Hmm, an excellent question. Sometimes we wonder this ourselves...who are we...why are we here...what's the meaning of our existence? Well, in short, we are a group of music-loving free-thinking and change-the-world types who got so sick of the current digital music environment and lack of freedom given to us in our daily use of our digital libraries that we had no choice but to step up and create something better. So, we put our blood, sweat and tears (not to mention a few overheated servers) into Maestro, our solution to the limitations of the current environment. Why are we here? We're here to change the capabilities and access everyone has to their music! The meaning of our existence is still a bit fuzzy, so we're gonna have to get back to you on that one. Heck, go ahead and stop on by or contact us if you want to know more. We're a friendly bunch...usually.

With Maestro, your home computer becomes the central source for your music collection that can then be accessed and managed through any web browser, anywhere. You start by downloading a small application, the Maestro Connector, to the computer where your digital music collection is stored. Through the Maestro Connector, you will be able to select the folders on your home computer that contain your digital music. Once the Maestro connector is directed to your music, you leave the Maestro Connector running and you will then have full management and playback capabilities for your music from any web browser, either at home or across the country, by logging onto the Maestro online music portal at www.maestro.fm . Pretty cool, huh? Also, once you add friends to your Maestro Network, you can share your eclectic music taste with them through your playlists.

Predictably, we highly recommend downloading and using the Maestro Connector, so that you can fully experience Maestro. But we don't want to go excluding anyone, so let's say you have a partial Maestro experience. You can still sign up for Maestro, make friends, check out and listen to their music, and much more. However, you will not have any music of your own, so your library, playlists, and many of the modules and settings on the website will be blank. If you love music as much as we do, and have any sort of music collection already, using the Connector allows the entire world of Maestro to come together.

As free as air!

Good question! Through our Help Center you can submit your feedback via the feedback form: www.maestro.fm /feedback. Please check the Help Center to see if there is a resolution to the error you experienced.

Have no fear! The Maestro Connector and the online site are Adware and Spyware free zones. We do not believe that adware and spyware should be a part of the Maestro experience, and quite frankly, we probably hate Spyware just as much as you do.

- If you forgot your password, you can retrieve it here.
 
If you already know your password but want to change it, just log on to Maestro, and click on the 'Settings' tab. Enter the new password you want to use, confirm it, and you're good to go.

Usually, starting/restarting your Maestro Connector will cause it to automatically check for software updates that you may be missing. In addition, you can choose your type of computer underneath the Extensions navigation tab at the top of www.maestro.fm and click on this to check for new updates.

This is a bad idea and we wouldn't recommend it. An endless array of crazy things could happen. Currently, the Maestro Connector is designed to have one person logged on at a time.

The Maestro Connector is compatible with Windows XP and Vista computers. A Mac version is running around here somewhere and we'll probably let it out of the house shortly.
 
The remote computer you use to access Maestro is only dependent upon having a browser.

Absolutely - the current version of the Maestro Connector is available under the Downloads section.

When we began building this new version of the Maestro Connector for Mac, Apple had not yet released to the public their Snow OS. It was to our surprise that Apple was no longer supporting some libraries for Cocoa and Java which were required by many software applications including ours. Fortunately, we were able to get a copy of the files needed to get things working on Snow OS. This files are easy to download, copy and paste. Once installed, the connector will run.

First things first - you must register with Maestro with a valid email address. Go to www.maestro.fm/registration and insert your email address. Then check your inbox for an activation email, which will contain a link for you to follow to the rest of the registration process. Once your account is activated, you will be directed to the Maestro Connector download page.
 
Once you download and install the Maestro Connector, just point the application to your music folder via the "Setup Music Folders" button, tell the Connector where you store your music, press the "Scan Folders" button, and voila - your music is now available from every web browser.
 
To fully manage and listen to your music, just log in at www.maestro.fm and listen to your music until your ears fall off.

It should be arriving in the inbox of the email you registered with just moments after you clicked on that big 'Join' button next to the entrance field. If it hasn't arrived after a couple of minutes, check your email's spam folder as well to make sure it didn't incorrectly think it was junk mail. If you still haven't seen the email after a couple hours, try entering your email address again or contact us: support@maestro.fm.

The Maestro Connector is a small download that makes everything possible. By installing the application to your computer, you are able to access your music, manage your favorite playlists, and quick-play your songs the Maestro way - sweet and simple.
 
Just remember, if you haven't cached your music yet, the Connector must be running in the background in order to remotely access your music.

The Maestro Connector will be available for public download in the near future but because we're still in our Beta stage, you must register at www.maestro.fm before you can download the application.
 
