Database Users

Google music beta and Audio galaxy my thoughts after trying both.

I just got my Google music beta invite and i have to say im impressed very much so!! Its very easy to install and the ui looks smooth on my phone and on my pc. Works very nicely as a music player on pc and phone and streams everything flawless on 3g or wifi on my phone which im really excited about. I have been using Audio galaxy ever since it came out for android and i love that app as its probably my most used app as it streams all my music perfect over 3g and wifi but i think Audio galaxy has some stiff competition with google music beta!
The only downside i can see so far to google music beta is the limit, it can only stream 20,000 songs and i have over 60, 000 songs. While Audio Galaxy can stream any limit its endless. So far the google music is beautiful and i will be using this for the next week and see if any more probs show up but so far none that i can see. Anything that lets me play music free from my phone streaming perfect is great in my eyes. I guess i have 2 great music players now for my car and everywhere else.

Thanks for the comparison. I've been an avid user of Audiogalaxy for a while now, so I was wondering if Google Music would be better. So far it looks like it has a slicker UI and maybe better playback? Haven't seen the PC UI though, so I'm interested in that.

Audiogalaxy updated their UI and its ugly. I decided to stay on the old version. That aside, I like AG more than google music.
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App

What's audio galaxy and google music beta? How do I install so I can try them out?

heres is the audio galaxy link from market:
https://market.android.com/details?id=com.audiogalaxy&feature=search_result
beautiful music streaming app
google music beta u have to sign up for beta then eventually ur invite will arrive as mine arrive today.

Heard the upload from PC to Google's cloud is too slow for Music beta?

movieaddict said:
heres is the audio galaxy link from market:
https://market.android.com/details?id=com.audiogalaxy&feature=search_result
beautiful music streaming app
google music beta u have to sign up for beta then eventually ur invite will arrive as mine arrive today.
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Thank you very much for your recommendation. Since I am from outside US , I can't use Google music right now so I will try audio galaxy.

yah it does do the sync first time very slow i have to admit that. But i have alot of music but after first sync it should be fine.

rakeshchn said:
Heard the upload from PC to Google's cloud is too slow for Music beta?
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Click to collapse
it took me like 3-4 days to upload 7600 songs. but my upload on my cable connection is only 1Mbps. so yeah, it took a long time, but now that's done and i'm really liking it.

Thanks guys. Now waiting for my invite.

Don't mean to hijack the thread but just a quick note to those that will be uploading music to Google Music Beta.
Make sure you have all your tracks organized and cleaned up, as in no duplicates etc... What you upload is what you get. If you have duplicates there is no easy way that I found to clean it up once it is in the cloud. If anyone knows a way to do this I would love to know
Other than that I like the experience so far, streaming has worked well.

yes there is a way to clean it up. Go to albums,songs or artists and u will see a little triangle by it. Click that and u will get lots of options as to edit names, delete artist and more all in that little triangle. Its alot easier to see in artist and albums just click the album and look by the cd cover. I hope this helps u!

Thinking of trying out ag, but how does the client on my phone find my server? I don't have a static ip address and am to lazy to setup something dyndns. Does ag have a server that acts as a node between our own server and the client?
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App

I don't get it.
We're Android users.
We can stream from our own AV system, no limits.
What is the point of this?

ericgill said:
I don't get it.
We're Android users.
We can stream from our own AV system, no limits.
What is the point of this?
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Click to collapse
I gotta admit. i got google music and it's pretty f'n awesome. I'm not sure what AudioGalaxy is but i've been using subsonic which uses ur computer as a server to push songs to you wherever you are but the downside to that is keeping ur computer on. Is that the same for audiogalaxy?
Anyway, it's all about the cloud. access your music anywhere, anytime. no strings attached.
And damn, the upload is so f'n slow. spent the whole day uploading and it's only got 2.5k songs done. still got another 11k to go. :/

dandab said:
I gotta admit. i got google music and it's pretty f'n awesome. I'm not sure what AudioGalaxy is but i've been using subsonic which uses ur computer as a server to push songs to you wherever you are but the downside to that is keeping ur computer on. Is that the same for audiogalaxy?
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Click to collapse
As I remember, yes. But you don't need anything but your router's IP address to get to your own network, then you can use any player you like.
dandab said:
Anyway, it's all about the cloud. access your music anywhere, anytime. no strings attached.
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Aside from size limitations, privacy problems, DRM and the major labels and Google being able to yank your music at any time?
dandab said:
And damn, the upload is so f'n slow. spent the whole day uploading and it's only got 2.5k songs done. still got another 11k to go. :/
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Seriously - why bother?

