Guide to get good MusicIP mixes working

[jonlennon101]

Hi there,

I am overjoyed to finally have MusicIP working on my Squeezebox but I am having issues with creating mixes.

In a nutshell, I get the exact mixes I want in the MusicIP program open on Windows when I click Mix on a song say by Radiohead or Sufjan Stevens and it produces 15 songs which fit well but are very rarely from the same album, or even artist.
However much I change the Style and Variety amounts, I always get a very different outcome with Sufjan or Radiohead, where it is often repated from the same album or artist.


The simple question I have s how can I get the same excellent mixes I produce in the MusicIP Windows program when using my Squeezebox? I would far rather use the MusicIP plugin as the Spicefly one has produced to strange a range of outcomes ((Bjork to Michael Buble!!!)

Any advice you could give would be gratefully received.

Jon

[aubuti]

Welcome to the forums, and glad to hear that you have MusicIP working for you (well, more or less). I don't have a definitive answer for you, but here are a couple things to try:

1) See what happens if you disable the Spicefly plugin. It's a fine plugin, and really helped me get MusicIP set up. But now I don't use it, and I don't have the mix problems you report.

2) Check your mix and variety settings, and how they compare to the same settings in the Windows GUI program. Note that there are settings that appear on the general MusicIP page (<server_ip_address:10002> on the headless version) as well as settings for individual players under LMS's Settings > Player > MusicIP menu. I've never figured out how these settings interact or which takes precedence. But try setting both of them to the same settings you have in the Windows GUI and see if that helps.

Good luck.

[Wirrunna]

Hi there,
The simple question I have s how can I get the same excellent mixes I produce in the MusicIP Windows program when using my Squeezebox? I would far rather use the MusicIP plugin as the Spicefly one has produced to strange a range of outcomes ((Bjork to Michael Buble!!!)

Jon

You can create a MusicIP Mix in the Squeezebox - in the GUI, select an album, click to show the tracks, and mouse over the track you want as the seed - you should see 4 icons, click on the "M" (More info) icon, and at the bottom of the list should be "Create MusicIP Mix " , click on that and a MusicIP mix will be created. Mouse over the "All Songs" and 2 icons should appear that will let you play the mix or add it to the current playlist.
You can also use the remote and your player to accomplish the same action, but I suggest that you start with the GUI first.

[jonlennon101]

1) See what happens if you disable the Spicefly plugin. It's a fine plugin, and really helped me get MusicIP set up. But now I don't use it, and I don't have the mix problems you report.

2) Check your mix and variety settings, and how they compare to the same settings in the Windows GUI program. Note that there are settings that appear on the general MusicIP page (<server_ip_address:10002> on the headless version) as well as settings for individual players under LMS's Settings > Player > MusicIP menu. I've never figured out how these settings interact or which takes precedence. But try setting both of them to the same settings you have in the Windows GUI and see if that helps.

Thanks for the helpful reply. I have now disabled Spicefly, and have tried similar settings to the Windows GUI. Therefore a few more questions:

1. The setting that really seems to help in the Windows GUI is to be able to stop an artist repeating within a certain number of tracks. I know you can do that on Spicefly, but I would rather not use that. Can I do that on MusicIP plugin for LMS?

2. What mix settings do other use with the MusicIP plugin to get good mixes?

3. What about filters, or song/artist/album exclusions? Can I do that with the MusicIP plugin?

4. Does anyone know what whether to adjust the settings on the MagicMusic server or in LMS itself?

Thanks very much!

[bakker_be]

Hi there,

I am overjoyed to finally have MusicIP working on my Squeezebox but I am having issues with creating mixes.

In a nutshell, I get the exact mixes I want in the MusicIP program open on Windows when I click Mix on a song say by Radiohead or Sufjan Stevens and it produces 15 songs which fit well but are very rarely from the same album, or even artist.
However much I change the Style and Variety amounts, I always get a very different outcome with Sufjan or Radiohead, where it is often repated from the same album or artist.


The simple question I have s how can I get the same excellent mixes I produce in the MusicIP Windows program when using my Squeezebox? I would far rather use the MusicIP plugin as the Spicefly one has produced to strange a range of outcomes ((Bjork to Michael Buble!!!)

Any advice you could give would be gratefully received.

Jon

Hi there,
one thing you should keep in mind when comparing mixes from Spicefly Sugarcube & "default" MusicIP mixes is the fact that they operate quite differently:
-Sugarcube takes the "seed song" and requests a match from the MusicIP server. When this song begins to play, it is promoted to "seed song" and the process is repeated continuously.
-"default" MusicIP takes the seed song and returns a predefined number of matching songs. Once these are played, you have to create a new mix.
This is the reason why the resulting mix can be quite different,as sugarcube essentially creates a new 1-song mix from every song it plays.

That said, Sugarcube also has a "legacy" mode, emulating the behaviour of the "default" plugin. I haven't tried it myself, but I believe it will differ only from the "defaul"t in that the mix will keep playing, each time based upon the last song of the batch.
Sugarcube has a lot more "tweaking" possibilities for the mix creation. I'd urge you to look into them.