In addition, signing into www.maestro.fm with a valid user account will give you full site navigation. At the top of the screen you will see an "Extensions" tab, which will also lead you directly to the proper Maestro Connector download for your computer.

Adding music to your Maestro profile is easy as 1, 2, 3...4, 5, 6!
 
After you download, install, and start the Maestro Connector just follow the steps below to add your music to your Maestro account.
 
1. Click the "Select Music Folders" button.
2. Select the file folder(s) where your music is location.
3. If you accidentally add the wrong directory, just highlight the incorrect directory and click remove.
4. You can repeat this for multiple folders if necessary.
5. Click "Scan Folders".
6. Your music will now be scanned and made accessible through Maestro. The time needed to complete this process will depend on how much music you are adding to Maestro.

What seriously? @*!%!
 
Ok, ok, try searching your computer for a song you know you have, and when the computer finds it, it will also tell you the location of the song and pathway to the folder it is in. Odds are, the rest of your music should be there too. If you use iTunes, just use the same folder(s) that your iTunes library is located in.

Well, start with one folder, then just keep adding folders in the same manner. Hit 'Scan' when you're finished. Just the way you think you would.

Yes. How's that for easy?

While we don't expect too many of you folk to have been avoiding iTunes like the plague, if this IS the case you aren't going to feel left out one bit! Making playlists on the Maestro website is very easy, just check out the other FAQ's about playlist creation. There is absolutely no need to have prior use of iTunes in order to enjoy the full capabilities of Maestro, and we're damn proud to have you using us instead!

Your music actually becomes a ticking time bomb and will eventually blow up your computer and everything around it, [pause], KIDDING! In actuality, the scanner does nothing to your music except examines the metadata, which allows Maestro and your music a much faster and smoother synchronization with each other. The metadata provides all the vital information necessary for Maestro to work.

Currently, Maestro supports unprotected MP3, WMA, M4A, FLAC, WAV, and the mysterious OGG (you know who you are) digital music formats. Other types of music files will not be added to Maestro if they are located in the same folders as your MP3s on your computer.

If you scanned your music properly, here are a few reasons why your music may not play through www.maestro.fm :

- The music file types are protected, or a file type we do not currently support. We currently support the following unprotected digital audio file formats: MP3, M4A, WMA, WAV, FLAC, and OGG
- There may have been a scanning issue where either the scan didn't complete correctly due to network or computer glitch. Try
- Are you logging on at www.maestro.fm with the same account that you logged on with on the Maestro Connector? You must scan the music under the same account that you are trying to remotely log into.
- Double check that the music you wanted to scan is actually located in one of the folders you selected to scan through the Maestro Connector.
- Perhaps you found a bug. Send us a description at www.maestro.fm/feedback.

You can access your music from any web browser at www.maestro.fm as long as two things are true:
 
1. you setup the Maestro Connector and scanned your music, and
2. you left your computer on with the Maestro Connector running in the background.
 
That's easy enough, isn't it?

Nope! Only the computer that has your music is required to have the Maestro Connector installed. All other computers can use www.maestro.fm to access your library.

When you install the Maestro Connector, your firewall software should prompt you to accept the Maestro Connector as an accepted application. You can verify by going into your firewall software application and making sure the Maestro Connector has been accepted.

If you are having trouble connecting to your home computer, your company or school may be blocking outside ports from streaming to their network. You need to tell them it helps your productivity to listen to music while you work...then start whistling constantly throughout the day until they let you stream music to the office.

The current limited Beta Release of Maestro does not allow access through a user's cell phone. But rest assured that this is coming once we get all the kinks out.

If you have successfully scanned your music and can see it online but cannot actually play your music, you click the play button, there are a number of reasons that this might happen, and here are a few of the more likely ones:
 
- The Maestro Connector on your home computer is offline and you have not played the music at least once before.
- You may be getting blocked by your home computer software firewall. You need to make sure you have added the Maestro Connector as an accepted application when prompted by the software firewall on your home computer.
- You remote office or school network is blocking incoming streams.

We're afraid not. When a computer goes into hibernation mode, it's essentially the same as it being turned off, at least in regards to any programs on the computer running. So, as with any other software or application, the Maestro Connector will not be able to stream music to you remotely if it is sleeping/hibernating. If the screensaver is merely running then it should be ok though. And you could turn off the hibernate feature too. Don't forget...if your music is cached on www.maestro.fm already, this won't be a problem for you, now will it?

It's easy, easy, easy. All you need to do is leave your Maestro Connector running on the computer with all the music, and log into www.maestro.fm to access your music. Simple, right?

