[Q] Google Play Music annoyances - General Questions and Answers

I've been trying to find a good way to keep all my music constantly synced and updated, and I've been having a hard time of it. I've used doubleTwist for a long time, but some of it's more annoying bugs are starting to wear on me. I know there's other iTunes --> Android options, but I was wondering if anyone had much luck turning Play Music into their main method?
Uploading my music is fine, but it often doesn't album artwork with it. Whenever I edit a file or tag in iTunes or elsewhere, it's not reflected in Play Music. If I were to move a file or slightly rename it, it's just uploaded again, so the duplicates were off the charts. Besides those two main issues, I really like the way Play Music is set up. Has anyone found a way to get around those? Any other suggestions for management? Thanks!

Related

[Q] Organize music?

Hi all
Im kind of new in this operative system and i'm getting used to it, but I can't specify a Music folder.
Each time I start any mp3 player app, it plays my music and many game sound files that I don't want to hear.
Is there any way to select which folders must these apps search?
Thank you very much in advance and sorry for my stained english!
The stock music player is not that great. I recommend poweramp, which is on the market. It can do almost everything you want from a music player.
Rockin' DJ05, Minimal Icognito, Clocked at 1.3Ghz
Another recommendation for Poweramp.
Stock Music Players don't look beyond the default folder and this is where Apps such as Poweramp come into their own, you can customize it to look for other music stored on your phone or sd card.
It also has a graphics equalizer and you can boost the sound to play louder from the PreAmp list.
tinyPlayer - for playing music from folders. Basic, small (60 kb), efficient - my favorite.
Majes said:
Hi all
Im kind of new in this operative system and i'm getting used to it, but I can't specify a Music folder.
Each time I start any mp3 player app, it plays my music and many game sound files that I don't want to hear.
Is there any way to select which folders must these apps search?
Thank you very much in advance and sorry for my stained english!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Go with Poweramp and you will not regret it. It has the ability to play from folders, organize all your music for you and does it on the phone without using some of the more annoying apps out there!
just create a file called .Nomedia and place it in every folder you dont want to show up in the music app.
well, if you're like me, and you think 5 dollars is highway robbery for a music app, then look into something a bit more simple. I don't actually like doubletwist, but for someone new to android - it's cool because it actually syncs itunes to android as well as acts as a audio/video player (most players will solve your folder issue).
Poweramp is one of these really "I have everything" apps like Handcent SMS (an alternate text messaging app that everyone dies for, when there are plenty of equal or better options out there). Fact is, there are plenty of apps that have what you are looking for. Enjoy the market place, and read reviews. You'll find tons. My guess is since you didn't look there immediately, you probably are feeling overwhelmed and not using your android to its full extent yet. Forums are a great place to start. You'll also quickly realize that "which music player is best" is bound to get a bunch of people in twister - this month it's poweramp, next month it will be __________.

