Maintaining a Digital Music Collection

I seriously need to get over my fear of ditching file hierarchies. Sure, it'd mean fresh backups of everything but after that, file management would be entirely through the player. There also seems to be an increase in albums that span more than one genre, which makes organizing and searching with Explorer much more difficult.

It made sense when you were sharing more music, you could just drop the folders on a disc/drive and everything was all neat and tidy for them. Rendered moot with streaming.

Yeah, that's a good point. Folders were beneficial for file sharing. But having not done that in over a decade, it's a much lesser argument for me.

There's also a 128GB card which is just a single huge folder full of albums from any genre at all which fulfill the qualification of being instrumental.

This. I never thought I'd use the "instrumental" tag but it's become one of my largest folders. It's, uh, slightly more descriptive than Miscellany.

The way I’ve done it for the past ten years or so: to make backups a bit easier I create a new folder each year, and throughout the year dump all downloaded albums & single tracks in there, add to iTunes (used to be other players but I’ve gone back) and fix tags in there if needed.

Plex (my self-streaming/family-sharing service) is smart enough to pick up any added new music automatically. Workload is pretty minimal this way, no need to rename folder/file names.

Xpost I just find that a genre-blind directory of instrumental music sorted by album title is the scenario that actually leads to me jumping around between radically different musical cosmoi. I do have a genre-blind favorite albums folder (lots of which are vocal obv) but there, I tend to cue up my next choice from the same tradition as the thing I’m already listening to.

I haven't previewed a streaming service that i've enjoyed. Picking a couple tracks and letting the algorithm choose the next tracks usually results in something that sounds very "same-y" in they lack sufficient variability in genre/tempo/era (or whatever their secret sauce spits out). Making a mix is far more efficient when sitting at my computer with my 4TB stax. In my vehicle, i can easily carry 500GB of music on microSD that fits into a wallet no larger than a stack 3 or 4 credit cards.

Another factor i have yet to see mentioned is that even if the streaming service could produce an interesting mix of "unknown" music, when i'm out and about, the last thing i want to do is keep checking my device to see what's playing. I mean, i'm busy doing shit, man; i hate being that plugged in where i have to check the device, a watch, some holographic retinal projector every few minutes (or worse).

Getting to be an old fart, but i have a growing disdain for people continuously checking their devices. I work in a time-critical field and nothing's so important that it can't wait for a convenient pause in my main activities to check notifications.

so you want a streaming service that gives you 'different-y' songs, but not so different-y that you'd have to look at your player to see what they are

congrats, you have the first-world-est problem i've ever heard of

i mean, if you're so busy doing time-critical shit, man, those sounds are only gonna distract you

good luck

To be fair, with Spotify once you've been using it a while, it gets very good at coming up with new stuff that suits your taste: I assume it needs a decent-size sample of your listening habits to get this good, though. previewing it a bit probably wouldn't cut it.

Mookie -- I don't have a problem; i listen to music just fine -- the streaming services simply don't yet offer an option i find suitable for my listening style and tastes. I didn't say i was so busy doing time-critical shit to listen to music via streaming, i was trying to make the point (and a secondary one at that) that i don't favor the position of always being "plugged-in". My profession requires i always be available within a reasonable time-frame and that's plenty connected for me. When i'm mobile, i use the time listening to things i haven't yet, doing audio "homework" like sifting through large swath's of individual careers, or just getting down with stuff i like. I've discovered little new material on streaming services -- i do read a ton of blogs, still, i doubt my lifetime will ever see an AI superior to the experience of listening to a knowledgeable DJ dolling out their craft.

I use a product called MuvAudio that makes my entire stax available to any wi-fi device around the house (or anywhere else i'd care to pay the extra data fees for) to listen to my collection in the resolution and format i've stored it in. If it strikes me to run chronologically through the early works of Luis Bonfa, i can set that up on microSD in about 3 minutes and take that 5+ hours of discography on-the-go.