It doesn't matter if you're at home, at the office, or at your friend's house. You music is accessible anywhere there's a web browser, as long as you keep that Maestro Connector running on your home computer.

The current limited Beta Release of Maestro does not allow access through a user's cell phone. But rest assured that this is coming once we get all the kinks out.

If you play a song once through Maestro, then it is stored online and available without the Connector being online. So if you play your favorite playlists just once, they will then always be available after that.

If you click on "My Music" in the main navigation bar then you will be shown a list of your entire library where you can then sort by Song, Artist, Album and Genre and either play the sort list or begin adding to playlists by clicking the + Playlist button. Additionally, you can filter sort through your entire library by any Artist, Album or Genre by clicking on the little magnifying glass that appears when you move your mouse over the vertical blue bar next to any selection. This will show you all the songs you have in your library for that selection. Using the "Search" bar on the top left of the Maestro screen, you can type an artist, a song title, or any genre of music and Maestro find all related results within the entire Maestro network.

Creating a playlist is one of the simplest things to do on Maestro. We wanted to make it so convenient that we even gave you three different ways to do it.
 
1. You can click on the My Playlists tab at the top of the page where you will see all your playlists. Click the Create Playlist button to create a blank playlist to which you can start adding songs.
2. From any search result screen you can add those search results to a playlist by clicking Add to Playlist button where can add to new or existing playlist.
3. From any individual song, you can click the + Playlist button to manage your playlist. Click the Create Playlist Button to create a blank playlist.
 
Additionally, if you already have your playlists created in iTunes you can sync them using the Maestro Connector.

Want to add or remove a song from a playlist? All you need to do is click the + Playlist button next to each song, and check or uncheck the playlist name you want to add or remove the song from. Don't worry about saving; all changes are done in real time.

Searching for playlists is just as easy as searching for your friends. First, click on the "Playlists" tab at the top of the www.maestro.fm screen. Once loaded, you will be able to browse through your playlists and those of friends and if you're looking for a quick way of opening a specific playlist, use the search bar. You can type the name of the playlist in the search bar and Maestro will return not only the playlists in your library that have a similar name but also ones in your friends. Talk about total sweetness.

Well, it's pretty self explanatory really: 'plays' are the number of times a song has been played, and 'viewed' is the number of times a profile, song, artist, etc. page has been viewed by someone. The number of 'plays' for a playlist is the summation of all of the total song plays within that playlist, but only counts plays when they were specifically chosen due to their inclusion in that playlist. Hope that clears that all up.

First click on one of your playlists, either in the My Playlist tab or on your profile page. Once a playlist is displayed you can drag and drop any song to a different position. Move as many songs around as you need to then click the Save Reorder button at the top of the playlist page. You will not be able to reorder your friend's playlists though.

Within Maestro you add as many songs as you like to your playlists.
 
If you add a Maestro playlist to MySpace or Facebook the embedded player will only display 25 songs.

Good to see you're getting into it! There are three security preferences for playlists:
 
- Public (default): Anyone can view your playlists and play them, including any Maestro member or visitor to the site
- Friends: Anyone who is your Maestro friend can both view and play these playlists; no one else can see or play these playlists
- Private: You, and only you, have the sole ability to see and/or play these playlists All playlists are set to public by default. To change the privacy settings open one of you playlists and click the "Permissions" button at the top of the playlist listing and select the privacy setting you would like for that specific playlist.

You sure can. Just click on the link to go to the profile page of any playlist. At the top left corner, you will see a little picture of an envelope with "Share this page with anyone" written next to it. Click on this and fill out the appropriate information (both of your names and email addresses) and send it on its way. The recipient does not need to be a Maestro member to check the playlist out, or any other Maestro page you decide to send their way.

In Maestro, you can edit your "About Me" section and your avatar. Just head to your Maestro Profile page by clicking on your profile link on the right side of the main navigation bar, and scroll down the page a bit. On the left hand side you will see the "About Me" module...and just across from it is a link that says "edit information."
 
All other profile information is based on your actual music usage within Maestro.

Just head to your Maestro Profile, and look to your left, underneath your username. There should be a "change photo" link right there, just waiting for you to tell it what you want your user profile picture to be! Feel free to throw a .gif image in there too if you feel like having a little animation.

Unfortunately, your user name is set in stone - Sorry!

By now you have probably noticed a list of the "Most Played" artists, albums and songs on user profile pages, including your own. Well, that's exactly what this is a list of: the artists, albums and songs that you have listened to the greatest number of times. These don't necessarily have to be something in your collection; it's whichever 12 of these you have listened to the most while on the Maestro network, plain and simple.

