No instrumental-only ragas
I am American fan of Indian music, and have been for many years. Over a quarter million people of Indian descent live in the Bay Area, so I've been able to attend a lot of Indian musical performances.
In person I can appreciate the vocals, though I don't particularly enjoy it. I still go (er, went, before Covid), because — around here anyway — typically well over half the music in live performances is instruments-only.
This afternoon I downloaded your app, and listened to the first few minutes of ten ragas. Each and every one of them was immediately dominated by a vocalist.
In my earbuds, sorry but I can't listen to that. If that makes me an oxidental jackass to you, ok let me know and I'll take down this review, and move along. If your goals include extending the music you love to a wider audience, then I suggest you consider offering us settings for preferences like instrumental-only.
Two other points: of the ten ragas I started, two were re-starts of ones that already had played. Is your afternoon catalog that limited?
Since I didn't create an account, I don't know if there's a thumbs-up-thumbs-down feature (like Pandora) so we listeners can tune in for our preferences. If so, and if your catalog actually includes a reasonable number of instrumental ragas, I'd subscribe, and try to thumb my way out of the problem.
If you respond, I'll give you more stars, once I know i have your attention (no reply. Now, last chance)
Response from developer
Hi Observanti! Firstly thank you so much for taking the time to elaborately express your thoughts. We're really glad that people like you exist—who care about things. We're sorry we have taken so much time to address your message. It is our goal to build a world class message is from a time when we were at 1.0). We've recently started rebuilding our mobile apps and we're in the last few stages of polishing and testing. There will be significantly valuable updates in the coming weeks. We'll announce when those updates are shipped. Addressing your points specifically. There has been a basic filter for vocal vs instrumental for a few years now (after your review) which lets you adjust your experience. There's no dislike button, but we have a provision for you to favorite renditions in a list. And we also tend to serve less of the renditions that you skip during playbacks. Re: less number of instrumental renditions —agreed vocals dominate our collection, but we've been slowly growing our catalogue and you'll find a substantial amount of content of your preference. When you must have tried afternoon music at Ragya 1.0 we had a paywall to be able to browse through the premium catalogue. We've changed that model to increase access, allowing everyone to browse through the entire catalogue and sample more content without sign up or any commitment. While the apps are a work in progress, you'll find everything ironed out and already available at ragya.com. Check it out sometime. Thank you for caring so deeply.