Music Setup

I don't think there is a lot of discussion about this, so I thought i would start one. Good evening, my name is Gregg and I am a recovering Ioser. It started out with just an ipod...you know it was convenient, it was shiny. It worked well. Buying music was a simple process. You clicked and could listen immediatly. At first it was just occasionally, but I got into the podcast scene and itseemed to fit me perfectly. Podcasts would let me listen to things while I was doing chores around the house. Eventually though podcasts on my ipod weren't enough for me. I also had to carry around a phone on the side, so I decided that maybe it would be OK to try a little iphone. The first click was awesome...phone and tunes...podcasts done well. I was hooked.
For two years I was doing a lot of Ios, but eventually the shiny IOS had me hooked. There were bills for apps that did nothing but make funny noises, their was music that I paid for but never listened to. I was hooked. I probably hit rock-bottom last year. My iosing was out of control and I thought I would go cold turkey. So I got my G2x.
Sorry for the goofy intro, but I though this would set me up a bit. Here's what I have itunes on the windows side. So getting music and podcasts from itunes to the g2X involves multiple layers.
1. Moving music to the machine.
2. Moving and managing podcasts
3. Playing and managing music (which includes playing, rating music and searchng through my music)
So I will start with the first question. From what I understand there are really two ways that I know of to move music and podcasts from itunes to your phone. One is doubletwist, the other is isyncr. There might be others, but these are the two that I worked with. of the two I went with iSyncr and here's why. Doubletwist has a lot going for it. Really a nice interface, and a nice music player on the android side. Its trying very hard to give me, an ex-ioser a bit of what I am missing. The sync app looks like itunes and allows me to sync my playlists. The app looks a lot like itunes. It plays music fine. The player struggled with my phone, though. Somehow it didn't cooperate with the cm7 ROM I am using. It wouldn't play well on the lock screen and seemed buggy. The syncing was buggy too. Genius podcasts wouldn't refresh when they changed on my itunes. There were workaround(relaunch itunes and doubletwist).
Isyncr is a 2.99 purchase. Its simple. You install the app on the android(you pretty much install and forget it) and it syncs when you launch the windows EXE on the memory card when the phone is docked to the computer. It works well. It syncs podcasts, and ratings. To me, that was important because I have this theory that I will rate my music into organization in itunes.Its flawless. I haven't tried the wifi setup, but I might in the future. It doesn't play your music, so its just a solution for syncing.
As for podcasts, I tried very hardto find a solution on the android side that will satisfy my needs right on the android. I bought the full version of pocketcasts. There are a lot of good things going for it, but there are bugs. One that was kind of a deal breaker was that if you try to advance the podcast in the player while its playing you lock up the app. Restart is the only solution. So, it was a good, pretty solution, but it had to go. I tried a couple other apps, but I wasn't sold.
So, ultimately, isyncr is my solution for podcasts too. It woks well, but it will require a daily sync. The advantage ultimatley of syncing from the desktop is also that I am able to make Mp3 CDs of podcasts as well as sync my podcasts from the same source. Simple, efficient and workable.
Which brings me to playing. I love google music(I have two more invites if anyone wants one), and it allows me to access my music when I am around wifi seamlessly. It allows me to make instant mixes based on a song. That's a killer feature. Combined with wireless access to all my music via the cloud its excellent. Advancing and moving within tracks and podcasts works well. Its not a full-feature app, but it works.
Almost there, there is one last aspect. I would like to rate music from my library while its playing. Isyncr has a nice widget that allows you to rate and see your playing apps and see the album art. Its part of the package. The ratings and playcounts go right back to itunes.
My preferences represent my unique quirks in terms of music and listening: I am a podcaster and a music listener and I prefer to rate my music. Because of this I am happy with: Isyncr and google music.
Long set-up, but ultimately I am asking you what your music listening setup is. Thoughts?
I use the standard music app since it has DTS for the g2x. Google music as well for some streaming music. Google Listen app for podcasts. I also like BeyondPod.
I drag and drop music. It's not fancy but I don't mind.
Power Amp with some EQ modifications and Voodoo Sound is how I enjoy my music. I used to use Doubletwist for syncing my music to my phone, but each update made more and more bloated, along with random freezes, so I just uninstalled it. Sony's Media Go software good is good for adding music, but I prefer to drag and drop into organized folders.
Sent from my T-Mobile G2x using XDA Premium App
If you're using a stock ROM, I'd recommend sticking to the stock player because of it's DTS feature. It greatly improves sound quality if you have it selected.

Best way to manage music?

Anyone know a good way to manage music with a g2x??
I have well over 2k songs on my itunes. I have them all on my g2x, but it seems to have a poor music managing system.
Songs/Artists/Playlists are duplicated many times, playlists duplicate the songs within them sometimes, etc.
I'm wondering if theres a good software to manage the music on my phone?
Something comparable to itunes preferrably
I just want to be able to make playlists on my computer without them duplicating on my phone.
I've tried doubletwist, itunesagent (which doesn't copy playlists), and even winamp.
i'm just using Google Play
I'm just using Google Play Music as well and transfer my files via mass storage. Now I use the cloud for Google Play Music and just keep a few albums on my SD card. I have no problems with duplicates or any other issues.
You have to get a tag editor and
Make sure there filled out right... iTunes fixes them but the music players don't.
Sent from my LG G2x using Tapatalk 2
Kplaylist + MediaMonkey + Google Play
All my music is on an a private web server that can stream all my music. I stopped using iTunes a long time ago, but all my music is on this web server.
http://www.kplaylist.net/
If you can setup an Apache Service with PHP, you will love this app. Its the only thing I use and get my music anywhere.
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MediaMonkey
http://www.mediamonkey.com/
I only use this to update the ID Tags of all my songs and add the album picture from the web. Its a bit tricky, but what I do is, when I decide I want to add and album to Google Play I tag and add the picture album then upload them.
I have like 40 gigs of music, and slowly have converted to Google play. I fix the tags and albums as I go. Its worked so far
Sometimes the picture or the album name comes out wrong, have to re-upload or manually correct it once its inside Google. It happens sometimes, especially if mediamonkey can't find the rare song online.
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Google Play
If done right, all the songs will be properly tagged and the album picture inside. Its running better now then when it was called (Google Music). Used to crash alot. The only decision you have is "Make available Offline"
In the end, when its nicely organized, I use Google Play way way more.
yoo992 said:
I've tried doubletwist, itunesagent (which doesn't copy playlists), and even winamp.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've been using Doubletwist and it copies my playlist from itunes just fine
I use Banshee Media Player. I have it set up to sync one specific playlist. It works in one-click and it even converts my FLAC files on the fly to V9 mp3! Even better, even though I have it set to sync one playlist, it keeps track of which tracks belong to other playlists too. I use it on Ubuntu but I think the sync options work on Windows too.
Edit: It also keeps my media tagged, downloads album art and sorts the files into an [Artist]>[Album] folder structure.

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.

[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.

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