Syncing playlists with Google Music

[HappyB]

I use MM at home, and Google Music at work, is there a way I can sync my MM playlists with Google Music? I don't wish to install MM and up load my files to my work PC, which is why I stream my collection using Google Music.

[Barry4679]

I use MM at home, and Google Music at work, is there a way I can sync my MM playlists with Google Music? I don't wish to install MM and up load my files to my work PC, which is why I stream my collection using Google Music.

I have written an application which uses the MediaMonkey database to produce cross-platform playlists: ie. listening from my NAS at home, or my Google Play Music library (where I have uploaded all my tracks), or my 2tb WiFi USB drive which I use when staying away from home.

In the case of Google Play, the app writes the playlist into my Google Play library.

Here is a link to documentation regarding the playlist function.
http://albumplays.com/playlists/

That page wasn't designed to read in isolation, as this playlist function is just an adjunct to my app. Its main function is import play counts into MediaMonkey from across all of my listening platforms, via a Last.fm account. ... but the page should good enough to let you see whether it is likely to be of any use to you.

If you are interested you can contact me from the site, or PM me here.

[jczelust]

First of...Barry...kudos to you for your work on this. It must be a labor of love and I really appreciate you sharing with it with us. I am not exactly sure how to go about it but I am very interested in trying this out. When I have a moment I will give it a test run and see how it works.

I am interested in picking your brain as to how you have your Mediamonkey set up. It seems you have done a great deal of customization. If you are up to it can you tell me how and where you store your main library? I just started using MediaMonkey again after becoming frustrated with the cloud and I am using a 2TB Portable USB drive since my collection has grown past the capacity of most internal HDs without customizing the computer. I figure there has to be a better way.

Can you tell me about your collection and how you have it set up?

Thanks for your time,

James

[Barry4679]

thanks

Firstly I haven't customised MediaMonkey. I have made no changes to the MM database structure, nor its database rules. That could cause problems whenever they publish an upgrade to MM.

My application has its own database, which bonds to the MM one, without any impact upon MM at all. MediaMonkey is not aware of this.

I do update the data in a few of their columns in the MediaMonkey database, but this has no adverse impact on MM. For example, I update the track play count and date last played columns. This is just what MediaMonkey's android utility does anyway. I have a few other minor column updates, but these are optional. ... eg. I have something which can initialise the Date Added to the date of your oldest scrobble for the track. Also I re-purposed a couple of their video-only columns for my own purposes in a music context, as MM offers no numeric custom fields. I wanted play count and date last played stats at the album level. .... I have been running this for around 5 years now, aka around 130,000+ new scrobbles, without any problem. I have taken all MM upgrades in that time, including the big upgrade from version 3 to 4, without any issue. Also I never received report from any other person, regarding any problem introduced into MediaMonkey by use of AlbumPlays.

If you are up to it can you tell me how and where you store your main library? I just started using MediaMonkey again after becoming frustrated with the cloud and I am using a 2TB Portable USB drive since my collection has grown past the capacity of most internal HDs without customizing the computer. I figure there has to be a better way. Can you tell me about your collection and how you have it set up?

You should store your MediaMonkey database on your PC. It isn't that large. Database applications typically have a lot of disk interaction, and generally perform poorly if the database is stored elsewhere, in household-style network situation.

All of the bulk is in your tracks. I store mine on a NAS, but your 2TB USB drive is fine.

A NAS does offer some advantages. The better ones are essentially a separate computer, whose whole job is to manage and protect your disk files. eg. error detection, error handling, on-board redundant copies in case of disk failure, that kind of thing. .... but there is nothing wrong with a USB drive.

My app does have a built-in backup capability, which automatically saves a managed series of copies of your MM database as well as my database, to somewhere else on your network, and|or offsite into your Dropbox account. ... But of course, the main thing to keep safe is your actual music tracks, and you are somewhat exposed with just a big USB drive unless you have copies.

I have replicated my collection (40,000 tracks) up into Google's Play Music servers. This is free for up to 55,000 tracks. The upload is quite efficient, as they seem to upload only music which they don't already have. This is for listening purposes, not backup.

I have also replicated my collection on a 2tb portable Wi-Fi USB drive, which I use for listening when away from home, as well as a couple of standard USB drives, which I keep at other locations just for backup purposes.

