Meet Riff the Relay Gremlin… and Check Out What’s New at Relay Radio

If you’ve been hanging around Relay Radio lately, you may have noticed we’ve been doing that thing we do where we say, “We’re just going to make one little change,” and then somehow end up rebuilding half the neighborhood.

So yes, we’ve been busy.

The biggest goal has been pretty simple: make Relay Radio feel even more alive while you’re listening. Not “alive” in the creepy possessed-radio-at-3-AM kind of way. More like, “there are actual people here, actual DJs on the air, and stuff is happening right now” kind of way.

One of the first additions is Live Reactions. When one of our DJs is actually on the air, you can now react to the show right from the player with 🔥, 🤘, 😂, ❤️, and 💀. Because sometimes typing out “That song was awesome” is just entirely too much effort when a flaming emoji gets the point across.

The reactions update while the DJ is live, and we’ve worked them into the main player, the dedicated player, and the little player that follows you around the site like a needy puppy that just wants you to keep listening. Hover over the reactions and you’ll even get a tooltip telling you what each one means, in case the giant skull somehow left room for interpretation.

We also added a new Live / Up Next strip directly under the main player. This one is actually a lot smarter than it looks.

If a show is scheduled, Relay doesn’t just blindly announce that it’s on the air because the clock says so. The site checks whether the DJ who is supposed to be there is actually connected and live. Revolutionary concept, we know.

If the scheduled DJ is on, you’ll see the current show, DJ information, their profile picture, and how much time is left. If a DJ jumps on outside of their normal scheduled slot, Relay will tell you it’s an Unscheduled Live Show instead of pretending everything went exactly according to plan. Around here, schedules are sometimes more like strongly worded suggestions.

The Up Next side now shows the next scheduled show, the DJ’s profile picture, and a real countdown timer ticking all the way down to showtime. When it reaches zero, the site immediately checks again to see if the DJ has actually arrived before switching anything to “On Air.” So if somebody is late, the website isn’t going to cover for them.

We’ve also been polishing the players themselves so all of these new features look like they actually belong there. The reactions were originally a little… chunky. Very “somebody bolted a new box onto the dashboard.” They’ve now been tightened up into the existing Relay Radio look with the neon, dark glass, gradients, and just enough glow to make your graphics card feel appreciated.

And now we need to talk about the small furry problem that has apparently moved into the station.

Meet Riff the Relay Gremlin.

Riff is our new Relay Radio mascot, and honestly, we’re not completely sure who authorized this.

Actually, scratch that. It was probably DJ Glitch.

The story goes that Riff started hanging around the station after somebody left a set of headphones, an energy drink, and an unattended audio console in the same room overnight. By morning, there was a tiny neon gremlin sitting in the DJ chair, wearing the headphones backward, pressing buttons nobody remembers installing, and insisting he had “always worked here.”

Nobody has been able to prove otherwise.

Riff apparently survives on loud music, bad influences, and whatever snacks the DJs forget to take home. He has an unhealthy fascination with glowing buttons, thinks every volume knob should go one click higher, and has already been blamed for at least three technical problems that probably weren’t his fault.

Probably.

He’s loud, colorful, permanently attached to a pair of headphones, and has the kind of grin that strongly suggests he knows exactly who unplugged the audio cable and has no intention of admitting it.

In other words, he fits right in.

You’ll start seeing Riff around Relay Radio as part of the site and our future promos. We’ve introduced him into the footer alongside the Relay Radio branding, but that’s probably not going to be the last place he turns up. Expect him around special events, announcements, holidays, listener promos, and anywhere else we decide could use a small neon gremlin causing trouble.

We’re trying not to encourage him.

DJ Glitch is probably encouraging him.

So that’s going well.

All of these changes are part of the same idea we’ve had from the beginning: Relay Radio should be more than a button you press to hear music. It should feel like a place. You should be able to see when a DJ is live, know what’s coming next, interact with the show, find the people behind the microphone, and feel like you’re actually hanging out with the rest of the Relay crowd.

And we’re not done.

We’ve still got plenty of ideas rattling around, which is usually dangerous for everyone involved.

For now, jump in, listen live, throw a few reactions at your favorite DJs, keep an eye on what’s coming up next, and if you see Riff anywhere near the control room…

Please don’t feed him after midnight.