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Why is it so hard to find a decent music player?

It's things like this that makes me frustrated about Android. There is so much noise about hotspot, or tethering, or other geeky stuff that are pretty useless for regular users. But the music player, a standard feature for every phone nowadays, is really bad.
All I want is to transfer the damn songs with playlist and play on my phone!
Well, the stock player doesn't recognize playlist.
So I have to use other music apps.
I have tried doubleTwist. It doesn't recognize playlist created by its own desktop app. And also, you have to use its desktop app to sync music. And the syncing is not so good, lots of Artwork is missing.
I then turn to Cubed (superscript 3). It's cool. It reads my playlist. But it creates duplicated ones. In other words, every time you sync your music, it creates new playlist. I did a little research, it turns out it's the problem of the OS. If you copy your songs to external SD, the OS will scan them and then create duplicated list. Music players just read the list from the OS.
Another problem of Cubed is, if I manually copy music to SD card, all my artworks are gone.
I have tried other *free* music players on the market. None of them works perfectly. And I am so cheap that I don't want to pay for a feature that a smartphone should easily have.

mwxiao said:
It's things like this that makes me frustrated about Android. There is so much noise about hotspot, or tethering, or other geeky stuff that are pretty useless for regular users. But the music player, a standard feature for every phone nowadays, is really bad.
All I want is to transfer the damn songs with playlist and play on my phone!
Well, the stock player doesn't recognize playlist.
So I have to use other music apps.
I have tried doubleTwist. It doesn't recognize playlist created by its own desktop app. And also, you have to use its desktop app to sync music. And the syncing is not so good, lots of Artwork is missing.
I then turn to Cubed (superscript 3). It's cool. It reads my playlist. But it creates duplicated ones. In other words, every time you sync your music, it creates new playlist. I did a little research, it turns out it's the problem of the OS. If you copy your songs to external SD, the OS will scan them and then create duplicated list. Music players just read the list from the OS.
Another problem of Cubed is, if I manually copy music to SD card, all my artworks are gone.
I have tried other *free* music players on the market. None of them works perfectly. And I am so cheap that I don't want to pay for a feature that a smartphone should easily have.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Are you coming from an iTunes? Many of the problems with artwork deal with the way the artwork is embedded. AAC files do tags poorly and I had to rerip all my files to MP3 and make sure that the artwork was embedded in the tags and not in a folder. I used MediaMonkey to sync my music to my phone. I don't use playlists - I just put about 2GB of music on and pick what i want. The stock music player works great for me in this regard.
The stock music player allows local playlists, but so far doesn't import them. I think it is a matter of discovering name and format.

alphadog00 said:
Are you coming from an iTunes? Many of the problems with artwork deal with the way the artwork is embedded. AAC files do tags poorly and I had to rerip all my files to MP3 and make sure that the artwork was embedded in the tags and not in a folder. I used MediaMonkey to sync my music to my phone. I don't use playlists - I just put about 2GB of music on and pick what i want. The stock music player works great for me in this regard.
The stock music player allows local playlists, but so far doesn't import them. I think it is a matter of discovering name and format.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for your reply. I have a relatively big library in iTunes so playlist is kinda of necessary for me. It really sucks that the stock music player can't do it.
I didn't know about the iTunes artworks problem. All my song files are .mp3. I thought artwork was embedded in the file.

I've had pretty good success using an app called "isynchr" available in the market. It's not free, though! But it allows you to take your playlists from iTunes, copy them (and the songs) over to your phone and play everything using the music player that came on the phone.

Try this:
hxxp://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=751429
It works great for me and along with the mp3tagger pro app that lets you edit the ID3 tags and download artwork, its been a huge timesaver for me.

I feel your pain; I've had trouble finding a music player I really liked too. As of now, I'm just using the stock Samsung Music Player.
...which actually isn't that bad. It works well enough and the 5.1 feature is awesome.

check doubletwist. very good GUI and has itunes compatibility but I have not used that personally

DoubleTwist is a good music player and can export your playlists from itunes. They syncing is a bit slow tho.

