313 LIVE is a Detroit electronic radio station that never signs off. Techno, house and electro stream around the clock from 313live.org, free to hear, with no account and no paywall. This guide covers what the station is, how to listen on any device, what plays at each hour of the day, and how the city’s sound got here, from a high-school friendship in Belleville to dancefloors around the world.
If you only need the play button, it’s on every page of the site. Press it once and the stream follows you while you browse. For everything else, read on.
What is 313 LIVE?
313 is Detroit’s area code, and it’s shorthand for the city’s music: the techno that was born here, the house that grew up here, and the electro that never left. 313 LIVE is an internet radio station built on that inheritance. It runs 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and plays Detroit-rooted electronic music alongside the producers around the world who learned from it.
A few basics:
- Always on. The stream runs 24/7, programmed in four dayparts on Detroit (Eastern) time.
- Free to listen. No sign-up, no subscription, no paywall.
- One stream, good quality. A 192 kbps MP3 stream that works in a browser, in the installable app, and in most media players and internet-radio apps.
- Interactive. You can see what just played, look tracks up, and request music from the station library.
- Detroit-made. The station is based in Detroit, Michigan, and the programming leans on the city’s own history.
The station’s blog, The Signal (the section you’re reading), carries artist stories, listening guides and station notes. Start at The Signal or read on for the full picture.
How to listen to 313 LIVE
There are four reliable ways in. All of them carry the same stream.
1. In your browser
Open 313live.org/live and press play. The full player shows what’s on now, what’s coming up next and the last few tracks, with buttons to request a track or share the station. The stream never starts on its own; it waits for your click, and the status reads “Connecting” until audio is actually flowing.
You don’t have to stay on that page. Every page of the site has a player dock at the bottom, and the audio keeps playing while you move between pages. Read an artist story, check the schedule, browse requests, and the music stays on.
2. As an app on your phone or computer
313live.org installs like an app. On a phone, open the site and use Add to Home Screen from your browser’s share or menu button. You’ll get a 313 LIVE icon that opens straight to the live player, with lock-screen playback controls. Desktop browsers that support installable web apps offer the same thing from the address bar or menu. There’s no app store download and nothing to update.
3. In a media player or internet-radio app
If you’d rather use your own player, the station publishes standard playlist files: the .m3u playlist and a .pls version, both linked from the live page and the site footer. Open either one in VLC, Apple Music or iTunes, Winamp, or any app that accepts an internet-radio stream, and 313 LIVE plays like any other station.
4. In the car or on a speaker
The simplest route is your phone. Start the stream in the browser or the installed app, then send it to the car or speaker the way you send any other audio: Bluetooth, a cable, or your phone’s own casting or AirPlay controls. Receivers and players that let you add a custom stream URL can take the playlist file directly.
The full walkthrough, device by device, is in How to Listen to 313 LIVE Anywhere. For the habits that make the stream more than background noise, see How to Listen to 313 LIVE Like a Local.
The daypart guide: what plays when
A 24/7 station shouldn’t sound the same at 7 a.m. as it does at 3 a.m. 313 LIVE splits the day into four dayparts on Detroit time. The station’s core library runs all day, and each daypart layers in its own set of records that shifts the mood.
- Morning Rise (6–10 AM ET). A gentle start: deep house, nu-disco, melodic cuts and Detroit house classics. Warm enough for coffee, moving enough for the commute.
- Daytime Groove (10 AM–6 PM ET). The working-day lane: deep house, disco-rooted and jacking grooves that hold a room without demanding all of your attention.
- Evening Build (6 PM–midnight ET). The tempo and pressure rise: techno, tech house, Detroit classics, electro and ghettotech for the hours when the city goes out.
- Late Night Deep (midnight–6 AM ET). The long arc: deep house, minimal and deep tech, melodic records and Detroit electro for the afterhours and the insomniacs.
The schedule page shows what’s on now and next in Detroit time, with your local time under each slot if you’re somewhere else. For a closer look at each block and who it’s for, read The 313 LIVE Daypart Guide.
What is Studio 13?
