A friend, Sylvio Lachmann, introduced me to 429 Hz tuning. I tried it, was immediately hooked, and started retuning music – we both agreed: this is how music should sound.
But then the question: how do you share that? You can’t sell a frequency. You can’t tie it to a device. The only way to bring 429 Hz music to people – given music licensing – is streaming. So I built exactly that.
As for the name: 432 Hz is often associated with planetary motion – the “frequency of the Earth.” But 429 Hz seems to be a common denominator found in nature, a kind of universal tuning. Nature, our origin, our home – Mother Earth. And beyond that: music is universal. It transcends borders, uniting people in beauty and harmony. Mother Earth just felt right.

This question comes up a lot, and I understand why. “Mother Earth” – but then you need serious bandwidth, server capacity, and proper equipment to hear the difference. Not exactly a small footprint, is it?
Fair point. But the name has nothing to do with environmentalism – as I said, it comes from the origin of 429 Hz and the universality of music.
As for the environmental argument: there’s a lot to be said for buying good equipment once and using it for decades, instead of living in the endless cycle of cheap disposable electronics. But honestly: I’m not here to save the planet. I’m here so that music sounds the way it’s supposed to sound.

Because I’m just one person. There’s no team, no label deal, no algorithm filling a catalog. Every track on MER is either digitized from my personal vinyl collection or from individually licensed Hi-Res files. I clean the records, I master the transfers, I retune everything to 429 Hz. That takes time.
On top of that: music licensing is complicated. MER operates under an ICE license, which covers a wide range of independent and small-label music in Europe – but excludes the major labels. And these boundaries shift: Universal recently took over the Zappa catalog, which means music that was once available to stations like MER can disappear overnight. A German GEMA/GVL license would cost several thousand euros per year, only apply to German listeners, and require geoblocking for everyone else. That’s the opposite of what MER stands for.
Yes, the catalog is small. But everything in it is there because I selected it, prepared it, and found it worthy of being heard this way.

Universal, Sony, and Warner are excluded from our licensing agreement. Their licenses cost more than we earn.
Instead, you’ll hear independent labels: ECM, Clean Feed, Intakt Records (Jazz), 4AD, Warp Records, Constellation (Main/Alternative), BIS, Harmonia Mundi, Naxos (Classical). Labels that prioritize quality over marketing. Music you often won’t find on Spotify.
That’s not a bug, it’s a feature.

No. I look for moments when musicians transcend themselves — when a singer is so moved live that tears come to her eyes. When someone sounds like they’ve spent ten thousand hours with their instrument, because they have. When goosebumps tell you: something real is happening right now.
You don’t get that from an algorithm. You get that from people who have dedicated their lives to music. Everything on MER is played, recorded, and produced by humans. Not as a statement — it simply follows naturally.

Because it doesn’t make any money. Licensing alone costs hundreds of euros a year. The server infrastructure, the equipment, the time for digitizing and mastering – none of it is free. There are no ads on MER, no sponsors, no investors. The apps are paid, and that’s it.
Running a Hi-Res internet radio station at this level of quality, retuned to a non-standard frequency, with a legal license, as a one-man operation – that’s not a business model. It’s a conviction. I built MER because I wanted it to exist, and because nobody else would have done it.