^Wholeheartedly agree...sorry for the late bump...but just got my invite and already I'm not stoked.
Interface is great, app is great, it's google-slick.
Problems (dealbreakers vs. Audiogalaxy):
Can't stream DRM content...some of my favorite music is DRM'ed (thanks to freaking Itunes...but I was not ahem...enlightened back then). I'm somewhat of an audiophile and most options for stripping DRM involve recompressing and already highly degraded compressed file.
Upload is slow...but I can deal
Pretty much every thing ericgill pointed out I agree with. My home server is on all the time...AG is superior...at least for now.
Not a current Vibrant user...but I thought I'd chime in...

cant stream to multiple accounts
The one major blocked on using Google music is that I can not stream simultaneously to multiple accounts. I can do this with AG. My wife and I can enjoy together.

Shuffle on Music Player not so Random

Anyone else notice that the Music Player doesn't really shuffle all that well?
I've got a 32 gig card loaded in, all my music on the SD card. Have the player set to All Music with the shuffle setting on. I've got some artists that are heavily represented with hundreds of songs....but I've got others that have only one CD ripped in. When I'm at the gym, which is around 90 minutes, it's not uncommon to hear an artist with only one CD ripped come up three times or so. It's not a coincidence. It also seems to vary from session to session.
So....anyone else notice this?

Pig Vomit said:
Anyone else notice that the Music Player doesn't really shuffle all that well?
I've got a 32 gig card loaded in, all my music on the SD card. Have the player set to All Music with the shuffle setting on. I've got some artists that are heavily represented with hundreds of songs....but I've got others that have only one CD ripped in. When I'm at the gym, which is around 90 minutes, it's not uncommon to hear an artist with only one CD ripped come up three times or so. It's not a coincidence. It also seems to vary from session to session.
So....anyone else notice this?
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Click to collapse
Yes but none of the music players I've tried seem to shuffle very well. I've found double twist to be the best at it though with some good options.
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA Premium App

I never use my music player but i do use google music cloud app which does a good job at random shuffle but Audio galaxy does it better as they have a thing called genie shuffling. U pick the first song and it will try to select all songs that come close to that first song in comparison in shuffling. Lets say u pick lady gaga it will play all the daNCE songs in shuffling like katy perry etc.

PowerAmp all the way baby

Pig Vomit said:
Anyone else notice that the Music Player doesn't really shuffle all that well?
I've got a 32 gig card loaded in, all my music on the SD card. Have the player set to All Music with the shuffle setting on. I've got some artists that are heavily represented with hundreds of songs....but I've got others that have only one CD ripped in. When I'm at the gym, which is around 90 minutes, it's not uncommon to hear an artist with only one CD ripped come up three times or so. It's not a coincidence. It also seems to vary from session to session.
So....anyone else notice this?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i notice it too... it seems to make a random list and just go on that and repeat itself sometimes..

I think my music player is officially retarded . I made sure that shuffle was on, no task killers were on, and it still played the same song. in succession. twice. is there a general consensus as to which is the best music app that isn't retarded.

honoluluacx said:
I think my music player is officially retarded . I made sure that shuffle was on, no task killers were on, and it still played the same song. in succession. twice. is there a general consensus as to which is the best music app that isn't retarded.
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music eq pro

The shuffle on my IPOD works great!
/troll

bfranklin1986 said:
The shuffle on my IPOD works great!
/troll
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Click to collapse
Yeah have fun trying to customize that and iTunes don't even get me started. Don't get me wrong as purely a music player I wouldn't have anything else minus iTunes of course.
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA Premium App

honoluluacx said:
I think my music player is officially retarded . I made sure that shuffle was on, no task killers were on, and it still played the same song. in succession. twice. is there a general consensus as to which is the best music app that isn't retarded.
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Click to collapse
The same song coming up twice in a row isn't an indication that the "random" algorithm on the music player is crappy. It is almost certain to happen on occasion. Also, in a truly random system, each song is as likely as each other song to be played; a random string of songs has no memory. Like flipping a coin. So all your Michael Buble songs are as likely to come up as any other songs. Add in a little confirmation bias and there you have it!
Back to the question. I like Winamp. I'm an old fan from back in the day when it was the music player of choice for the desktop computer. I can't vouch for its shuffle capabilities though.

Shuffle sucks and don't forget to mention the search function. Horrible
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App

Agree that shuffle sucks

Is google music mature enough to replace onboard memory?

