Using Phone as music plyer

[lupi]

Looking for what app to run to play music files loaded on my wife's LG phone. Originally I was going to upload to amazon and use that, but the upload process is a bit of a pita and it either isn't working correctly or it takes a real long time for what you uploaded to be able to be downloaded. So now I'm thinking I'll just directly transfer the files over, but what do I need to do to make it easy to play them.

 

[cbrunny]

I'm a fan of Subsonic. It's closer to what you've outlined with Amazon than just dropping stuff on your phone, but it uses your own computer as the "server." It will stream to your phone audio and video, transcoding to meet bitrates you specify. Once songs are downloaded to your phone, they'll stay there in a cache - again of a size you specify - so you don't need to stream every song you listen to every time you want to listen to it.

There is a free version, but I highly recommend the paid version. $10 donation for a lifetime license.

 

[Red Storm]

I'm a fan of Subsonic. It's closer to what you've outlined with Amazon than just dropping stuff on your phone, but it uses your own computer as the "server." It will stream to your phone audio and video, transcoding to meet bitrates you specify. Once songs are downloaded to your phone, they'll stay there in a cache - again of a size you specify - so you don't need to stream every song you listen to every time you want to listen to it.

There is a free version, but I highly recommend the paid version. $10 donation for a lifetime license.

Why not just use Google Music? Free, you don't need to have your PC on as the songs are stored in the cloud, and you can cache them as well.

 

[cbrunny]

Why not just use Google Music? Free, you don't need to have your PC on as the songs are stored in the cloud, and you can cache them as well.

Canada.

 

[Carson Dyle]

Unless it's just to avoid carrying another device, I'd recommend not using a phone.

A SanDisk Sansa Clip Zip is extremely portable, under $50, can be expanded via microSD card (you can use up to 64GB cards, which are about $50 now). You can load Rockbox on it and you'll have both a better interface and be able to play just about any file format you like.

 

[vi edit]

Poweramp is highly recommended...

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.maxmpz.audioplayer

 

[lupi]

This phone won't have any streaming available, only playing files stored on the phone.

 

[ControlD]

Poweramp is highly recommended...

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.maxmpz.audioplayer

That's the one I use as well. I am using an old Samsung Fascinate as a music player and have tried probably a dozen different music playing apps. Poweramp was the best one I tried, so they got my money.

I would have gone with a cheapo player like the Clip, but I wanted Bluetooth and unless you want a Nano (no thanks) that is a tall order to fill.

 

[Red Storm]

Canada.

Ah.

Wait, if all you want is to play locally stored music, then any music playing app should work, even the one that came with her phone.

 

[lupi]

Maybe it does, but I haven't gotten that far and am sure others around here would have the experience to give the answer. Spent yesterday ripping CDs and downloading some others so about ready to start importing it over, so now ready to look into the player.

 

[WelshBloke]

Ah.

Wait, if all you want is to play locally stored music, then any music playing app should work, even the one that came with her phone.

Yeah any player should do really unless you want to get picky about features (not that there's anything bad about that).

 

[lupi]

So I spent this weekend putting a bunch of cds into itunes. Then had to spend some time getting the ones that got split up back together as a single folder. I then transferred a bunch of album folder onto the phone to play with the default music app, but the damn thing again split up several of the albums into 2 albums. There seems to be virtually no options I see in the phone app to convert these mis-split albums back together, so how do you do it or is this why you use a different music app!

 

[Ksyder]

I'm wondering if the issues with the albums splitting has to do with that the apps usually use id3 tags to display the albums which can lead to frustration if they aren't explicitly setup correctly. This can lead to problems when trying to organize a music collection on a phone.

There is always the option of using a file browser to browse through the music folders on the device, and then the default app will open the file, but this method is kind of clunky.

 

[lupi]

During my search last night mention of those tags came up, but I have no idea how to view/modify them, or if they can be modified as you can edit the data for material in itunes.

 

[vshah]

you can right click on the file (or multiple selected files) in windows explorer and click "properties". there's a tab where you can edit info for a single file, or multiple files if you had multiple files selected. Select all songs from the same album and make sure the album name is consistent.

 

[Ksyder]

or you should be able to do it through itunes.

 

[aShufflinZombie]

If it's android, you could use Apollo.

 

[s44]

Poweramp also has a folder navigation mode.

 

[lupi]

I did mess with the album settings under itunes until all the songs properly meshed up under the respective album, but when viewing with the native music app several still broke into 2, usually with one having only 1 or 2 songs.

 

[tonyfreak215]

mp3tag

http://www.mp3tag.de/en/

Use it to edit the metadata (tags) for your files.

 

[Oyeve]

mp3tag

http://www.mp3tag.de/en/

Use it to edit the metadata (tags) for your files.

This is the most inaccurate POS ever. Better off using winamp to tag.

 

[ControlD]

This is the most inaccurate POS ever. Better off using winamp to tag.

It works fine for manually editing though. I agree that using the automatic function isn't the best option.

 

[tonyfreak215]

I've used it for years and have never had an issue. Although I did manual tags. i also liked how it would integrate into Windows.

 

[thedosbox]

Yeah, mp3tag is a great tool for mass manual editing of tags.