Let's make the Squeezebox to the ultimate music discovery device!

[erland]

I've been thinking a bit and it really feels like it's time to try to move the Squeezebox products to the next level. I'd like to get some more focus on features that's related to finding music both in your own library and also new music which you currently don't have in your library. It's getting painfully clear to me that it's not the primary focus area for Logitech, at least not during the last year or two. At the moment with the smaller team, they seems to be mostly focused on fixing bugs, doing some technical enhancements and doing small enhancements to the core functions, but nothing revolutionary related to the music discovery. I should say that the Logitech developers are doing a great job with the amount of resources they have access to, so this isn't any critique on them.

However, if we want something to happen it feels we need to take this into our own hands. I'm not sure about exactly how to do this yet and I'm also not sure how much time I'm personally prepared to commit on it but I like to at least start a discussion about what's missing to make the Squeezebox the best music discovery device out there. If I decide I'm not prepared to do this myself this discussion might at least result in some good ideas which Logitech can use. Hopefully more people in the community are willing to help with various parts if something good comes out of this discussion, I'm definitely not going to do anything if I'm alone. However, I'm pretty sure I'm not going to be the only one interested in this kind of functionality.


So some questions to guide the discussion:

1.
How do you find music in your own library ?
- Which way to you browse/search ? (which browse or search menus)
- Which type of remote/interface do you use ? Different for different situations ?
- Do you find music through statistics based browse menus ? (ratings, play counts, history)
- Do you find music through smart playlists based on statistics or random selection or other kind of automatic mixes ?
- Do you use album art when selecting what to play ?
- Do you typically start searching/browsing from an artist, album or track and want to find something related to that ?


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 ?
- Where do you start when searching ? Top charts ? Genres ? Similar artists ?
- Do you use some web site when searching or do you browse some music store directly ?
- Are you using the computer, your Squeezebox or some other device when searching for new music ?
- Do you preview the music before puchasing ? Do you preview it on the real system or cheep laptop speakers or something similar ?
- 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 ?


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 ?


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 ?


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 ?
- Is the folder structure the music files are stored in important ?
- If you use Custom Scan, which additional tags do you add besides those supported by SBS ?
- Do you manually add ratings to your music ? Why ?


6.
Do you synchronize the data in SBS with some other application to make it easier to find interesting music ?
- Import statisitcs from MusicIP ?
- Export statistics to MusicIP ?
- Import files, playlists and statistics from iTunes ?
- Export statistics to iTunes ?
- Do you use some other application integrated with SBS/Squeezebox ?


I've probably missed a lot of relevant questions, so feel free to post your thoughts about other areas that's involved in discovering old and new music even if it's not mentioned in the questions above.

I realize there are many questions to answer and that this is a huge functional area, so feel free to answer in several posts if the forum post max length feels too limited. :-)

[snarlydwarf]

I've been thinking a bit and it really feels like it's time to try to move the Squeezebox products to the next level. I'd like to get some more focus on features that's related to finding music both in your own library and also new music which you currently don't have in your library. It's getting painfully clear to me that it's not the primary focus area for Logitech, at least not during the last year or two. At the moment with the smaller team, they seems to be mostly focused on fixing bugs, doing some technical enhancements and doing small enhancements to the core functions, but nothing revolutionary related to the music discovery. I should say that the Logitech developers are doing a great job with the amount of resources they have access to, so this isn't any critique on them.

You're probably the ideal person to spearhead this: anyone who has used your plugins knows how well they work to make a library manageable.

However, if we want something to happen it feels we need to take this into our own hands. I'm not sure about exactly how to do this yet and I'm also not sure how much time I'm personally prepared to commit on it but I like to at least start a discussion about what's missing to make the Squeezebox the best music discovery device out there. If I decide I'm not prepared to do this myself this discussion might at least result in some good ideas which Logitech can use. Hopefully more people in the community are willing to help with various parts if something good comes out of this discussion, I'm definitely not going to do anything if I'm alone. However, I'm pretty sure I'm not going to be the only one interested in this kind of functionality.

You're not.

My music buying has slowed down lately and that's not good!

How do you find music in your own library ?

I tend to just wander: I do use Dynamic Playlists for my morning alarm clock, and for my "I don't know what to listen to" things....

From my 'Random SQL' one (which is pretty much a normal random playlist, but I exclude 'Explicit' and 'Comedy' and such genres, as well as things less than a minute long or more than 15m... this is my usual 'work mix'), I sometimes hear a song and think, "Oooh, let me play something else by them."