Mince -- I'm sure the services may improve song choices with a larger data set, i just don't know if i have it in me to put the time into the process -- it requires sufficient effort now keeping "new" material updated and properly tagged as it is. Maybe if a service could look at my entire stax and make some suggestions it would be more rewarding because the stuff i like most is not necessarily the stuff i listen to most; follow?

Another factor i have yet to see mentioned is that even if the streaming service could produce an interesting mix of "unknown" music, when i'm out and about, the last thing i want to do is keep checking my device to see what's playing. I mean, i'm busy doing shit, man; i hate being that plugged in where i have to check the device, a watch, some holographic retinal projector every few minutes (or worse).

― bodacious ignoramus, Thursday, April 5, 2018 9:02 PM (two days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I relate to this. I don't stream music, but I do listen to the local jazz / classical station when I'm driving around running errands. I consider myself a very cautious driver (only one fender bender in 12+ years) but have narrowly avoided a disturbing number of potential accidents since I started using Shazam a year or two ago. Once upon a time if I heard a song on the radio I liked that I didn't recognize I would have to note the time on the clock, and go find the station's online playlist later in the day to find out what it was. I may go back to doing that.

Amen, brother paul

So it looks like Google are going to pull the plug on Google Play Music or at least merge it with 'YouTube Remix'.

I have 15k + of my own tracks uploaded to GPM so this is potentially a complete ball ache. It was inevitable I suppose given their track record of pulling products.

Now considering a Dropbox + Cloud Player combo. Will have to shell out £7.99 a month for DB though.

I always wondered how they’d ever make money off Google Play Music and it seems they never figured that out either. I’ll predict Amazon is going to be next to pull the plug on uploads, Apple will not be far away.

It’s going to be either self-streaming (Plex ahead of the pack there I’d say) or the Spotify model.

i remain v. pleased with subsonic

wtf i pay for google play music

i'm just going to carry a portable radio from now on

Yet another reason to keep your own shit; fuck 'em all.

^^^

Every time I think I might trust a streaming service or a third party server (like Google Play et al), mitigating factors rear their ugly heads. Apple Music's integration with uploads was a world class shitshow (and I think that they actually wanted to please those of us who don't trust a third party.) For collectors, there's virtually no reason to expect labels and lawyers to be able to find a global copyright agreement in hopes that someday EVERYTHING will be online and hosted by someone other than me.

I've tried everything in this thread (and more) and honestly if I'm streaming my own stuff, Plex is the best solution.

I’ll predict Amazon is going to be next to pull the plug on uploads

Fingers crossed that Google maintains the upload service but I'm not optimistic. I've got 30,000+ uploaded and it's been amazing having access to that wherever I am, especially with its integration with Sonos and Chromecast Audio.

Yet another reason to keep your own shit; fuck 'em all.

Why stream at all when there are inexpensive players with great soind and dual micro-SD slots and 400gb microSD are not too expensive and 512gb are around the corner? Then you don't have to rely on data service/connections, you can use Android music applications that can readily deal with large collections (I'm somewhere upwards of 80k tracks ripped from my CDs, with great results using GoneMAD player), you don't have to pay a subscription to access your own music, and it can't go "poof" (assuming you back up on other physical media). It's honestly the golden age for digitizing ones own collection, but even real music lovers are cashing it in for the illusory "cloud" scam...

That’s doable for most ppl yes, if you have a <250 GB library, mine’s around 1.5 TB (200k tracks) so the all-on-my-phone dream is still 6-7 years away.

man if i find something i like on youtube i download that shit.

streaming services to me seem mostly useful for people who don't care what they're listening to. that's not a diss. from a listener's standpoint, i'm not sure there's a huge advantage, in the long term, of having a strong attachment to particular songs or albums. streaming services are probably pretty good for discovering things you might not have heard, which is something i spend a lot of time and effort doing.

my library won't fit on my phone but i do carry a laptop around with me most places, and that will fit my library.

