Privacy Policy

Last updated: 5 Oct 2026

GrooveBench is a bench for setting up, measuring and comparing the equipment that plays your records — tracking force, anti-skate, azimuth, speed, hum and more — and for measuring a record's own playback condition from a recording of it playing. This policy explains what we collect, what we do not, and what you can do about it.

The short version

• Analyzing a record happens on your computer. The audio is read in your browser. It is not uploaded, and you do not need an account to do it.
• We count visits with a privacy-respecting page-view counter. It sets no cookies and does not follow you to other sites. We do not use advertising or any third-party tracking.
• We never sell your information. There is no arrangement under which we would.
• Audio is stored only if you ask us to, one recording at a time, and only on accounts we have specifically enabled it for.

If you do not have an account

You can analyze a record without signing in. When you do:

• The audio never leaves your computer. Choosing a file opens a file picker; it does not upload anything.
• To identify a record, a short fingerprint of it is sent when you're signed in, never the audio itself. Without an account, nothing is sent.
• The measurements and the score are produced in your browser and are not sent to us.
• Nothing is saved. Closing the page discards it.
• If a page hits an error, we keep a short error report: the page, the error message, your browser type and the time. Nothing in it identifies you, and it is deleted after 90 days.

We keep ordinary server logs for the site itself — the address of the request, the time, and technical information your browser sends. These are used to keep the service running and secure.

Traffic counting

We count page views so we know whether the site is being used, with a privacy-respecting counter (Vercel Web Analytics) served from groovebench.app itself rather than a third-party domain.

• It sets no cookies and carries no identifier that follows you to another site.
• A page's address is stripped before it is counted if it could name a specific record — the part of the address after # or ? is removed before anything is sent, so a link to your collection or a shared record is counted as a visit to that screen, not as that record.
• Nothing is counted on the photo page at all. That screen can involve a camera and private photographs, so no counting script runs there.
• We would rather count nothing than count something wrong: an address our counter cannot make sense of is dropped, never sent as it is.
• We do not use this, or anything else, for advertising, and it is not shared with an advertising network.

We count how many people reach a few steps of using GrooveBench: opening an example, measuring, saving a result, comparing and coming back. Each step is counted once per account, or once per browser for visitors who are not signed in, using a random number kept in your browser's storage that is never shared. We only ever look at the totals, never at one person's steps. These counts stay in our own database. We do not use outside trackers or follow anyone across other sites.

If you have an account

We collect and store:

• Your email address, to sign you in. Authentication is handled by Supabase.
• A display name, if you set one.
• Records you add to your Collection — artist, title, pressing details, and any notes you write. Notes are free text and private to your account.
• Analyses you save — a 0-100 condition score (marked experimental) and the measurements behind it, and the filename of the recording you analyzed. We do not receive the audio itself unless you separately choose to keep it (below).
• Gear and rig details, if you record the equipment or chain a recording ran through.
• Photographs, if you use photo capture to attach images to a record you own. These are stored privately and are visible only to your account.
• Which tools you use — a daily count per tool (Measure, Set up, the Collection and so on), not what you did in them.
• Error reports — when something goes wrong on a page: the page, the error message, your browser type and the time. Sign-in codes and email addresses are removed before a report is kept, and reports are deleted after 90 days.

We also use measurements, and how the tools are used, combined across accounts and without identifying you, to improve GrooveBench: to refine the measurements, find problems that affect particular setups, and decide what to build next.

Saved recordings

Some accounts can save a recording — the audio itself — with a record in their Collection, so a recording from a year ago can be played beside one from today.

• It is off unless we have enabled it for your account. It is not currently open to the public and cannot be signed up for.
• It never happens automatically. You choose to save a recording, one at a time. Nothing is stored in the background.
• A saved recording is private to your account. We do not publish it, share it with other users, or make it available to anyone else, except a short clip in a study you publish yourself.
• We may measure it again as GrooveBench’s measuring improves, and use those measurements, combined across many accounts, to improve how records are measured and for research. We never publish one person’s recording or readings; only you can, as a short clip in a study you publish. You can see your own and delete them at any time from within GrooveBench: a saved recording, or a result with its measurements and readings. Figures already combined across many accounts, which identify no one, are kept.
• It is stored as ordinary data, not encrypted with a key only you hold. We are able to access it, and would if required by law or to respond to a copyright notice. If that changes we will say so here.
• You can delete it. Deleting a saved recording removes the audio.

Identifying a record

If you use record identification, your browser computes an acoustic fingerprint — a compact numerical summary — and sends that fingerprint and the length of the passage to AcoustID, and identifiers derived from the result to MusicBrainz and Discogs.

No audio is sent. A fingerprint cannot be turned back into a recording. Identification is optional, is separate from scoring a record's condition, and a record that cannot be identified still gets a full score.

These are independent services with their own privacy policies.

Who else is involved

We use these providers to run GrooveBench. They process data on our behalf:

• Supabase — accounts, authentication and the database
• Vercel — hosting, and the page-view counter described above
• Cloudflare R2 — storage for saved recordings
• AcoustID, MusicBrainz, Discogs — record identification, as described above

How long we keep things

Account content stays until you delete it or ask us to. Closing your account deletes any saved recordings at once. Your records, analyses and photographs are not deleted automatically when you close your account — ask us and we will delete them within 30 days. Figures already combined across many accounts, which identify no one, are kept. Server logs are kept for a limited period for security and diagnostics.

Your choices

You can view, correct and delete your Collection, analyses and photographs from within GrooveBench at any time, and delete a saved recording the same way. To close your account, write to [email protected]; that deletes any saved recordings at once. If you also want your records, analyses and photographs deleted, say so and we will remove them within 30 days.

Depending on where you live you may have additional rights — to obtain a copy of your information, to have it corrected or erased, or to object to how it is used. Write to [email protected] and we will respond.

We do not sell personal information and do not share it for advertising.

Children

GrooveBench is not directed at children under 13 and we do not knowingly collect their information.

Changes

If this policy changes materially we will update the date above and, for changes that affect how your information is used, tell account holders directly.

Contact

Jacob Behm, d/b/a GrooveBench · 842 Maud Road, Hudson, WI 54016 · [email protected]