I really had a hard time with doubletwist, and it took forever to start up on the pc.
I would recommend 'Songbird' on the desktop. It's built on top of a Mozilla Firefox framework, has great plug-ins and extensions, and via MTP can sync playlists with M3Us to the captivate, and then mixzing as the player on the captivate.

noidd said:
Try this:
hxxp://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=751429
It works great for me and along with the mp3tagger pro app that lets you edit the ID3 tags and download artwork, its been a huge timesaver for me.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks a lot. The Android music player is much better than the Samsung one. Though I have a few bugs for just 10 min of try. Well, it's actually not a big of a deal. Playlist works fine, album art works fine. And that's all I am asking for.

closeshave2 said:
I've had pretty good success using an app called "isynchr" available in the market. It's not free, though! But it allows you to take your playlists from iTunes, copy them (and the songs) over to your phone and play everything using the music player that came on the phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
+1 on this app, you can use the stock samsung player, and double twist recongizes the playlists as well. it was much easier and faster on my computer as well. syching around 6 gigs of music only took around 15 mintues as opposed to over 2 hours with double twist.

ANOTHER good and easy to use apps is called "itunes agent". All you have to do is plug in the phone as USB drive and use it to sync you songs. Check it out. I use it for my WinMo phone and it is probably one of the best tool for sync songs to my phne.

mwxiao said:
Thanks for your reply. I have a relatively big library in iTunes so playlist is kinda of necessary for me. It really sucks that the stock music player can't do it.
I didn't know about the iTunes artworks problem. All my song files are .mp3. I thought artwork was embedded in the file.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I had all my music in iTunes (many files were AAC - ripped that way before i knew better) and I learned the hardway that iTunes some funky things. I actually used MP3tag to fix the tags - lots of Android phones don't like the tags if some fields are empty - this has the effect of showing uknown artist and maybe empty album art. iTunes added some funky stuff to some of the tags, so once i got it all cleaned up and made sure the album artwork was embedded in the tags all was good.
As for playlists - you could try Samsung Kies - it does sync with the phone and allows you to make playlists. I have not tried it for syncing yet.

iTunes

Anyone know the best way to sync my nexus with iTunes? I've tried double twist and I don't like it as much.

I don't use iTunes, but I hear iSyncr is pretty good.

How dare you mention that program here jus kiddin' ... i dunno never tried it

Winamp should do the trick.

On your PC:
Get the Google Music Manager program (.exe) from Google
Install it to your Windows PC
Set it up and select the option that allows Google Music to sync automatically from itunes.
On your phone:
Download Google Music app and select your gmail account.
After initial sync is finished everything in your itunes will be in the Google Music app.
They will stay synced after that.

I use iTunes agent. It does the trick.

If I use google music I won't have any issues with some of my songs not being on my phone or not being able to play if I'm not in a good data spot will I? I did some research it looks like its a good way to go about I don't have a good media library I didn't wanna sacrific all my phones memory to all music but if I had to I am willing to.

I use isyncr and it works really well it cost a few dollars but good investment and the wifi plugin is a big plus

Just saying Amazon is usually cheaper than the for-mentioned excel spreadsheet music store
Sent from my Nexus S 4G using Tapatalk

If you are on a mac try this one Easy Phone Tunes
Just create a playlist with the music you want to sync, open app, sync DONE

I use iSyncr, tried a few others and once in a while album pictures or info didn't come out the same way they were on iTunes. Gets the job done for me.

Open itunes. Copy all music and drop in music folder on phone.
Sent from my MIUI.us Sensation 4G using XDA App

Does isyncr refresh playlists and remove songs that are not in iTunes library. I hav dragged and dropped in all honesty I like having the playlists from iTunes to I think I'm stuck between Winamp or isyncr.

Nexus.S said:
Does isyncr refresh playlists and remove songs that are not in iTunes library. I hav dragged and dropped in all honesty I like having the playlists from iTunes to I think I'm stuck between Winamp or isyncr.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yea you can set it to delete songs not in the playlist and the playlists do refresh

Right on theres what I've been looking for then. I was excited about google music but it was taking forever to upload my library of only 1535 songs and it'd probably take longer to be on my phone. And I was thinking since its cloud where I don't hav data or lose data the music won't play or it will buffer. That's just what I think anyway

oops double post my bad

try double twist, I use google music and just sync mine to the cloud using Itunes but if you are really apposed to Itunes thats a really good alternative

Im having a same trouble, but my problem is with all the syn with itunes.
The window says its syncronized but if i look in the phone i dont have nothing :S.
Sorry for my bad english.