I, like most people, have a large music collection which goes beyond the onboard memory of a nexus 4.
It's clear that google is trying to push people into using their cloud services which is fine, as long as it works. Now I live in the UK and in my experience 3G coverage is good, and i'm lucky to be on the unlimited Three network which offers very generous data speeds.
Does anyone here rely on the play music service and does it do a good job? Do songs load up fast? Is it going to turn listening to music into a very battery intensive experience?
cheers guys
Nick

After you upload your music to the cloud, streaming is relatively painless. I'm on T-Mobile HSPA+ and its pretty much instantaneous. I'd still prefer a UI like Winamp, but I can deal with Google Music's. Also regarding battery life, of course it would take a hit as you're streaming mobile data, it seems to drain the same amount of battery as when i use Spotify on my S3. As for the N4, who knows

I'm curious about this. Wouldn't you need unlimited data for Google music?
Sent from my LG-P999 using xda app-developers app

I'm in the UK too and I use Spotify for all my needs. You can combine your music collection with theirs, and easily change which albums are synced from your desktop/laptop to the pc for offline use. All of the Spotify music collection is also available for streaming use.

kefloxin said:
I'm curious about this. Wouldn't you need unlimited data for Google music?
Sent from my LG-P999 using xda app-developers app
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Unlimited data would be great for it but not entirely necessary. I had high quality streaming on for about 2 weeks and used up just over 3 gb of data, and I'd say I did a fair bit of listening, probably at least an hour a day if not more. I'm trying turning off the high quality streaming now as I only have 6 gb of data, so far it seems to use a little less. Streaming is seamless though, even when I have only 1 or 2 bars of signal. it may take about 5 seconds or so for the song to start playing if you skip a couple songs (if you let it play the next planned song it usually does'nt take time to load as it already starts buffering before the previous song is finished).

Not for me. For some reason I ALWAYS get the wrong album art. It's always the same album cover for almost every mp3. It drives me nuts. After checking Google's bug pages, it's been a known problem for months, but no ones looked at it. Annoying.
Itunes Match has been absolutely perfect for me since day 1.

amdhunter said:
Not for me. For some reason I ALWAYS get the wrong album art. It's always the same album cover for almost every mp3. It drives me nuts. After checking Google's bug pages, it's been a known problem for months, but no ones looked at it. Annoying.
Itunes Match has been absolutely perfect for me since day 1.
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Click to collapse
I have unlimited data so I'm a heavy Google Music user, I haven't had any issues with album art. Also if I know I'm gonna be in an area where service is terrible I just cache a playlist.

amdhunter said:
Not for me. For some reason I ALWAYS get the wrong album art. It's always the same album cover for almost every mp3. It drives me nuts. After checking Google's bug pages, it's been a known problem for months, but no ones looked at it. Annoying.
Itunes Match has been absolutely perfect for me since day 1.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Delete your app data. That usually clears up the album art issue.

3G ain't fast enough in the UK to stream music. And that's before we even get onto the data caps...

I might have to up my data and finally do this.

If your data plan allows it (as in, you have unlimited) then Google Music is a great replacement for onboard storage. Even without an unlimited plan it makes it much easier to swap out albums on-the-fly when you're connected to WiFi.

My brother and I use Play Music more and more. On AT&T LTE I can stream music in high quality without any trouble. I got the 8GB Nexus so I am going to try to use it more and more.

amdhunter said:
Not for me. For some reason I ALWAYS get the wrong album art. It's always the same album cover for almost every mp3. It drives me nuts. After checking Google's bug pages, it's been a known problem for months, but no ones looked at it. Annoying.
Itunes Match has been absolutely perfect for me since day 1.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You know you can correct that using the website right?
Google Music has been painless for me with the exception of the missing artwork and some tags not transferring.
Spent about 20 minutes on the website fixing it all and now all 18,000 songs are at my disposal regardless of device or local storage space.
Now if Google could do this with personal videos (no not broadcast to the world like YouTube.)