Much as it sounds, the Maestro "Activity" module lists just that...activity on the Maestro network. The section is broken down into three different categories of information that you can view:
 
- Mine - your own personal activity
- Friends - your friends' activity
- Your playlists - activity that has occurred in reference to your playlists, namely songs being played from any of your playlists, who played them, and when
 
Activity is defined as the following actions, and will show the user and time of each incident:
 
- Logging in
- Playing a song
 
Use this to monitor your own activity, as well as that of your friends, and get a glimpse into what people are up to on the network!

The Shoutout area is akin to making/adding a comment, or a posting wall, or any area where you can leave messages for users. You can find them on any user-profile, song, artist, or playlist page on the Maestro network, so go ahead and tell people what you REALLY think! Or just make something else up, whatever gets you going.

The "Maestro Popular Tags" module is really a bit of a schmorgasboard of what's popular on Maestro right now. In no particular order, it shows you the top 5 played or viewed artists, songs, and playlists on the Maestro Network. In the mood for some musical discovery? Click away on any of the content you see in there and check out what's got lots of other Maestro users groovin' away!

Stop receiving the Maestro emails?! WHY WOULD YOU WANT TO DO THAT! Well, if you truly do want to stop receiving those awesome emails we send out, all you need to do is log in to your account, click on "Account Settings" and adjust your email settings as necessary.

Friends on the Maestro Network are the same as friends in real life, except on Maestro, you can get rid of them when they get annoying. Your friends on Maestro must confirm an invitation to become your friend. Once you are friends, it becomes much easier to see what they have been listening to and you can now view and play each other's playlists.
 
And remember, there's always a "disconnect" button when you go to that friend's profile page.

So you want a couple new friends, huh? Well, all you need to do is click on the "Invite Friends" tab at the top of the www.maestro.fm website and send them an invitation. Invite an entire email address book, or by one email address at a time. Once they accept your invitation, and join in, you can listen to their playlists and they can listen to yours.
 
To search for someone on Maestro just type in the name of the person or their email address in the Search box and click on the "Members" tab in the search results. You can send a friend request to any user on Maestro by going to there profile and clicking the "Send Request" button.
 
Also, as you continue to use Maestro and explore music, you will see dozens upon dozens of different pathways, modules, and lists of other members on the Maestro network who have some sort of connection to you and the music you are interested in. Just click on any of these usernames to check out their profile, and send them a friend request. They might be just as excited to gain a new Maestro buddy as you are!

All you need to do is click on the "Invite Friends" tab at the top of the www.maestro.fm website and send them an invitation. Invite an entire email address book by entering your email address and password into the selected fields, and we'll take care of the rest. Don't forget to follow up with people to make sure they received the email and plan on signing up! Remember, more friends means more music for you to enjoy.

Your "Neighborhood" is a list of users who are friends of a Maestro friend of yours, but not directly your friend...yet.

All you need to do is click on the "Discover" tab (a VERY useful tab in which you can see who is online, if they're connected via the Maestro Connector, and what they're currently doing on the website) and then click on the "Members" sub-tab under Discovery. Use the Search bar on the far left to search for a user. You can type in a first name, last name, username or email and we'll try our best to find your man (or woman).

There are two ways to accept friend requests. The main way is to check out your Maestro inbox, which will have a message waiting for you whenever you receive a friend request (you will also receive an email via your given email address letting you know there is a request waiting for you). Click on the Friend Request link and there will be all your friend requests both ones you've sent and ones you've received.

Maestro lets you embed your custom playlists from our network onto your Facebook profiles. What's so great about these embedded players is that after you sync or create your playlists on Maestro, you can stream them to your Facebook profile so that anyone viewing your profile can click on any of the songs at any time to change which song they are listening to without affecting anything else on your profile. Just remember that the playlists will only work when your Maestro Connector is up and running, or that playlist is cached (played at least one time all the way through) while your Maestro Connector was running.
 
To get started:
 
1. Sign up for Maestro Beta
- Insert email -> Receive registration link -> Fill out registration page -> Download the Maestro Connector
 

2. Add music folder directories to Maestro
- After launching the Maestro Connector click the "Select Music Folders" button
- Add directory where music files are stored
- Click "Scan Folders"
 

3. Once music has been successfully scanned you can start playing music
- Click on the "www.maestro.fm " button on the connector, or just go to http://www. www.maestro.fm yourself and log in for full management capabilities
 

4. Create Some Playlists
- At http://www.maestro.fm click on the Playlists tab at the top of the screen, or take a glance at the Playlists module on your home page, and click the " Create New Playlist" button.
- At http://www.maestro.fm click on My Music or perform a search of your music.
- Add a song to your playlists by clicking the "+Playlist" button next to that song or add from a search result
- or sync your iTunes playlists through the Maestro Connector
 

