Extremely late to this thread, but here are my answers... > 1. > How do you find music in your own library ? > - Which way to you browse/search ? (which browse or search menus)
Usually artist -> album if I know what I want. New Music if I know it was recently added. Sometimes I will use a custom browse menu of 50 random albums if I'm in the mood for an album, but can't decide what. > > - Which type of remote/interface do you use ? Different for different > situations ? iPeng most often, everywhere around the house. If I'm using my iPod touch for reading or gaming, then I use either the SBC (in bed) or a Harmony remote. Generally only use front panel or IR for skipping songs, changing volume, and power. If I'm at the computer where I have the SB Touch, I use the WebUI. > - Do you find music through statistics based browse menus ? (ratings, > play counts, history) Yes, songs rated 3+ not recently played, for instance. > - Do you find music through smart playlists based on statistics or > random selection or other kind of automatic mixes ? Spicefly Sugarcube and Dynamic Playlists based on some larger playlists (fast songs, slow songs, etc.) > - Do you use album art when selecting what to play ? Not so much, but it does make it easier to skim the long list when I use the 50 random albums custom menu. > 2. > How do you usually find new music you like to get but currently don't > have in your library ? > - Heard it on the radio ? Never OTA radio. Sometimes TV or movies. Slacker radio. > - Where do you start when searching ? Top charts ? Genres ? Similar > artists ? Similar artists. > - Do you use some web site when searching or do you browse some music > store directly ? I use to use lala.com a lot before Apple buried it. Now it's mostly Amazon or Last.FM. I sample a lot of the music Amazon puts on sale and buy what's cheap if I think I might like it. For my favorite artists, I add them on Facebook to keep up with when they have new music coming out. I get some new music email newsletters. > - Are you using the computer, your Squeezebox or some other device when > searching for new music ? Usually the computer to seek out new music I might like. Sometimes I'll tune to Slacker or Last. FM recommendation on the Squeezebox when I want to hear something new to me. > - Do you preview the music before puchasing ? Do you preview it on the > real system or cheep laptop speakers or something similar ? I prefer to preview music before purchasing. Used to use Lala.com for sampling the full albums. Now I don't know any free sites where you can sample the full albums, but I still like to preview the music. I generally do so using headphones on the computer. > - Do you use a subscription based service so you aren't actually buying > albums, you just need to find the albums/tracks you are interested in > by browsing the service ? > - Through reviews ? Any specific online site ? > - Through friends ? Some community site ? I don't subscribe to any services. I download a lot of Amazon samplers and sometimes find new artists through those after sampling more of their work. I post some of my listens on Facebook and Twitter and sometimes a friend will recommend other music through those sites. 3. > How would you like to be able to find music in your own library in the > future ? > - What kind of functionality is missing today related to browsing ? > - What kind of functionality is missing today related to searching ? I like mixes, but not so random as what Squeezebox Server provides on its own. Searching/browsing by tempo is missing currently (slow songs, upbeat songs, etc.) 4. > How would you like to find new music you like to buy/get in the future > ? > - What would you like to do through the Squeezebox/SBS or one of it's > remotes ? > - What would you like to do on some other hardware ? Recommendations based on my listening history would be great. I discovered a ton of music I now love when I first learned of Last.FM. I used the last FM website for exploring the recommendations, but it would be nice to sample music more on the Squeezebox itself. 5. > What kind of tagging/management do you do on new music you add to your > library to make it easier to find stuff later on ? > - Which additional tags do you add which isn't handled by standard SBS > today ? New music goes into a review and rate playlist and once it is rated I have to move it out of there. I add BPM and Intensity tags via J River Media Center and this puts the songs into playlists based on tempo. I try to add lyrics to the tags as much as possible. I also add a special tag for music my husband likes. He rarely uses the squeezebox system but when we are listening together it allows me to more easily play a mix that we can both enjoy without too much skipping songs. > - Is the folder structure the music files are stored in important ? Not so much. I have it all dumped into the music share of my Home Server in folders by artist. > > - If you use Custom Scan, which additional tags do you add besides > those supported by SBS ? RATINGS! > - Do you manually add ratings to your music ? Why ? Yes, always. Anything with no rating is either not music (audiobooks, comedy) or my husband's music that I don't like. A rating of 1 is part of a collection, but not something I want to listen to often or is not appropriate for mixes. Rating 2 is a song I like but only in the context of an album. Rating 3 and up is music I want to play in mixes. 4 and 5 are favorites. In most of my mixes, 5's are permitted to repeat weekly, 4's monthly, and 3's every 3 months. > 6. > Do you synchronize the data in SBS with some other application to make > it easier to find interesting music ? Yes and it's a major chore! I do these two: - Export statistics to MusicIP ? - Export statistics to iTunes ? Plus I do all my new music tagging in J. River Media center, then I use a community developed program to sync iTunes stats with J. River. Some of this is more for working with my iPods, but since most of my listening on Squeezebox, I like those stats to carry over. I wish I could let go of J. River Media Center, but it has the most flexible and amazing system of smart playlists I have ever seen. So I use the stats to automatically export playlists from JRMC, to be used in both SBS and iTunes. Keeping my ratings synced across all three is a constant battle. All that said... at least 90% of my listening on a Squeezebox is just by firing up Spicefly Sugarcube and letting it go for days on end that way. If I hear a song that prompts me to want to hear more by that artists, I will insert an album to play next and then the Sugarcube mix continues after it plays. Throughout the day, I will browse the upcoming tracks in the now playing list (via iPeng) and purge the ones I'm not in the mood to hear, and that keeps Sugarcube from going too far astray from my current listening mood. -- MeSue SUE 1 Duet | 2 Booms | 1 Radio | 1 Touch (beta) | 1 SB2 HP MediaSmart EX470 | Squeezebox Server 7.4 | iPod Touch w/ iPeng Find me on 'Last.FM' (http://www.last.fm/user/MeSue) | 'Twitter' (http://twitter.com/suechastain) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ MeSue's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=985 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=80910 _______________________________________________ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
