This theme features 5 Custom Post types: Podcast, Events, Artists, Album Releases and Places. The post types are added by specific plugins, as per WordPress development rules. This means that you won’t see any of these post types unless you install the required plugins as explained in the plugins installation section.

Please read the following chapters to understand how to correctly create each type of post, and custom pages using Visual Composer.

For each custom post type there is also a custom page template, to create a special archive for a specific type of contents. Those are:

• Archive artists
• Archive events
• Archive album
• Archive album covers
• Archive podcast

To create a custom archive, create a new page and choose the template from the dropdown menu.
More detailed explanations will follow in the next chapters.

To write a post:

1. Log in to your WordPress Administration Panel (Dashboard).
2. Click the ‘Posts‘ tab.
3. Click the ‘Add New‘ sub-tab.
4. Start filling in the blanks: enter your post title in the upper field, and enter your post body content in the main post editing box below it.
5. As needed, select a category, add tags, and make other selections from the sections below the post. (Each of these sections is explained below.)
6. When you are ready, click Publish.

For more advanced tips please check the full manual here.

“Places” is a custom post type created by the QT Places plugin, which comes in bundle with the theme.

Places are basically “venues” and they can be associated to the events to create event maps. You can optionally create simple “places” maps to dispay any tipe of geolocated content.

This plugin is very powerful and allows you to create maps of every type of content, even simple posts.

Important: this plugins requires Google Maps API Keys, visit Settings > QT Places and follow the instructions.

To udnerstand how it works, please check its own documentation, download the PDF manual of QT Places here.

Official plugin page link.

1. Click “Artist” on the left, then click “add new”
2. Write the exact name in the same way you write it into the tracks of your artist releases.
   Why is this is so important? Because on the artist’s page, the code will automatically displat every release including a track from this artist.
3. If in the release, as artist, you write “John Doe”, and in the artist post type you create an artist named “john Doe” or “Dj John Doe”, it won’t work. An artist name must always be written in exactly the same way for the theme to work correctly.
4. Use the content section to insert a biography
5. Featured image: upload a good resolution picture, at least 1200px. Please use same proportion for every artist for a better result.
6. Compile the special fields as described below

Booking form

Please install the bundled plugin “QT Contactform” to enable the booking form in the artists page.
For each artist you can specify a message recipient and an optional privacy terms page, which should describe who is responsible for the data treatment.

IMPORTANT: the recipient email has to be in the same domain of the website, otherwise most of the servers will reject the message.

Artist data

• Logo: you can upload a custom log to replace the default title of the page.
  Suggested size: 600 x 200 transparent PNG
  
• Agency, Phone, Email: those fields will appear in the contacts sidebar
  
• Nationality + Resident In: additional info that will appear close to the artist name both in single pages and archives. You can add any text input. No HTML.
• Youtube URL: when added, will create the “Videos” tab in the artist page. Max 6 videos allowed. The limitation is needed to guarantee a performance standard.
  

Social Icons

Important: the Soundcloud URL will also be used to display a SoundCloud embedded player and create the Soundcloud tab.

Custom links

You can add any custom links, that will appear in a special widget in the sidebar. This function is specifically designed to link to the artist’s external music shops, but you can add any link.

Creating the artists archive:

Go to pages->Add New

1. Select the Archive Artist template
2. In Appearance->Menus link to the page you just created (optional)

1. Click Events
2. Click Add New
3. Enter a title and description
4. Choose a date and time using the datepicker
5. Optionally set a Facebook event link
6. Set a featured image (larger than 720x920px)

Ticket buy links:

Add unlimited ticket buy links, they will appear in a buy ticket button in header and in a special widget on the sidebar, to maximize the purchase flow and increase the sales:

Event line-up

Optionally add existing artists to a line-up

Place details

You can add location details. This requires the QT Places plugin (bundled). More info

If you want to import the location details from an existing place, select the place from the dropdown and save.

Creating the events archive:

1. Go to pages->Add New
2. Select the Archive Events template
3. In Appearance->Menus link to the page you just created (optional)

Important!

You can hide or show the events depending on the event date. To change this option go to
Appearance->Customize->General options.

Creating an event map:

1. Be sure to have the QT Places plugin installed and active
2. Be sure that you are not hiding past events in case that you want to show them 
3. Add the shortcode [qtplaces posttype=”event”].
4. See the QtPlaces documentation for more infos
5. You can also use the QtPlaces shortcode generator in your page editor
6. Check the page Settings -> QT Places for more infos

How to create a new podcast page

1. Click “Podcast” > “add new”
2. Enter the title and a description
3. Add an Artist name, podcast name and a date
4. Add the podcast link (this can be a link from mixcloud, soundcloud, youtube or a simple mp3).
   VERY IMPORTANT: If you are using the Kentha Player with Spectrum Analyser enabled, remember that you can’t link to mp3 files on other servers. You can still use SoundCloud and Mixcloud, or upload mp3s in your same server. You can upload the mp3 inline using the uploader, or link to any track URL manually.
5. Upload a featured image. We recommend using squared images of at least 720×720 px
6. Upload a featured image
7. Suggested: insert some “Podcast filters”, those will be the labels with which you can filter podcasts in the podcasts archive pages.
8. Be sure to spell correctly the artist name to enable automatic link to the artist’s page.

Podcast tracklist

Adding a tracklist will allow users to skip to precise cue points. This function is only available using MP3 source.
If you use Soundcloud or Mixcloud, you can add a tracklist, but it will not be able to skip to the cues.

MP3 Podcast formatting

It’s highly recommended to upload mp3 files at 96Kbps (max 128Kbps), to guarantee an optimal performance while streaming the podcast file.

