Live shows on air: Playing an instrument on radio.

[Lefinch]

In ten words or less: You can play an instrument live on the radio channel.

I like Radio hosts. I like that they can play music and ad spots. I certainly wish there was a hell of a lot more of both because after a while: I've had to turn the music off or go absolutely spare. I also like that we have a variety of people who enjoy playing a musical instrument on station. Sometimes, people will set up and do this in an area all round. I like the custom DJ function that lets admins inject their own music into a round, but know that in no way at any time could this function ever be offered to players beyond the limited scope of the occasional prayer for a particular track or song. 

As a result, I feel radio hosts generally fall into phased stages of life: First, they actually play a lot of music, even radio ads. Then they begin to realise there's a couple dozen tracks far less ads and begin to transition into a talkshow-based format. Don't get me wrong, I like that too, but I feel like there's an opportunity here to bring a few things together for the benefit of round in general.

In essence, I think that in a time-limited or use-dependent fashion, allowing someone to perform on an instrument "live" and it play as if it was coming from (and controlled by the same audio slider for those not interested) somewhere local to listening players. I think this addition could:

• Give and attract more attention to radio hosts and musicians
  
• Break up the fantastic but I would argue "overplayed" (for anyone who has played more than say a few months) real tracks
  
• Be nice to listen to for those who are focused on departmental jobs and might not get to come hear their performances normally in a round. 
  

The potential problems I see with this idea (and a mitigating factor) are:

• How easy this is to code. I have no idea, but asking around on the discord gave no immediate response of "Absolutely not are you crazy". This is a key hurdle though.
  
• What if someone spends the entire round playing mary had a little lamb? First off, good taste, but I agree! I would suggest a "music window" with a similar performance time and cooldown as any other track played on the radio. You are given X minutes to perform the piece, and there's Y minutes before you can play, do, or put in an advert for anything else. 
  
• "buddy this idea is very bad for <reasons>": I've had this idea sitting at the back of my mind for a month since the vinyl "admin" discs were made. It is a bugbear that scratches at my mind and I need to get it out. I have no problem if you kindly point out how terrible this is for reasons I've missed! But someone waves a rolled newspaper in my direction if I put an idea on discord but don't put it here, so here it is. 
  

[Cal]

I personally would not want this in the game because I find instruments loud and annoying.

Not that it's a bad idea. Maybe a cool down like you suggested would be fine.

[meaow589]

I support this idea make more music on radio is great.may be musician can set there own music and spread it. I not sure is it involve sound synthesizer item that can purchase at pre round

[Lefinch]

I personally would not want this in the game because I find instruments loud and annoying.

Not that it's a bad idea. Maybe a cool down like you suggested would be fine.

It's a fair point. If possible, a good side option to have would be like vinyls and radio ads: A chat link to stop the transmission for you personally, for those who like to pick and choose what they hear/are subjected to.

[Kotlol]

I personally would not want this in the game because I find instruments loud and annoying.

Not that it's a bad idea. Maybe a cool down like you suggested would be fine.

My sentiment exactly.

With musicians I can kill em or get away from them or take away their weapons. With the radio I have to turn it off.
With this.. I am not sure...

In my opinion playing instruments on the radio is a good and logical idea. But insted of a cooldown...
Let's use the advertisment tape.

You plug the instrument into the reciever and you have x amount of time before the instrument "overheats" and breaks.
It won't count as your song cooldown, but in doing so you expend the instrument. This is all to avoid players spamming the same music over and over and makes buying multiplue instruments have a goal.

[Mantwerp]

I think this would work a lot better if we paired this along with the boombox suggestion from a bit ago, from an annoyingness perspective, but also from a coding perspective. It would just have the music come out of the boombox item (like it would a person holding the instrument) instead of having it be audible for every single person, and if you don't like the music you can just turn the boombox off.

all that nonwithstanding, this idea really rules though, coming from someone who learned to play music through goonstation and wishes that more people would play (or atleast attempt to learn to play), and something like this would encourage that greatly.

[Frank_Stein]

Maybe add a recording studio to the radio station. Have the instruments wired up to a sound booth and recorded onto separate tracks, and a booth with a mixing console where you can edit the tracks to make mix tape that can be played on air.

[Lefinch]

Maybe add a recording studio to the radio station. Have the instruments wired up to a sound booth and recorded onto separate tracks, and a booth with a mixing console where you can edit the tracks to make mix tape that can be played on air.

I certainly like this, though I'd beg alongside some kind of "semi round-persistent" mixtape shelf akin to the chapel bookshelf to let those radio hosts (and the musicians who performed) to have a bit of an expanded repertoire to draw upon.

[Emimiyu]

Hmm, maybe if it's player music. I suggest for it to be easy to stop or shut down. Like, before the radio change, you used to be able to force a tape to stop by playing a disk or vice versa. But it is now changed that if you want to play a tape, you should wait for the disk to be done. So just in case someone keep playing meme song, song from player should be able to be forcefully stop by other players, like how tapes and disks work before.

It also at least give people some interaction for annoying musician or radio man.

[TDHooligan]

franks sounds like the best middle ground - record your song then play, then like other radio songs, you have the 'shut up' button if someone abuses the feature. but im still middling on if its a good idea