I just uploaded like 200+ songs to my Google Music storage. If anything, it is really convenient Although the 200+ songs I uploaded were .flac, and if I read right, all .flac audio higher then 320kbps, will be re-encoded to that. Can't say I hear a difference in sound quality at all though...
Songs will store on your device's storage as "cache" as you play them (depending on cache settings anyway). If you don't have unlimited data, you could possibly just let songs cache to your device via WiFi.

espionage724 said:
I just uploaded like 200+ songs to my Google Music storage. If anything, it is really convenient Although the 200+ songs I uploaded were .flac, and if I read right, all .flac audio higher then 320kbps, will be re-encoded to that. Can't say I hear a difference in sound quality at all though...
Songs will store on your device's storage as "cache" as you play them (depending on cache settings anyway). If you don't have unlimited data, you could possibly just let songs cache to your device via WiFi.
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This is exactly what I've been doing since I got the Galaxy Nexus. I had a bunch of music on an sdcard prior to getting the nexus so instead of dragging and dropping everything from my SDCard to my Galaxy Nexus every time I would flash another rom or get a new phone, I'd cache the music from Google Music. This is what I plan on doing with the Nexus 4. Haven't had a problem since using it full time a year ago.

Google Music works really well. It caches the most played songs and tends to cycle songs as you play them. I my current cache is 2 GB and I have uploaded hundreds of songs. I don't think it hits battery that much as Web browsing tends to be more of a drain due to the screen and processing the page. Here we are just retrieving a music file to play. I have the 2.0GB on tmobile and on the first month I got close to the cap but every month after that I was fine. You should cache some albums or artists over wifi if you are sure you will listen to them.
You could essentially have your entire collection on hand without the need for actual space. It's not like you will listen to everything that you will need it on your device but that you will eventually listen to it and that's where Google Music shines.
Also you will be able to log in on any computer and have your music collection ready to play.
Sent from my GT-P3113

Definite yes. The music manager on the PC seemlessly monitors your music folder and will upload any new files when added to the folder. Source of these files doesn't matter, legal or otherwise. The App experience on the phone itself gets the job done. You aren't going to find as many options for sound processing as you would from say Poweramp, but the convenience of cloud based music outweighs the features you give up. The play music app will mature with time as well, it gets better every update.

dcarpenter85 said:
Definite yes. The music manager on the PC seemlessly monitors your music folder and will upload any new files when added to the folder.
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Indeed. If you are planning on uploading music though, I might suggest properly tagging it with correct Artist, Album, and Naming, just so it looks good (and I think Google can grab song art based on those values)

I like it. It's worked perfectly for me. If you know you have a few tracks you like to hear often.. Click make available offline for the times you don't have reception. Seem less for me
Sent from my SCH-I535 using xda premium

I hate the Google Music app. The uploader also sucks, very very slow and you have to use a crappy website to manage things.
I could deal with the crappy uploader if we could use the library with other apps but for some reason Google wont make it open source. The Google Music app just sucks, unpolished hard to use UI and makes a mess of ID3 tags. Its one of those half assed Google projects that they started but wont finish.
If you dont care much about the player or dont know what youre missing since you havent used better then its a good option, but if you need a really simple and easy to use player because you only use it while doing other things and dont have time to deal with bad UI design then its not an option.

Does the nexus 4 support flac files?

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

Sure does

I am just curious, how are you going to listen to the files if it runs?
Headphones? headphones amps? hi-fi sound system? dock?

I use headphones and jdlabs amp
Sent from my Nexus 4 using xda premium

sparky_boi said:
Sure does
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With the stock google music player?

Chad_Petree said:
With the stock google mjusic player?
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Click to collapse
No, I tested. Play Music won't run it. I used MX Player.

WMP; flac
Guys, I was used to synchronize my audio library from WMP to my Android device. There are both MP3s and FLACs in the library. Since I have Nexus 4, WMP doesn't sync flac to Nexus, it writes "the player might not support the file".
I haven't found any option how to make WMP to do it. PlayerPro in Nexus plays flac without any problem. is there any setting in the devices? Or am I missing some application? The truth is, when I click on flac file in Astra file manager, it writes "Activity not found"...
One more thing. Even when I try to simly copy flac file to Nexus in widows through My Computer, it writes me that the device doesn't support that type of media...

No.
Drzfr3shboialex said:
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2
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Click to collapse
EDIT:
I was wrong about this. Android does support FLAC natively since 3.0
Not natively, for whatever reason.
Meaning it must be implemented by a third party and some paid music players have gone that extra step.
Simpler (free) music players tend to play whatever file formats are available by the Android OS.
The default Google player and Apollo do NOT support FLAC.
Your question should be "which music players do support FLAC?"