5. Sign up for Maestro Facebook Application
- Sign into your Facebook account and go to http://apps.facebook.com/maestro/ or go to your profile, and click on "Applications" on the far left side of the screen
- Click "Browse for More Applications" and search for "maestro"
- Click on the Maestro Music Application, and on the right hand side, click to "Add this Application"
- You will be prompted to sign into your Maestro account, this is so the Application can find what playlists you have created
- Sign in and choose the playlist you wish to embed into your Facebook profile by clicking the action "Add to profile"
 

6. View and Play your Playlist
- Return to your Facebook profile page
- You can move the Maestro application up and down the right side of your profile screen based on where you would like to have it
- Now you, or anyone who views your profile, merely has to click on the Maestro Application once, and your playlist will come streaming in for all to hear and enjoy!

Maestro lets you embed your custom playlists from our network onto your MySpace profiles. What's so great about these embedded players is that after you sync or create your playlists on Maestro, you can stream them to your Facebook profile so that anyone viewing your profile can click on any of the songs at any time to change which song they are listening to without affecting anything else on your profile. Just remember that the playlists will only work when your Maestro Connector is up and running, or that playlist is cached (played at least one time all the way through) while your Maestro Connector was running.
 
To get started:
1. Sign up for Maestro Beta
- Insert email -> Receive registration link -> Fill out registration page-> Download the Maestro Connector
 

2. Add music folder directories to Maestro
- After launching the Maestro Connector click the "Select Music Folders" button
- Add directory where music files are stored
- Click "Scan Folders"
 

3. Once music has been successfully scanned you can start playing music
- Click on the "www.maestro.fm " button on the connector, or just go to http://www.maestro.fm yourself and log in for full management capabilities
 

4. Create some playlists
- At http://www. www.maestro.fm click on the Playlists tab at the top of the screen, or take a glance at the Playlists module on your home page, and click the " Create New Playlist" button.
- At http://www.maestro.fm click on My Music or perform a search of your music.
- Add a song to your playlists by clicking the "+Playlist" button next to that song or add from a search result
- or sync your iTunes playlists through the Maestro Connector
 

5. Obtain Playlist Coding to Embed
- After you have created a playlist, click on the Playlist tab at the top of the Maestro screen
- Click on the name of the playlist you wish to embed into your profile
- On the playlist profile page, copy the "Player" code at the bottom of the playlist summary box - it starts with "<object classid="
 

6. Add playlist to MySpace
- Sign into MySpace and go to "edit profile"
- Paste the code you copied from the Maestro site into "About Me", or whichever section you wish to have the playlist appear in
- Save all changes, and go to your MySpace profile
- Once completed, you'll be able to see your embedded playlist in your profile, and you, as well as anyone else who views your page, will hear your playlist automatically streaming in!

Yes, Maestro is fully integrated with Twitter. You can post a tweet with a link to any Playlist, DJ, Artist, Song, or Album page to your Twitter account by clicking on the "Share" link on the page you would like to tweet.
 
In the "Share" window, select the Twitter link under "Post To" and enter your Twitter account info (only need to do once). A Twitter screen will then be displayed showing you how many characters you have left to type for that tweet. After you submit, your tweet with a link to the page you are on will be immediately seen by all of your followers and they can click back to the page you tweeted.

No problem at all. If you are referring to MySpace, or any social network where you used the embeddable player code found on each Maestro playlist profile page, then all you have to do is replace the Player code from the old playlist that you already inserted with the code for the new playlist you want to replace it with. Then save, and you're good to go!
 
For Facebook, take the following steps:
1. Go to your Facebook profile page
2. Click on the "Applications" button on the far left hand side of the screen, just underneath the search area function
3. Click on the www.maestro.fm application
4. You should see a list of all of your Maestro playlists...just pick whichever one you want to have on your profile page, and press the "Add to Profile" link all the way to the right of that playlist. Touchdown.

If you have correctly added the Maestro embedded player to your blog or social networking site and it doesn't seem to work, check to make sure that none of the following are the reasons why:
 
- Your Maestro Connector is not on and connected. In order for these playlists to work, your home computer must be connected to the internet, just as it would for any access to be created to any other music in your music library, unless you have cached your music (played it at least once on the www.maestro.fm website) at which point you do not need your Connector to be online
- There has been a change to the playlist name you are trying to play, or you have moved/deleted any of the music within this playlist. If this is the case, just complete the process of embedded the Maestro player again, and the problem should be solved.