Additional to the backup considerations, this means that I can play my own collection while staying away from home using just free Wi-Fi, or I can stream it from Google via telecoms while commuting. I always have my whole collection available, so I never need to refresh whatever has been synced to my phone.

My personal preference when browsing for something to play. is usually to scroll through albums, by genre, listing just those which I haven't heard for a while. I use playlists for this, and since their inclusion criteria includes date last played, they need to be refreshed often.

AlbumPlays has facility to design and automatically refresh and distribute playlists. The playlists can be used in any of these environments; ie. using my NAS at home, or my Wi-Fi drive when staying away from home, or Google Play music while commuting.

PM me if you want to trial AlbumPlays. I will talk to you about prerequisites and discuss your aims, and then we can go from there if all seems ok.

Barry

[John B]

Hi Barry - Thanks again for sharing the information. Is there an additional level of detail about the DB on your NAS that MMW uses? I have a large-ish collection (over 100k songs) and seeing how others get it done is always welcome....

I've been trolling this forum looking for some specific information relating to the "Artist" vs. "Album Artist" fields and how they are shared to things like Google Play Music, Last.FM scrobbling etc. That question revolves around the fact the "Artist" fields transfer. I have ...a lot... of artists, so I can find for example all of the songs that a session player appeared on. Hilarity ensues when Last.FM for example looks up "Hell Freezes Over" with the artist name of [all the Eagles members]

Wondering, have you run into this question?

Cheers,

jmb

[Barry4679]

Hi John,

I have just noticed your question.

I don't fully understand the first part of the question.

<<<Is there an additional level of detail about the DB on your NAS that MMW uses?>>>

My *tracks* are on the NAS, my database & the MM database are on the PC.

Most NAS' have facility to run a DLNA server so that you can play media using client apps on other devices attached to your home network ... so this is a database on the NAS, but it is built by s/w which is part of your NAS.

<<<I've been trolling this forum looking for some specific information relating to the "Artist" vs. "Album Artist" fields and how they are shared to things like Google Play Music, Last.FM scrobbling etc.>>>

There are no hard and fast rules about this. There is facility for scrobblers to send the AlbumArtist tag to LFM, but it is optional. Even the Album name is optional. Only the Artist, track name, and time stamp are required. And they see the artist submission as a single field, not a list of multiple artists.
http://www.last.fm/api/show/track.scrobble

So it is up to each scrobbler how far they want to go. It is a mess really.

In the case of multiple values for the one tag type, the scrobblers get to decide which to submit. Many use the first tag value, but Sonos for instance scrobbles using the last tag value.

And the scrobbler can only submit whatever information it has been served up by whatever it is that is playing the track. ie. I listen to something at night at home via my Bluetooth headphones ... they are being driven by a UPnP client on my tablet which is connected to my home network by WiFi ... my PC is powered off, so no MM, so it is getting the music from the DLNA server app on my NAS mentioned above ... I have no control over which tags have been collected from my tracks, nor what it serves up to my tablet ... it scrobbles AlbumArtist as the artist (?!), so I have learnt not to play any Various Artist compilations via headphones at night

Google Play Music imports your AlbumArtist tags, but their browsing facilities are very basic, so whatever tags are uploaded don't give you much browsing leverage. Their client programs don't scrobble, so you are at the mercy of whatever on your phone or PC does scrobble. My tablet scrobbler scrobbles Google Play Music artist tags ok.

<<< That question revolves around the fact the "Artist" fields transfer. I have ...a lot... of artists, so I can find for example all of the songs that a session player appeared on. Hilarity ensues when Last.FM for example looks up "Hell Freezes Over" with the artist name of [all the Eagles members]>>>

You could put much of that in the "Involved artists" tag, and then build an Involved Artist index in MM (if you have the Gold version of MM). ... that way you just scrobble the generally accepted artist name.

Or you could determine which artist tag (first or last) your scrobbler is sending, and then put that artist in the required position. Make sure that each value is tagged separately unless you want them just as a group ... ie "Robert Plant; Alison Krauss; Robert Plant & Alison Krauss" (and the embedded blanks after the semi colons marks are significant) .... not just "Robert Plant and Alison Krauss" ... . .... in the 1st example the track would be accessible in the MM artist index by each of the three independent values, and some scrobblers would scrobble it as "Robert Plant" and others as "Robert Plant & Alison Krauss".

clear as mud?

Barry