Being able to insert something (track or album) into a playing playlist would be nice. I think I can do that in Fishbone with an option, but never remember to turn that on. For the "I just heard this, now want to take a diversion, but don't want to remember to turn Dynamic Playlist back on when that album ends" sorts of cases.

I do have mostly complete album art and do sometimes choose from Albums when I don't know what I want. I usually just choose a random page and look at cover art to see what tickles my fancy at that point.

How do you usually find new music you like to get but currently don't have in your library ?

Last.fm and Emusic, the wife uses Pandora. When -really- bored, Amazon to see what they tell me to listen to. Emusic and Amazon unfortunately have to be done from a browser.

I do often play a song and wonder what is similar use that as a key to start a last.fm 'similar artist' station. That works well right now.

I realize there are many questions to answer and that this is a huge functional area, so feel free to answer in several posts if the forum post max length feels too limited. :-)

What about if my brain just overloads and I have to take a break?

As I said, most of my personal library discover comes from Dynamic Playlists of some variety... I am curious how to expand that to "not in my library". Last.fm and Pandora type services seem to be good for that, but they're sadly limited in areas they can legally serve.

[sebp]

However, I'm pretty sure I'm not going to be the only one interested in this kind of functionality.

Oh no, you're not.

1. How do you find music in your own library ?

I mainly use the browse by artists menu, and search for songs when not remembering who's the author.
Although I own two controllers, I mainly use an IR remote with my SBs (because it never goes to sleep and it's faster to type some text with it). The Controllers come out of their cradles when friends pass me a visit. I barely use the web UI.
Statistics, well, last.fm handle mines good enough to me.
I love listening to MusicIP mixes, because that's good music for the lazy.
Even if I take care of tagging my music with artwork, album art is not a must have for me. It's nice to get it when playing, though.
Being able to browse music from a track's contextual menu is one of my favourite features.

How do you usually find new music you like to get but currently don't have in your library ?

I listen to webradios (really liked the "On Amazon" feature) and subscribed to some music services like Society of Sound. Before that, I was a last.fm subscriber, but stopped supporting them when they decided only 3 countries - I'm not living in - would legally be able to stream from the SB.
I also tried Deezer lately, but found paying 10€ a month was not compatible with being not able to listen to a single Pink Floyd album.
Friends are my best source of ideas when it comes to listening to something new.

To be continued.

[Aslak3]

I'm going to stick my neck out, but something has been bugging me for a looong time. You don't really talk about this, and it's one hell of a can of worms, but your talking about SqueezeBox improvements. So here goes.

UPNP/DLNA client support.

I love SBS as much as the next person, but with CPU horsepower in the player (Radio/Touch), you could conceivably include some level of UPNP support in the player itself. This would be a massive change, of course, from traditional "SlimDevices Squeezebox", but it would get Squeezebox out to new people. SBS would of course continue to be the *correct* way to get music into the player, but UPNP would be available to more casual users. UPNP would be impossible on the non SqueezePlay players, but surely now it could be included. I would look at doing it myself, if I didn't have a day-job....

To briefly answer some of the other questions, I'm old fashioned and usually play whole albums. So my browsing needs are fairly simple. It's either albums or streaming radio, or maybe LastFM.

I've recently started to use SqueezeCommander (Android prog) and absolutely love it. I only really listen to the Radio first thing in the morning, and find the controls and screen a pleasure to use. Otherwise if I'm in front of the thing I play with the Boom controls or grab the phone and use SqueezeCommander. I don't use the IR remote much as my eyesight is poor. I find myself using the web UI less and less, but it's great for doing general admin and making up playlists.

Anyway, I'm interested to hear other thoughts on UPNP/DLNA.

[erland]

Anyway, I'm interested to hear other thoughts on UPNP/DLNA.

That would be interesting but let's handle that in a separate thread unless UPNP/DLNA is important for you to be able to find what to listen to and find out which music you want to buy.

I don't want this thread to turn into a technical/architecture discussion, instead I like the focus to be how people find their music and what kind of search/browse functionality is needed to make that process as effective as possible.

[chrisla]

I've often thought a hook into amazon (or take your pick) mp3 purchases
would be great: "I see you are listening to X, amazon suggests Y, shall I
buy it, download it, and pay it next?"