capo56 said:
Guys, I was used to synchronize my audio library from WMP to my Android device. There are both MP3s and FLACs in the library. Since I have Nexus 4, WMP doesn't sync flac to Nexus, it writes "the player might not support the file".
I haven't found any option how to make WMP to do it. PlayerPro in Nexus plays flac without any problem. is there any setting in the devices? Or am I missing some application? The truth is, when I click on flac file in Astra file manager, it writes "Activity not found"...
One more thing. Even when I try to simly copy flac file to Nexus in widows through My Computer, it writes me that the device doesn't support that type of media...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I get the same message when I copy .mp3, or FLAC files directly to my device via a Windows box. Also, try Solid Explorer, it makes the other file managers look outdated.
I play FLAC all the time with Poweramp. If the Nexus 4 had OTG, I'd be using FLAC a lot more. However, what I normally do is download files to my phone with Dsub from my Subsonic server. I force Dsub to limit the bitrate to 320kbps, and Subsonic will automatically transcode FLAC to 320kbps. I highly recommend checking out Subsonic. It really helps you work around the small amount of space we're given in the Nexus 4. I can essentially carry my HUGE collection of music wherever I have an internet connection.

KyraOfFire said:
No, I tested. Play Music won't run it. I used MX Player.
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Click to collapse
That's weird - I've been using the standard Play Music on my Nexus 4 to listen to FLAC files and it's been working fine. Unless I've misinterpreted what the OP is asking! Basically I just copy FLAC files to the Music folder, hit the 'Refresh' button in the Play Music settings and everything's okay.

pete_n said:
That's weird - I've been using the standard Play Music on my Nexus 4 to listen to FLAC files and it's been working fine. Unless I've misinterpreted what the OP is asking! Basically I just copy FLAC files to the Music folder, hit the 'Refresh' button in the Play Music settings and everything's okay.
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Weird indeed. I couldn't play a FLAC file with Play Music as well but I've come across reports of people having no problems with it. I did test only one file and had the DRM service disabled. I was running stock 4.2.1 at the time.

-Mindroid- said:
Weird indeed. I couldn't play a FLAC file with Play Music as well but I've come across reports of people having no problems with it. I did test only one file and had the DRM service disabled. I was running stock 4.2.1 at the time.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Are you trying 16-bit or 24-bit FLAC files? I don't have any 24-bit ones to test so can't confirm that they work, but definitely haven't had any problems with literally hundreds of 16-bit FLAC files. Like yourself I'm also running stock 4.2.1 with no hacks/root etc. I haven't installed any other audio programs either. Prior to my Nexus 4 I was also able to successfully play FLAC natively on a Note 2 (running 4.1 I guess?) and HTC One X (probably running 4.0 but I can't remember now).

-Mindroid- said:
Not natively, for whatever reason.
Meaning it must be implemented by a third party and some paid music players have gone that extra step.
Simpler (free) music players tend to play whatever file formats are available by the Android OS.
The default Google player and Apollo do NOT support FLAC.
Your question should be "which music players do support FLAC?"
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is wrong, android has had native support for playing FLAC files since android 3.0, I remember playing FLAC files with play music just last month.
Source: http://developer.android.com/guide/appendix/media-formats.html
Sent from my Jelly Nexus 4

DarkhShadow said:
This is wrong, android has had native support for playing FLAC files since android 3.0, I remember playing FLAC files with play music just last month.
Source: http://developer.android.com/guide/appendix/media-formats.html
Sent from my Jelly Nexus 4
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Click to collapse
I see. Thank you for the correction.
It is strange then that it doesn't work for some of us. I will investigate this further.

I used Play music app and it play a few of my flac files...

I guess all players in the mobile world support flac.
Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk

TestingCharts said:
I guess all players in the mobile world support flac.
Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
In your dream, only in the Android world. Ask Apple or Microsoft about their feeling about open standards.
For Honeycomb and newer, flac is supported on a system level. Flac is not supported by defauit for Gingerbread, but you can install certain music that have Flac codec.

Default music player in S4 is terrible playing midi

Call me old school but i got several midi files i enjoy. On my old touch pro2, they play fine but on the S4 default music player they don't sound anywhere as good. First the sound is clipped and a lot of time distorted. Also the instrument sounds are off compared to the media player that comes with WM6.5. Anyone got a solution/suggestion? thanks

I don't know of many players on mobile or desktop that bother to properly support midi anymore. At this point I just listen to them through WMP. They're mostly old NES/PS1 theme songs that I won't let go of. Figured one of these days I should try to find the midis recorded as mp3's to save myself the headache.

Converting them to mp3 is a solution I guess. At least that will keep the sound consistent instead of depending on the particular device/player to interpret the midi. Take more space but I guess will b ok w a 64 gb microsdxc.. just wish midi support better