When no DJ is broadcasting live, the station is in Studio 13, 313 LIVE’s own programmed rotation. It’s the engine that keeps Detroit techno, house and electro on air around the clock, working through the dayparts above. The badge on the player tells you which mode you’re hearing: “Studio 13” for the rotation, “Live” when a DJ is on.
Studio 13 is also where requests happen. Because it’s playing from the station library, it can take your pick and slot it into the queue.
Requests: ask for a track
The requests page lets you search the station library, A to Z, by artist or title. Find something you want to hear, press Request, and Studio 13 queues it. A few house rules keep the queue fair:
- Requests play during Studio 13 hours, not during live shows.
- The same track can’t be requested again for a while after it plays, so one record can’t take over the night.
- You can only request what’s in the library, which keeps every request inside the station’s sound.
Requests work best when they add to the flow rather than fight it. Our short etiquette guide, Requesting Tracks the Right Way, explains how.
Recently played: the tracklist that teaches you
Heard something and missed the name? The recently played page keeps the tracklist, grouped by hour, and lets you look back over the last 6 hours, 24 hours, 3 days or 7 days. You can search it by artist or title, and every entry has a Find link that searches Bandcamp for the record, so you can buy the music and support the artist directly.
Used well, the history page is a syllabus. Labels repeat, names connect, eras reveal themselves. Our Detroit techno starter dig shows how to turn a night of listening into a reading list.
The sound of the 313: techno, house and electro
313 LIVE plays music from everywhere, but its center of gravity is Detroit. Here is the short version of how three genres grew out of one city, with links to the longer stories on The Signal.
Techno: born in Detroit
Techno’s founding story starts with three high-school friends from Belleville, Michigan, a small town southwest of Detroit: Juan Atkins, Derrick May and Kevin Saunderson, remembered as the Belleville Three. They grew up on an unusually wide radio diet, much of it from the Electrifying Mojo, whose late-night shows put Kraftwerk next to Parliament, Prince and the B-52’s.
Atkins got there first. With Richard “3070” Davis he formed Cybotron, whose “Alleys of Your Mind” (1981), “Cosmic Cars” (1982) and “Clear” (1983) fused funk with machine rhythm and science-fiction imagery. After Cybotron split, Atkins founded Metroplex and recorded as Model 500, starting with “No UFO’s” in 1985. Read more in our profile of Juan Atkins, the Originator.
May’s Transmat label gave the world “Strings of Life” (as Rhythim Is Rhythim, 1987), still one of the most emotional records in dance music; see Derrick May and the Emotional Core of Detroit Techno. Saunderson’s Inner City took Detroit to the pop charts with “Big Fun” and “Good Life” in 1988, without losing the city’s edge; see Kevin Saunderson: From Inner City to Global House Floors.
The name stuck in 1988, when the UK compilation Techno! The New Dance Sound of Detroit, put together by Neil Rushton for 10 Records, presented the music to Europe under a single word. May described the sound as George Clinton and Kraftwerk stuck in an elevator with only a sequencer for company, which is still the best one-line definition anyone has offered.
A second wave pushed it further. Jeff Mills and “Mad” Mike Banks founded Underground Resistance in 1989, with Robert Hood among the early members, and turned techno into a statement of independence. Mills went on to define peak-time intensity (Jeff Mills: The Wizard), Hood stripped it to its essentials (Robert Hood and the Minimal Gospel), and Carl Craig’s Planet E stretched it toward jazz and the abstract (Carl Craig: Planet E). The labels that carried it all are mapped in Labels That Built the Detroit Myth.
Electro: Detroit’s other machine funk
Before techno had its name, Detroit was already speaking electro: broken, syncopated drum-machine funk with robot vocals and futurist themes. Cybotron’s records are the root. In the 1990s the city rebuilt the style in its own image. Drexciya, the duo of James Stinson and Gerald Donald, released records that built an underwater mythology around the music, starting with the Deep Sea Dweller EP in 1992 and gathered on The Quest (Submerge, 1997). AUX 88 led a street-level electro revival from the mid-1990s, debuting with “Bass Magnetic.” Our feature Electro in the 313 traces the line to today.