Use google music. It' s hastle free. You have access to your library, as long as, you have a signal, or you can make songs available off line.
Sent from my PC36100 using xda premium

Music Storage

What is the best to store music. I have double twist, but it is a pain to sync my checked songs in Itunes. I am coming from a iphone, had one since 08. I also uploaded most of my music I listen to to Google Music. Is that the easiest? I am afraid with double twist it will sync all of my music. Also will stock music app play songs that I have on Google Music?
Thank

I have DoubleTwist, but I only use it for AirPlay, not for syncing, so I can't speak on that part.
The Play Music (Google Music) player is the only player that will stream your Google Music from the cloud. However, within Play Music, you can download songs to your device. At that point you need a third-party app to convert the downloaded Google Music songs to regular mp3's for use with other apps like the stock app or DoubleTwist.
Sorry, I can't recall what any of these third-party apps are called, but if you google around, you should be able to find them.

If you want to keep music on your phone (which is of course handy for when you don't have a data connection), I use Syncr, which seems to have an easier interface, and less buggy than DoubleTwist. I just dump the music I want into playlists, and sync the playlists to my phone using Syncr.
Haven't used Doubletwist in a while. But when I did, it seemed that more times than not, it would try to synch all my music to my phone, regardless of the fact that I indicated to only sync certain playlists. Since I have something like 40+ GB of music, it lock up my computer, and fail to sync successfully anyway (since there is obviously not enough storage on the phone). Then I would have to start over synching, and on subsequent attempts, it would finally do what I wanted.

I find the solution I use to be quite useful and actually pretty awesome.
I've uploaded my entire music collection to Google Music. Yeah, it takes a while, but just leave your computer on for a couple of nights and it will finish.
Next, I made sure everything was well-organized. I only keep complete albums (like buying a CD), so sometimes there will be a song or two that need to be manually grouped into the album. Do this!
And finally, go into the Google Music app for your phone, select a few albums, and make them 'Available Offline'. It takes a minute or so to get an entire album transferred onto the device. Make sure you do this while on WiFi.
Since my phone can't hold all of my music, I select about 10 albums or so- more than I can realistically listen to while I'm out, and swap in/out albums when I get new ones or want to listen to something else.
It's also pretty useful if you stumble into anywhere with WiFi and want to listen to your entire music collection- something a lot of us cannot do even with 32GB phone storage. You can also make some more music 'Available Offline' when you find WiFi out in the wild.
This has worked wonders for me so far.

So does Google music not let others tie into their service? Big disappointment IMO, I am coming from windows phone and iPhone that have these app silos. Android has a file system and I thought this could be avoided.
I want to use the new HTC Music Hub and at first thought that it was going to tie-in from Google music and bring down all of my music as well as tie-in with local music I have on the phone. Which I am realizing is not the case. All the HTC Music Hub is going to do it let me launch Google music... Disappointing
New question though. Can Google Music two-way sync from the phone? Let's say I download an album from the internet onto my phone. If I put it in a certain folder will it sync? or is there an option in Google Music to upload music from the phone to Google Music?
And last but not least, can the Google Music player play music stored locally on the phone?

You can only add songs to Google Music from your computer, for now.
If you make music 'Available Offline', it becomes stored locally and you can listen to it without an internet connection.
You cannot use Google Music to listen to non-Goolge Music locally stored music.

danada said:
I find the solution I use to be quite useful and actually pretty awesome.
I've uploaded my entire music collection to Google Music. Yeah, it takes a while, but just leave your computer on for a couple of nights and it will finish.
Next, I made sure everything was well-organized. I only keep complete albums (like buying a CD), so sometimes there will be a song or two that need to be manually grouped into the album. Do this!
And finally, go into the Google Music app for your phone, select a few albums, and make them 'Available Offline'. It takes a minute or so to get an entire album transferred onto the device. Make sure you do this while on WiFi.
Since my phone can't hold all of my music, I select about 10 albums or so- more than I can realistically listen to while I'm out, and swap in/out albums when I get new ones or want to listen to something else.
It's also pretty useful if you stumble into anywhere with WiFi and want to listen to your entire music collection- something a lot of us cannot do even with 32GB phone storage. You can also make some more music 'Available Offline' when you find WiFi out in the wild.
This has worked wonders for me so far.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is exactly what I'm thinking of doing if I get the One X. Some questions...
Is is simple to swap in/out albums for offline listening? (When on wi-fi.)
So the music is stored locally when downloaded for offline listening? For the One X would that mean the 'phone storage'? (The 9.8 available for media.)
Any idea how long it would take over wi-fi if I hypothetically chose 6 GB of music to download for offline listening?
How well organized is your music once you use the Google Music app? Any bugs? (Songs missing, artist listed twice, anything else.)
Thanks in advance for your answers.

