, anyone could download it. Like I said, since it was downloadable they charged us. On Sid Roth's podcast, if you download it (the last time I checked anyway) they do not have the song on the downloadable file. It's only on the radio broadcast.
ReplyDeleteTo be safe, you may want to look into the ASCAP and BMI copyright laws. The artists may be cool with it, but it's the management/production company that has the final say.
It was Hosanna music that contacted us about the song we were using. We never had contact with Paul Wilbur directly. He probably didn't even know what happened.
Just trying to help.
http://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/music-licensing3.htm
Thanks. I'll get some more info on all that.
ReplyDeleteHi Judah,
ReplyDeleteIm a geek and Christian doing volunteer IT system administration for a Christian charity in Jerusalem.
This looks really good, will try a little later.
Any chance you could get this to work with Foxytunes? this is a handy Firefox extension (not yet usable on FF5.0) which has some buttons on the bottom of the browser to control music on iTunes/Media Player/Youtube and about a zillion other media players?
Its developed by some Israeli guys who just got bought by Yahoo recently for $25m :o)
this would be nice to use whilst I am at work.
thanks!
Jonathan
Can you get any of the Star of David Singers stuff up? I wore my old tapes out years ago.
ReplyDeleteHi Jonathan,
ReplyDeleteGive it a try and let me know what you think.
I used to use FoxyTunes back in the day. I'll have to see what the API looks like for that.
Anon,
ReplyDeleteI'm not familiar with that group. I'll see what I can do.
FYI, if you have any music on your machine, you can upload it to Chavah.
Just looked up Star of David Singers - discovered they were founded by Rachel Boskey. Her and her husband Avner have 3 beautiful Messianic albums, check them out on Chavah. (Search for Boskey).
ReplyDeleteVery cool.
I'll see about getting the Star of David Singers stuff on Chavah. Thanks for the tip.
Wow, it appears that Star of David Singers don't have their music available *anywhere* on the web.
ReplyDeleteAnd I'm no Googling newbie. :-)
Amazon says they've never had them in stock, Ebay came up empty, and all the small Messianic suppliers don't even know about this group.
I've contacted former members of the band to see if I can get a hold of their music.
I just contacted to a former member of Star of David Singers, and she's willing to send me CDs for the Star of David Singer albums free of charge.
ReplyDeleteJust sent her my address; I should have the CDs soon, after which I'll get them onto Chavah Messianic Radio. :cool:
Keep up the great work this just keeps on growing. If you are eventually able to get a mobile version that would be even better, great music!
ReplyDeleteC.F.
Shalom,
ReplyDeleteWhen I launch Chavah to my desktop, I still get the pre-June27th version (which is still great, BTW!) and was wondering if there's something special I need to do to get the new version.
Hi Azi,
ReplyDeleteIt will automatically update. Sometimes, due to caching, it can take a few days. (I'm working on fixing that to make it instant.)
Here's what you can try in the meantime:
Go to the Chavah website.
You should see the old version.
Refresh the page until you see the new version.
Next time you launch Chavah from your desktop, it will find the new version.
"I just contacted to a former member of Star of David Singers, and she's willing to send me CDs for the Star of David Singer albums free of charge.
ReplyDeleteJust sent her my address; I should have the CDs soon, after which I'll get them onto Chavah Messianic Radio. :cool:"
thanks so much for making the effort, so stoked about hearing SDS again - heritage man!
Judah, I'd like to send you some music too. Should I mail you CD's or can I email MP3's to you? What is your preference.
ReplyDelete@Michael,
ReplyDeleteWonderful. You can either upload them to Chavah, or email me: judahgabriel at gmail.
Good news! I've now got the old Star of David Singers CDs in hand, courtesy of a former member of the group who kindly sent them to me free of charge.
ReplyDeleteAdditionally, this same person approved of having them play on Chavah - yes!
Bottom line: 3 albums from the old Star of David Singers will be streaming on Chavah in the next few days.
What's really cool is, this music is literally not available anywhere else; no stores have it, it's not available for purchase online, nothing.
Chavah is keeping alive a great Messianic band from the 1970s and early 1980s. And I think that's just awesome. :-)
p.s. @Michael David Gonzales, did you send/upload that music?
I just uploaded the Zaslow's Teshuvah CD. I had some issues (I'm on a Mac). I hope it works! I've got another CD that I will try to post today, from a local Messianic fella...
ReplyDeleteSaw it, got it, deployed it, live on the station as of now. :-)
ReplyDeleteI like 'Teshuva', thanks for uploading! Looking forward to that local CD.
Uploading 'Wholly to Yahweh' right not. This is the one from my friend Jonathan Kegans. Hope saying 'Yahweh' is okay on Chavah...
ReplyDeletePeace!
Certainly. Unlike some Messianics, I'm not picky about names used for God.
ReplyDeleteThanks for uploading!
Hi Michael,
ReplyDeleteI got all of the files except:
12 I Dedicate My Life To You.mp3
14 As I Bask.mp3
Those 2 didn't finish uploading. The rest worked. If you have a chance, please upload those 2 again, we'll be all set.
Thanks again!
Hey J,
ReplyDeleteHow do I add images to the songs I upload? Can I email the image to you? Here's a link to the 'Wholly to Yahweh' image:
http://www.jonathankegans.com/images/cdcase_large.jpg
FYI - I posted those last few songs.
ReplyDeleteThanks for being 'open' to the wide variety of Messianic music that is available.
What makes music 'Messianic' anyway?
What makes music 'Jewish'?
Peace.
- mdg
I'm uploading one more CD called 'Soul's Sunrise'. Another homegrown Messianic out of Colorado...
ReplyDeleteI usually just find the album art myself. In this case, I found Kegan's album art via the website.
ReplyDeleteSo, don't worry about album art, unless it's a super-obscure (e.g. nowhere on the internet) album. In that case, you can email it to me: judahgabriel gmail.
Regarding what makes an album "Messianic", that's certainly subjective. For Chavah, I tend to include music that's performed by Yeshua's disciples, excluding Christian Pop music. Typically, these are Messianic Jews or Messianic gentiles. (Perhaps that is just shifting the question to the definition of Messianic!)
Also, I've been hesitant to place Jewish, non-Messianic music on there, as the artists may not approve of their music playing on a Messianic radio station.
Generally speaking, Chavah is music for Yeshua's disciples. If you have music, chants, Scripture readings, etc. that would be uplifting to Yeshua's disciples, upload and I'll decide whether to put it on the station.
Thanks for uploading all these great albums!
Awesome, thanks.
ReplyDeleteBTW - The last CD I uploaded (Soul's Sunrise) doesn't have an album cover.
You da man...
- mdg