House: Detroit’s deeper groove
House music was born in Chicago, at clubs where DJs like Frankie Knuckles and Ron Hardy played, and the Belleville Three made trips there to hear it. Detroit built its own house tradition alongside, with DJ Ken Collier as a pivotal figure in the city’s club culture and a mentor to a generation. Detroit house tends to be more introspective and raw than its Chicago cousin: soul and disco samples, dusty textures, long patient grooves. Two names define it for many listeners. Moodymann, Kenny Dixon Jr., keeps the grain and the soul in every record. Theo Parrish, through Sound Signature, made patience and deep selection an art form. When the station drifts into afterhours territory, this is the lineage you’re hearing.
The story belongs to more people than any short list can hold. Start with Women Who Built Detroit Electronic Music, and if you want to see how the three genres connect, use our listener’s starter map.
Radio built this
Detroit electronic music has always had a radio story. The Electrifying Mojo was among the first to play local records like A Number of Names’ “Sharevari” and Cybotron’s “Alleys of Your Mind” on air. In the late 1980s, Jeff Mills mixed at dizzying speed as “The Wizard” on WJLB. Those broadcasts taught a city what its own future sounded like. An internet station can’t recreate that era, but it can carry its values: curation, local pride, and the belief that radio should surprise you. That argument is laid out in Why Internet Radio Still Matters in Detroit and From Warehouse to Web.
Get involved
A station like this runs on its community. Here’s where you come in.
- Artists and labels: submit your music. The submission form takes MP3, WAV, FLAC, AIFF or M4A (up to 25 MB), with release details and optional cover art. You must own or control the master. Our guide Submit Your Music to 313 LIVE explains how to send a strong submission.
- Brands, venues and promoters: advertise. On-air spots, show sponsorship, site placements, newsletter mentions and event takeovers are on the advertise page, with rates on request. More in Advertise on Detroit Electronic Radio.
- Listeners: support the station. Streaming, hosting and upkeep cost money every month. Online donations are coming soon; until then, the support page lists the ways that help just as much: listening, sharing, requesting, sponsoring and submitting. See also Support the Culture.
- Everyone: join the newsletter. The 313 LIVE newsletter arrives at most once a week. You confirm by email and can unsubscribe in one click.
- Say hello. Press, partnerships and questions go through the contact page.
Making the station part of your day is the simplest support of all. Tonight on the Signal has ideas for building it into your routine.
313 LIVE FAQ
What is 313 LIVE?
313 LIVE is a 24/7 internet radio station from Detroit, Michigan, playing techno, house and electro. It streams free at 313live.org, with no sign-up, and is programmed in four dayparts on Detroit time.
How do I listen to 313 LIVE?
Go to 313live.org/live and press play. You can also install the site as an app with Add to Home Screen, or open the station’s .m3u or .pls playlist in VLC, Apple Music, Winamp or any internet-radio app.
Is 313 LIVE free?
Yes. The stream is free to listen to, with no account and no paywall. The station is kept running by listeners and local sponsors.
What does 313 mean?
313 is Detroit’s telephone area code. In music, it has become shorthand for the city and its electronic sound, which is why the station carries the number in its name.
What is Studio 13?
Studio 13 is 313 LIVE’s programmed rotation. It runs whenever no DJ is broadcasting live, works through the four dayparts, and takes listener requests from the station library.
Can I request a song on 313 LIVE?
Yes. Search the library on the requests page and press Request. Requests play during Studio 13 hours, and a track can’t be requested again for a while after it plays.
How can I find a track I just heard?
Open the recently played page at 313live.org/history. It lists what aired over the last 6 hours to 7 days, is searchable, and links each track to a Bandcamp search so you can buy it.
Where was techno invented?
Techno was developed in Detroit in the 1980s, most famously by Juan Atkins, Derrick May and Kevin Saunderson, known as the Belleville Three. The genre took its name from a 1988 UK compilation, Techno! The New Dance Sound of Detroit.
How do I get my music played on 313 LIVE?
Use the submission form at 313live.org/submit. Send a high-quality audio file with full release details. You must own or control the rights. The team listens and may add music to the library.
Press play. The live player is one click away, and the city is already on the air.
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