Here is the truth. You do not need a gatekeeper to run a radio station on the web. You do not need a social feed to talk with your audience. You do not need to ask a platform if your words are allowed today.
Airwave Audio Player Matrix just hit version 0.0.93, and this is the release I am calling fully working. The core is solid. The features are stable. The setup is simple enough that a busy station owner can knock it out before the next set. If you have been waiting to try it, stop waiting. Take the keys and drive.
You know what? I built this because censorship is boring and control freaks ruin the party. Radio is honest. Matrix is open. Put them together on your site and you get a home you control, not a cage with rules that change by the hour.
Airwave Audio Player Matrix v0.0.96What just shipped
Version 0.0.93 is a clean, working build with the full station experience on one page. You get the audio player, live metadata, and a Matrix chat client that talks to any homeserver you trust. You also get the combined module, so radio and chat sit in one block without duct tape or extra markup. We tightened the metadata pipeline, smoothed out the Matrix session handling, and polished the admin so you spend more time on music and less on menus.
The features below are not hype. They are in the plugin right now.
- Streams Shoutcast, Icecast, and SonicPanel
- Shows Now Playing, artist, artwork, listener counts, and DJ name when available
- Drops Matrix chat directly on your page for real community conversation
- Works with shortcodes, theme friendly, and quick to configure in minutes
- Free and open source, updated often
Those are the basics. If you are done with rented speech, that is the punchline. Run the stack yourself and keep the audience with you. spunwebtechnology.com
The one-liner that does it all
For Disruptarian Radio, this is the shortcode I am using to put our stream and our Matrix room in the same module. It is dead simple.
[airwave_combined stream="0" room="#disruptarianradio:matrix.org"]
That is it. Publish a page and you have a full cockpit. No tabs, no extra iframes, no nonsense. The combined shortcode ships with the plugin, so you are not copying some hack from a forum. It is supported in the codebase. GitHub
If you want separate blocks instead, the plugin page shows examples for the player, chat, and a compact Now Playing banner. You choose the layout that fits your site. spunwebtechnology.com
What you get, in plain English
Audio that behaves. Airwave handles the popular stream types, respects playlists, and keeps your metadata fresh. Title, artist, cover. Listeners and DJ when your stack reports them. You can run a single stream or rotate across several. Yes, it is fast, and yes, it works on phones. spunwebtechnology.com
Chat that belongs to you. The Matrix pane is a real client, not a dumb embed. Log in once, stay connected, and talk in near real time. Pick your homeserver. Use your own if you want. Nobody in the middle, nobody selling your crowd. spunwebtechnology.com
Setup that respects your time. Install the plugin, open Settings, paste your stream info, drop a shortcode, publish. You can style it like anything else on WordPress. Override colors and layout in your theme if you want to get fancy. spunwebtechnology.com
If you want a longer walkthrough and a peek under the hood, I wrote about how we use it on Disruptarian, why Matrix beats corporate chat, and how the plugin keeps your stream steady and your chat honest. That writeup hits the highlights and shows how we run it in the real world. disruptarian.com
Who this helps
- Independent stations that want to own their traffic
- Podcasters who are sick of walled gardens and rate limits
- DJs and labels who want a launch page that actually works
- Community radio that wants open rooms with real names or pseudonyms
Look, paying a social giant with your audience is like handing the town drunk your wallet and hoping he buys groceries instead of whiskey. Keep your wallet. Keep your voice.
Optional helper: automation for stations that need more
Some of you want more than a player and a chat room. You want requests, AI help for common listener questions, and deeper integration with your streaming stack. There is a commercial add-on for that, and it is optional.
Airwave Automator adds:
- Interactive song requests with moderation
- AI listener Q&A that you control
- SonicPanel, SHOUTcast, and IceCast integration for live status
- Matrix & IRC chat widgets and other tools for more complex sites
- Mobile friendly widgets and basic security options
It is built to sit next to the free plugin. Start with Airwave Audio Player Matrix, then add Automator if you want the extra muscle. If you run a busy station, you will probably like the workflow. spunwebtechnology.com
Why this matters for speech and culture
Silencing speech is like putting tape over a smoke alarm. The fire still burns, you just cannot hear the warning. We have watched the usual platforms throttle stories, bury links, and pretend it is for our safety. I do not buy it. Protocols beat platforms because protocols cannot be fired. Matrix is a protocol. Radio is a protocol in spirit. WordPress is the glue you own.
There is a bigger lesson here. When you run your own stack, you stop living at the mercy of someone else’s dashboard. You are not refreshing a policy page to see if your topic got moved to the naughty list. You get to build your own house and set your own rules. And when people trust that you will not disappear their words, they stick around. Community takes root. Culture grows.
How to get started today
- Install and activate Airwave Audio Player Matrix on your WordPress site.
- Open Settings, enter your stream info and your Matrix homeserver and default room.
- Create a page and place the combined shortcode shown above.
- Publish and invite your listeners.
The plugin page includes copy-and-paste examples for different layouts, plus quick fixes for HTTPS and metadata quirks. If you run SonicPanel, there are notes on the JSON endpoint format. Support info is listed on the page as well. spunwebtechnology.com
If you want to see how we run it on Disruptarian and what problems it solves in the real world, my longer blog breakdown covers that, from persistent logins to mixed content handling and stream rotation. It is written for people who ship, not tourists. disruptarian.com
A note to the builders
This one is for the folks who would rather pave their own road than sit in a platform’s waiting room. If that is you, welcome. Fork the code, send a patch, file an issue, or just run it and tell us what broke. The repository is public. MIT license. No gatekeeper. The combined module is in the readme and in the code, ready to go. GitHub
Government will not protect speech online. Corporations will not either. Speech protects itself when we build tools that do not rely on permission. Airwave 0.0.93 is one small tool in that bigger fight. Use it. Share it. Improve it.
Sources
- https://spunwebtechnology.com/meet-airwave-audio-player-matrix/ spunwebtechnology.com
- https://github.com/veracitylife/AirwaveAuidioPlayerMatrix GitHub
- https://disruptarian.com/blog/airwave-audio-player-matrix-free-speech-radio-for-the-real-internet/ disruptarian.com
- https://spunwebtechnology.com/airwaveautomator/ spunwebtechnology.com
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