DEV3 Cadence: a podcast, music and artist WordPress theme with a persistent player and a 3D vinyl

Requirements

• WordPress 6.0 or newer and PHP 7.4 or newer
• The DEV3 Theme Toolkit plugin (included and required)
• Recommended: Elementor (free), WooCommerce (merch and tickets) and Contact Form 7 (booking, guest pitch and newsletter forms). Elementor Pro is supported but not required.

What's in the download

Unzip the download from your DEV3 account first. Do not upload the download itself to WordPress.

• dev3-cadence.zip: the theme. Install this one.
• dev3-cadence-child.zip: an optional child theme for your own CSS and PHP.
• dev3-theme-toolkit.zip: the companion plugin (episodes, releases, tour dates, band, press quotes, audio player, Elementor widgets and blocks, motion controls, WooCommerce extras, demo importer).
• dev3-cadence-demo-content.zip: the demo package for reference. The importer already has a copy inside the theme.
• Documentation/index.html: the full guide. Open it in a browser.

Install the theme

1. Go to Appearance → Themes → Add New → Upload Theme, choose dev3-cadence.zip, click Install Now, then Activate.
2. The theme shows a notice until the DEV3 Theme Toolkit is active. Go to Plugins → Add New → Upload Plugin, choose dev3-theme-toolkit.zip and activate it.
3. Install and activate Elementor, WooCommerce and Contact Form 7 from the notice.
4. Optional: if you plan to change code, upload dev3-cadence-child.zip the same way and activate DEV3 Cadence Child. The parent theme must stay installed.

Import the demo

1. Make sure you are logged in as an administrator. Elementor keeps every widget setting only when an administrator runs the import.
2. Go to Appearance → DEV3 Demo and click Import.
3. The import adds:
   • the Home, Podcast, Music, Tour, Videos, About & Press, Contact & Booking, Journal and Merch pages, and sets the front page
   • 12 episodes, 4 releases, 10 tour dates, the band and press quotes
   • 13 products (vinyl, tees, a hoodie, prints, a cassette, a CD, a digital album, totes, pins and e-tickets), menus, forms and footer widgets, with Cash on delivery enabled for testing
4. Open the home page and press Play the album.

Imported items are tagged, so Reset on the same screen removes only them. With WP-CLI you can run wp dev3tk demo import --user=admin.

After the import

• Replace the demo audio clips, visualiser videos and artwork with your own files. The demo artist, podcast, venues, label and press quotes are fictional.
• Set up your real payment methods in WooCommerce → Settings → Payments and turn off Cash on delivery.
• To hide ticket products from the main shop, set their Catalog visibility to "Search results only" or "Hidden"; the tour list still links to them.

Updates

Download the new version from your DEV3 account and upload dev3-cadence.zip again. WordPress offers to replace the installed version. Changes you made in the child theme, the Customizer and your pages are kept.

Publish a podcast episode

1. Go to Episodes → Add Episode. Add the title, show notes, an excerpt and a square featured image (the episode artwork).
2. Fill the Episode details:
   • Episode number, season, published: shown on cards ("Ep. 12 · 52:18") and in the hero.
   • Duration: 52:18 or 1:04:33. Also used to place chapters.
   • Audio file (MP3): upload it in the Media Library and paste the URL, or use your podcast host's MP3 link.
   • Guests, guest role: fill the guest card in the sidebar.
   • Chapters: one per line, 12:40 | What a bridge is for. Each becomes a button that seeks the player.
   • Transcript: plain text, paragraphs separated by a blank line. Start a paragraph with NAME: to label the speaker.
   • Waveform peaks: optional comma-separated values from 0 to 1 for a real waveform. Without them the player draws a stable waveform from the file name.
   • Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, RSS: platform buttons under the player and in the sidebar.
3. Use Episode categories as topics; they become the filter chips on the episodes archive.

The audio player and mini dock

• Add the Audio Player (waveform) widget to play the current item, a post by ID, the latest episode or any MP3 URL.
• While audio plays and its player scrolls out of view, the mini dock slides in and remembers the position across pages. Switch it off in Customizer → Audio & player.
• Give any button or link the class cd-play-trigger (or link it to #play) to play the first player in its section, as the home hero's Play the album does.

Add a release

1. Go to Discography → Add Release. Set the cover as the featured image.
2. Fill the type (album, EP, single, live, mixtape), release date, label, tracks (one per line, Title | 3:41), a preview MP3, streaming links and an optional WooCommerce product ID for Buy the record.
3. The release page shows the sleeve with its record, the preview player, the track list with running time and the story.

Add tour dates and sell tickets

1. Go to Tour dates → Add Tour date and fill the date and time, venue, city, address, lineup (one per line), doors, age policy, price and ticket status (on sale, few tickets left, sold out, cancelled, postponed).
2. Sell tickets either way:
   • WooCommerce: create a virtual product and enter its ID in Ticket product ID.
   • External seller: paste the link in Ticket link.
3. The Event List / Tour Dates widget prints upcoming dates soonest first and can output MusicEvent structured data, with performers from the lineup.

Press kit, forms and newsletter

• On the About page, upload your EPK as a PDF to the Media Library and point the Download the EPK button at it.
• Booking (subject, date, city, budget), podcast guest pitch and newsletter forms are Contact Form 7. To use a mailing-list provider instead, paste its shortcode into the shortcode widgets and into Customizer → Audio & player → Footer newsletter form shortcode.

Change the 3D vinyl

1. Open the home page with Edit with Elementor and select the 3D Scene widget.
2. It uses the preset Cadence · vinyl record with sound rings in Accent object mode.
3. Set the label title and artist, label colour, vinyl colour (black, cobalt, coral, smoke clear), two ring colours, the sleeve, audio reaction and idle spin.
4. To remove the 3D, delete the widget. Nothing else depends on it.

Motion, colour slabs and audio-reactive visuals

• Select any widget or container and open Advanced → DEV3 Motion, or type a class such as dev3-m-split-chars, dev3-m-mask-up or dev3-m-hscroll.
• Colour slabs: give a container cd-band cd-band--ink, --cobalt, --coral or --paper2. Use cd-display on a Kinetic Heading for oversized type and cd-kicker on a Heading for a small label with a meter that dances while audio plays.
• Add an HTML widget with <div class="cd-eq" data-bars="32"></div> for an equaliser that reacts to the music.
• Turn audio-reactive visuals off in Customizer → Audio & player.

Style the site

• Appearance → Customize: header style, sticky header, the header button (Tickets in the demo), search, colours and fonts (synced to Elementor), motion, cursor, smooth scrolling, 3D quality, footer, shop columns, mini-cart drawer and quick view.
• Without Elementor, insert patterns from Patterns → DEV3 Cadence (24 of them).