-Chris

On Tue, Aug 3, 2010 at 12:41 PM, erland <
erland.4f4vrz1280864521 (AT) no-mx (...limdevices.com> wrote:

>
> I've been thinking a bit and it really feels like it's time to try to
> move the Squeezebox products to the next level. I'd like to get some
> more focus on features that's related to finding music both in your own
> library and also new music which you currently don't have in your
> library. It's getting painfully clear to me that it's not the primary
> focus area for Logitech, at least not during the last year or two. At
> the moment with the smaller team, they seems to be mostly focused on
> fixing bugs, doing some technical enhancements and doing small
> enhancements to the core functions, but nothing revolutionary related
> to the music discovery. I should say that the Logitech developers are
> doing a great job with the amount of resources they have access to, so
> this isn't any critique on them.
>
> However, if we want something to happen it feels we need to take this
> into our own hands. I'm not sure about exactly how to do this yet and
> I'm also not sure how much time I'm personally prepared to commit on it
> but I like to at least start a discussion about what's missing to make
> the Squeezebox the best music discovery device out there. If I decide
> I'm not prepared to do this myself this discussion might at least
> result in some good ideas which Logitech can use. Hopefully more people
> in the community are willing to help with various parts if something
> good comes out of this discussion, I'm definitely not going to do
> anything if I'm alone. However, I'm pretty sure I'm not going to be the
> only one interested in this kind of functionality.
>
>
> So some questions to guide the discussion:
>
> 1.
> How do you find music in your own library ?
> - Which way to you browse/search ? (which browse or search menus)
> - Which type of remote/interface do you use ? Different for different
> situations ?
> - Do you find music through statistics based browse menus ? (ratings,
> play counts, history)
> - Do you find music through smart playlists based on statistics or
> random selection or other kind of automatic mixes ?
> - Do you use album art when selecting what to play ?
> - Do you typically start searching/browsing from an artist, album or
> track and want to find something related to that ?
>
>
> 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 ?
> - Where do you start when searching ? Top charts ? Genres ? Similar
> artists ?
> - Do you use some web site when searching or do you browse some music
> store directly ?
> - Are you using the computer, your Squeezebox or some other device when
> searching for new music ?
> - Do you preview the music before puchasing ? Do you preview it on the
> real system or cheep laptop speakers or something similar ?
> - 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 ?
>
>
> 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 ?
>
>
> 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 ?
>
>
> 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 ?
> - Is the folder structure the music files are stored in important ?
> - If you use Custom Scan, which additional tags do you add besides
> those supported by SBS ?
> - Do you manually add ratings to your music ? Why ?
>
>
> 6.
> Do you synchronize the data in SBS with some other application to make
> it easier to find interesting music ?
> - Import statisitcs from MusicIP ?
> - Export statistics to MusicIP ?
> - Import files, playlists and statistics from iTunes ?
> - Export statistics to iTunes ?
> - Do you use some other application integrated with SBS/Squeezebox ?
>
>
> I've probably missed a lot of relevant questions, so feel free to post
> your thoughts about other areas that's involved in discovering old and
> new music even if it's not mentioned in the questions above.
>
> I realize there are many questions to answer and that this is a huge
> functional area, so feel free to answer in several posts if the forum
> post max length feels too limited. :-)
>
>
> --
> erland
>
> Erland Isaksson ('My homepage' (http://erland.isaksson.info))
> (Developer of 'many plugins/applets'
> (http://wiki.slimdevices.com/index.php/User:Erland). If my answer
> helped you and you like to encourage future presence on this forum
> and/or third party plugin/applet development, 'donations are always
> appreciated' (http://erland.isaksson.info/donate))
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> erland's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=3124
> View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=80910
>
>

[garym]

Good idea. answers below.

1.
How do you find music in your own library ?
- Which way to you browse/search ? (which browse or search menus)
TYPICALLY BROWSE BY ARTIST, THEN ALBUM

- Which type of remote/interface do you use ? Different for different situations ?
IPENG AROUND THE HOUSE, WIFE USES CONTROLLER, AND I OFTEN USE SQUEEZEPLAY AS CONTROLLER FROM MY LAPTOP, WHERE I HAPPEN TO BE SITTING IN ANY CASE.

- Do you find music through statistics based browse menus ? (ratings, play counts, history)
NO

- Do you find music through smart playlists based on statistics or random selection or other kind of automatic mixes ?
USE DYNAMIC PLAYLISTS, SQL PLAYLISTS PLUGINS AND STANDARD TEMPLATES, WHICH I EDIT TO PICK CERTAIN GENRES, EXLCUDE CERTAIN ARTISTS OR GENRES, AND ASK TO NOT PLAY SONGS THAT HAVE BEEN PLAYED IN THE LAST X MONTHS, ETC. VERY BASIC USE OF THESE PLUGINS TO CREATE RANDOM PLAYBACK WITH CERTAIN PARAMETERS.