Music Organisation

Is there a way to transfer music from my PC/iTunes without losing all of the information such as album artwork and artist name? Just, when I transfer an album over at the moment, it puts some songs as individual albums instead of with the album their with. For example, I transferred over Some Nights by Fun (great album) and, whilst most of the tracks were fine, Carry On was listed under a separate album. Anyway to avoid this?

Any ideas?

Music Folder Player
Google Play: Music Folder Player
"If you regularly play music on your mobile Android device, then Music Folder Player may come in handy.
It can be annoying when playing ,music without tags for example of your ripped CD’s without downloading the ID3 tag. How about when you’ve added music in a ‘new music folder in your memory card without knowing exactly all the artists/albums? Well, the dev of the app, XDA forum member cyberniko says this is where his app can help.
Music Folder Player is available as a free version in the Market, and the dev is looking for feedback on tablets."
http://www.xda-developers.com/android/music-player-with-filefolder-browsing/

My friend ,
I'll try to explain what i've done with my mp3 library
It's all about the tag stored in the mp3 file itself
There's more than a version of this tag
One file can contain more than one version
That's make the conflict
I'm using a wonderful free software on my pc called mp3tag
There's nothing you can't do in the tag
Give it a try
Sent from my GT-N7000 using Tapatalk 2

Maybe you could give Mediamonkey a try instead of itunes... It also allows syncing with Note.
www.mediamonkey.com
Ps. Not affiliated with this vendor, just sick of the bloated itunes and found a nice alternative.
Sent from my GT-N7000 using xda app-developers app

Brad387 said:
Is there a way to transfer music from my PC/iTunes without losing all of the information such as album artwork and artist name? Just, when I transfer an album over at the moment, it puts some songs as individual albums instead of with the album their with. For example, I transferred over Some Nights by Fun (great album) and, whilst most of the tracks were fine, Carry On was listed under a separate album. Anyway to avoid this?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=jp.vier.music.syncpro
I use this This is the greatest program I've used! I love iTunes for some reason, and this app syncs everything perfectly for me. I'd highly recommend it. It doesn't sync play count or stars, but that's OK. Playlists are all that I need and a fast easy interface.

[Q] Google Play Music: Kept Music

I don't like the Google Play Music application much, so basically what I was wondering was if I could play kept google play music songs and albums in another player such as PowerAmp somehow. From what I have seen there is no way to do this because google incorporates some sort of DRM in all of their music files, which makes sense, because they don't want people just copying and pasting kept music files that they didn't actually buy. I have determined the location of the saved music files to be in "root\data\data\com.google.android.music\files\music" if I am in the wrong spot please let me know. I have pulled the saved music files (MP3's) from this location but can not manage to play them in any music player. I also tried running them through a converter just for the hell of it but the converter instantly crashes when I try converting the file. I don't think there is anything that can be done about this but if anybody has any ideas please let me know!

not possible. stop trying

I don't think you can get them from your phone but you can most definitely download the songs to your computer as regular mp3's. You can then put them on your phone and use any media player.

on a desktop/laptop, open google play music. pick what songs you want, then press download. the downloaded songs that you got using google play music desktop can now be played in other music applications.

Even still...if you have not purchased the song, you cannot download it. All of the music in "My Library" that you've uploaded can be dl'd but not songs you randomly hear and "Add to my Library"
Unless I'm doing something wrong....

You can not download music on a pc unless you have purchased that music. On the android application there is however and option to download music to the device in a hidden location (root\data\data\com.android.google.music\files\music). You can download them, but like I said they are encrypted or have some sort of DRM incorporation so you can not play them anywhere but within the play music application. I don't think it's possible. I just wanted a few opinions on it.