I guess for folks who insist on FLAC for every album, 2x 400gb (or 2x 512gb) isn't sufficient space. But 800gb holds almost 8,000 records at mp3 VBR V-0...

My entire music collection is mp3 VBR V-0 and it's still 1.5TB+ and growing. Like Siegbran I'm holding out for some sort of all-in-one-place dream solution.

I insist on lossless wherever possible, so that makes the dream of a SD chip with my collection (2TB) kind of far off.

I download shit on YouTube too; people post rarities that inevitably disappear.

I don't trust Apple to manage my collection at all, given the debacle in the beginning when Apple Music launched, and then the abortion that is iTunes makes me even more leery. And with Apple absolutely trending towards the streaming model, it's inevitable that they will screw me over and make me do workarounds in the coming years. The good news is that it's dirt cheap to stream your own stuff via Plex, hassle though it might be.

i have never used Plex for music but the other day i was in another country, tried streaming movies via Plex to my phone and it... worked?? i literally never set anything up specifically to make this happen, it just did it seamlessly. i was pretty impressed.

Yup, I might give Plex a go. As far as I can see, if you want Chromecast support and the ability to listen to music offline, a premium subscription is required. If it means taking back some control and hosting my own library, it might just be worth it.

I use the free version of Plex to stream to Chromecasts around my house, and it works well, even using an antiquated 2008 Mac as my server. But I don't stream outside my own LAN, so my use of Plex may be different from what most people want to do with it.

server requirements for something like Plex (ESPECIALLY to serve music files, which tend to be small and have lower bandwidth requirements) are very minimal and old machines can easily handle it...of course the problem with old machines is not their hardware specs to actually serve streaming, but their operating system requirements to run Plex or similar.

I guess for folks who insist on FLAC for every album, 2x 400gb (or 2x 512gb) isn't sufficient space. But 800gb holds almost 8,000 records at mp3 VBR V-0

personally I'm very grateful I can't really tell the difference btwn v0 and FLAC for most things

As much as I love gadgets, the days of carrying around more than just my phone are long gone. Modern DAPs are very cool, with their multiple card slots and amazing feature sets, but being able to stream my library via my phone is all I need (though I do have a full microSD card in my phone for when a connection isn't available). I have both Subsonic and J River Media Center set up (just in case one is down) and use BubbleUPnP to play my music to any device (headphones, bluetooth car radio, Sonos, Chromecasts, etc).

personally I'm very grateful I can't really tell the difference btwn v0 and FLAC for most things

Haha, yeah! Age + too many loud shows = no high end hearing.

Yeah offline listening/mobile sync only works with the Plex Pass subscription, I’m glad I got lifetime a few years back. But streaming works on the free version, and Chromecast too I think?

The Google Play news is inevitable but it's still a pain in the hole. Could someone explain (or point to an explanation) of how to set up the basic requirements to stream my own stuff?

Get a Discman. Carry all your CDs with you. Simple!

Every discman I ever had was clunky, skippy shite!

Even though I'm old and my ears probably can't discern lossless and even 192VBR mp3, I have a thing against using destructive compression...never know when some amazing tech will allow me to hear better and I'll want the better sound.

more machine than man now...

would y'all be interested in official issues of stem tracks for songs?

yes

Stream your own stuff from Dropbox/OneDrive cloud drive: upload it there, use the mobile app or website to stream yr music

Stream your own stuff from yr own PC/Mac: set up Plex account, download the server application, point it to your music, download the Plex app on your phone, stream away.

dropbox is embarrassingly better at remembering track position across devices/through time than apple's own native software is

not tried it with Plex but it's v good at remembering where you left off watching videos so i imagine it's the same with music

will Plex stream FLAC files from an external HD?

muzecast

yes xp

Honestly I tried uploading my entire library to Dropbox and it was just a diabolical idea. Takes ages and doesn't really work as anything other than backup. Don't bother.

i will stick a few mixes or whatever on there and it works great. what was wrong with the whole library thing, did it just choke trying to transfer all the files?