- Do you use album art when selecting what to play ? NO, BUT I LIKE SEEING IT.
- Do you typically start searching/browsing from an artist, album or track and want to find something related to that ? ARTIST.


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 ? YES, BUT TYPICALLY ONLY INTERNET RADIO STATIONS
- Where do you start when searching ? Top charts ? Genres ? Similar artists ? NOTHING I LIKE THESE DAYS IS EVEN ON CHARTS. I READ SOME SPECIALTY WEB SITES, BLOGS, ETC. RELATED TO MUSIC STYLES I LIKE. AMAZON SOMETIMES RECOMMENDS STUFF, BUT I EITHER HAVE IT ALREADY OR I'M NOT ACTUALLY INTERESTED.
- Do you use some web site when searching or do you browse some music store directly ? SEE ABOVE.
- Are you using the computer, your Squeezebox or some other device when searching for new music ? COMPUTER.
- Do you preview the music before puchasing ? Do you preview it on the real system or cheep laptop speakers or something similar ? SOMETIMES, COMPUTER SPEAKERS.
- 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 ? NO
- Through reviews ? Any specific online site ? NODEPRESSION.COM
- Through friends ? Some community site ? FRIENDS


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 ? I'D LIKE SOMETHING LIKE MUSICIP BUILT IN. I KNOW I COULD INSTALL ALL THIS, BUT I DON'T WANT TO GO THROUGH THE TROUBLE OF SCANNING 60K PLUS FILES TO HAVE THE SOFTWARE GO AWAY, WHICH IT SEEMS IS PROBABLE.
- What kind of functionality is missing today related to searching ?
NO COMMENT, BUT I DON'T REALLY SEARCH THAT MUCH.

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 MOST PLAYED SONGS WITHIN MY LIBRARY, COULD BE SBS OR OTHER.


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 ? NOTHING OTHER THAN MAKE SURE TAGS ARE COMPLETE AND CORRECT.
- Which additional tags do you add which isn't handled by standard SBS today ? NONE
- Is the folder structure the music files are stored in important ? SORT OF. I LIKE AN ORGANIZED ARTIST/ALBUM OR COMPILATIONS/ALBUM TYPE STRUCTURE.
- If you use Custom Scan, which additional tags do you add besides those supported by SBS ? NO
- Do you manually add ratings to your music ? Why ? NO.


6.
Do you synchronize the data in SBS with some other application to make it easier to find interesting music ?
- Import statisitcs from MusicIP ? NO, BUT WOULD LIKE TO
- Export statistics to MusicIP ? NO, BUT WOULD LIKE TO
- Import files, playlists and statistics from iTunes ? NO
- Export statistics to iTunes ? NO
- Do you use some other application integrated with SBS/Squeezebox ? NO
I DO KEEP TRACK OF TRACKS PLAYED BY SCROBBLING TO LAST.FM

[Brian Ritchie]

I'll have to give your other questions some more thought, but this one came to mind earlier today:

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'd like to be able to find all the playlists that include a particular track, or one or more tracks from an album. Then, should I get a new remaster, I can see which playlists will have to be changed. (Yes, there is a separate utility available to repair playlists, but that's geared towards coping with changed locations or replaced tracks, and I usually keep the old version around.)

By "playlist" I'm really thinking of static playlists - I wouldn't expect to get a list of those DynamicPlaylists that *might* include the track.

Notmad and Anapod (3rd-party Zen/iPod managers) had a playlist index that was very useful for things like this (well, when it worked). In iTunes, I can right-click on an individual track to get a list of playlists that include it, which is a bit tedious to use when I replace an entire album.

(And here's one of those "I'd forgotten SS could do this!" moments: I was about to add: Fancier playlist combinations, for example, today I'd queued-up a join of my Sun Lounger Rock and Prog playlists. When my wife came home, she wanted me to remove all the Prog; luckily I didn't know how :-) But just now, I've rediscovered that I can just go to Home/Playlists and click the "x" on the Sun Lounger Prog entry...)

-- Brian

[pski]

and include a newsreader/downloading client

[erland]

so I guess it would need to check binsearch.info and include a newsreader/downloading client

Do you find new music that way ?
Or is it just a way to get music after you have decided what you want ?

How do you use it today, do you have an artist in your mind and goto binsearch.info and search for it or do you do it some other way ? Do you or would you like to start searching based on something inside your own library or something that's just in your head ?

Since I haven't used binsearch.info before, is binsearch.info just some kind of illegal sharing place for music you usually have to pay for ?