Please remember that if you plan to use MP3 files from external sources (es. other domains or repositories) you have to disable the spectrum analyzer in Settings  QT Kenthaplayer.

Creating the podcast archive:

1. Go to pages->Add New
2. Select the Archive Podcast template
3. (optional) In Appearance->Menus link to the page you just created

To use the featured player of this theme (QT Kentha Player) you need to install the bundled QT Kentha Player plugin. (Check plugins installation)

To use the spectrum analyzer (waves effect) you need to upload mp3 samples directly (explained below in this page).

For the purpose of this theme a “Release” is not a track, but a COLLECTION of tracks, like an EP, an LP or a compilation. You can also create a single track release. A release is a standard format of the music industry, as this is a professional product, there is no possibility of creating a track “by itself”, anyway, there is no problem in creating releases with a single track (Singles).

How to create a music album:

1. Login to your WordPress wp-admin
2. Click “Album release > Add New”
3. Fill in the title and description
4. Add a music genre
5. Add the cover as featured image (minimum 720x720px, max suggested file size 350px)

Album details

• Main artist will appear in header and archives. To add a main artist, you have to create first the artist page.
• Label: textual name of the music label
• Release date: use YEAR-MONTH-DAY
• Catalog number: optional text of catalg number

Adding songs

There are 2 ways of adding the songs:

• Manually: requires to create the tracks one by one, but allows to add a Soundcloud/YouTube player for each song, and allows to link to a purchase link or download link for every song.
• Automatically: just drag and drop the songs in the content, creating a playlist (tracks must have the MP3 ID3 tags correctly compiled).

Manual playlist creation:

1. Click “Choose File”
   
2. Upload an MP3 file or choose any file from the library.
3. Click “Insert into post”
   
4. The MP3 url will appear in the text field
   
5. You can optionally use the URL of any public MP3 file, but if the spectrum analyzer is enabled in Settings > QT Kentha Player, you must use mp3 from the same domain URL.
6. If your MP3 file has the ID3 tags correctly compiled, track title and author will be automatically added
7. You can add multiple artists, comma separated
8. Remember to correctly spell the artist names in the same way you spell them for the single artist pages
9. Insert the basic information for each track. You can add infinite tracks by clicking the “Add Another” button.
10. Optional track buy link: add any internal or external URL, or a link to a downloadable file if you want to allow people downloading tracks. In this case, link to a zipped version of the mp3 file.
11. IMPORTANT NOTICE: on the web, it’s impossible to prevent something to be stolen, because there is always the way to reach a content if it is published. To prevent your tracks to be stolen, never upload full quality 100% long tracks.
12. Save, publish and verify your release. Any track can be played clicking the play button.

Custom buy links

Add unlimited purchase links using the custom fields

Creating the release archive:

1. Go to pages->Add New
2. Select the Archive Releases template
3. In Appearance->Menus link to the page you just created (optional)

Music player info

OR you decide to have external mp3 sourcer OR you use local sources (upload your mp3 in wordpress) in order to use the waves animation.  Mixing the 2 things is confusing and anti-aesthetic so we are NOT doing it.
You are also free to disable the native music player plugin and use your own. We can’t guarantee the functionality of Ajax page loading in compatibility with other plugins.

To create an archive page, go to Pages->Add New and choose the Archive template under the Page Attributes:

Each archive has its own template, some are lists, other masonry, and other are grids. We selected for each type of post the best visualizations for the average users. The specific post types can be displayed only through each specific template.

Releases and events have 2 available visualizations.

If you don’t see the Page Attributes, you have to enable them:

• Click “Screen Options” in the upper right corner
• Enable page Attributes

The template used to display a specific post type, can’t generally be used for another.

The available archive templates are:

1. Artists
2. Events
3. Events list
4. Podcasts
5. Releases
6. Releases cover
7. Blog cards
8. Blog masonry
9. Blog sidebar

The pagination can be chosen in Appearance -> Customize -> Generic options.

IMPORTANT NOTE AFTER WORDPRESS GUTENBERG EDITOR RELEASE:

In order to keep WP Bakery Page Composer the default page builder of your website, we strongly recommend disabling Gutenberg.

• Open your WordPress Admin Dashboard
• Navigate to Visual Composer – Settings;
• Locate the Gutenberg settings and select disable (Off);

• Save changes.

When creating a new page, click on Pages > All pages, and then Add new (on the arrow icon) > Classic editor otherwise Gutenberg editor will replace WPBakery Page builder.

When editing new click Classic editor link near page name in list, otherwise Gutenberg editor will replace WPBakery Page builder.

How to create a home page with Visual Composer

To create a page with Visual Composer, first go in Page > Add New and choose Page Visual Composer from the “page template” dropdown on the right column.

If you can’t see the page attributes, click “Screen options” at the top right corner and enable Page Attributes.

Click “Backend Editor” to start creating:

Custom shortcodes:

This theme extends Visual Composer by adding several custom shortcodes. Their functions and parameters will be explained in a dedicated section of this manual.

Please check the custom shortcode section for more details.

Adding Rows

You should start by adding Rows. It’s recommended to add an alphabetical ID to each row, to successfully create a vertical page sections menu (explained ahead).

Boxing rows

By checking “Add Container” the rows will be wrapped in a container DIV which will limit the width of the row.

Boxing contents

To leave a full width row, and box only the contents, add an inner row, and select “Add Container” in the settings of the inner row.

Negative content colors

Enable to achieve white color for the contents of this row.

Parallax backgrounds

Enable parallax in the row settings, then select an image. You can optionally change the default speed. 1 is the minumum value, 1.5 optimal.

Side margins

To remove the right and left margins of a column, set 0 as margin of the row settings