Best MM + Streaming Service Combo? Spotify? Google Play?

[consultant]

It seems to me that for the bulk of music users, the general direction is subscription services that stream pretty much anything you want from any place you have a connection. For a small amount of money $5-$10/month you get access to a huge library, ability to store songs locally to play when you don't have a net connection, unlimited skips on radio channels, etc.

However, many of us "power users" still like the enhanced functionality a standalone player offers like Media Monkey such as better control over device sync including automated conversion, volume leveling, smart play lists, etc. etc. However we are not in the majority of users, obviously.

I've got a phone with 32GB and my music files are taking up over half the storage. Granted memory is only to get cheaper, the utility of storing my files locally, especially considering I can selectively "cache" local copies of anything I want from paid streaming services, is becoming less useful. Also consider mobile device subscriptions these days are starting to offer unlimited bandwidth more and more.

What would happened if most of the functionality of something like Media Monkey was merged into the online streaming service players? A novel idea.

To this point, my best effort to produce the most seamless integration between local media management and online streaming services is combining Media Monkey with Google Play. Google Play serves as a backup of all my music storing up to 20,000 tracks, for FREE. It also allows me to access my music from anywhere whether I have my own mobile device with me or not. The frustrating part has been lack of synchronization of my MM playlists. Creating smart playlists on many of these streaming services is either not possible or very rudimentary compared to MM. Quite surprising really considering the deep pockets behind some of these services. I know there is a roundabout way to sync the playlists by sucking them into iTunes then into the streaming service. Very clunky and frankly it's been so long since I did it, I can't remember the exact process.

I'm amazed you can't just import an M3U file (at least for Google Play.) Wouldn't it be REALLY cool if there was a streaming service that could read the MM song ratings AND the Smart Playlists? I've always wondered why a service with deep pockets didn't just use MM as a model for development of functionality in their own player. I suppose they look at it as an ROI on development costs figuring the vast majority of users don't need the features?

So this brings me to my question. For you MM users out there, what have you found to be the most power, feature rich streaming service that integrates the best with MM? Wouldn't be cool if MM had a feature to "Sync to Spotify Account?" Syncing songs AND playlists including song raings? Or have I been out of the loop so long that it's already there and I just don't know about. Or is there still a big void?

[consultant]

Well I guess the lack of responses really highlights how far we are from any product out there that is a true all-in-one, robust solution for most all users.

As a side note as far as discovering new music, I can confirm I've put Pandora on the back-burner as my second favorite streaming service for discovering truly new music right now. Pandora was still just playing the same top 40 like all the other stations.

I'm now using SLACKER. At $3.99 a month for UNLIMITED SKIPS (which you can't get with Pandora), I've found their "New First" stations for various genres doesn't play the same current radio hits that all the other stations use for their "New Hits" stations. They use newer stuff and avoid most of the stuff currently being overplayed by everyone else but they also have the "Current Hits" types stations too if that's what you want. And They stream 320Kbit/s with paid which is better than Pandora if they are still on 192Kbit/s. It's also kind of cool you can optionally get ESPN radio updates a couple times a day in between songs. Kind of surprised I didn't try these guys earlier.

[Barry4679]

Google Play serves as a backup of all my music storing up to 20,000 tracks, for FREE. It also allows me to access my music from anywhere whether I have my own mobile device with me or not. The frustrating part has been lack of synchronization of my MM playlists. Creating smart playlists on many of these streaming services is either not possible or very rudimentary compared to MM.

I have been having a play with this. I uploaded my entire collection into Google Play. I also replicated it on one of those relatively cheap 2tb WiFi USB drives. So I have my entire collection when at home, or when staying away from home, or when commuting (via streaming from Google Play, which will store up 50,000 of your tracks without charge BTW, not 20,000).

Like you, I then wanted something to easily produce playlists for use in each of these environments.

I have my own application to import all of my track plays into MediaMonkey. Tracks plays are imported from Last.fm, or detected by direct observation if you have Sonos equipment.

Play data important (to me), because I want my playlists to be primarily based upon duration since last play. The playlists need to be updated often because whenever I have recently listened to an album I want it cycled out of the playlist.

I enhanced my app to generate playlists from my MM db. It auto refreshes them as part of the importation of fresh plays, and translates and publishes them to my NAS, and my portable USB drive, and into my Google Play library.

At this stage I am generating my own playlists, but I could be translating|publishing MM designed playlists I guess. It is still a work in progress. What I have going is described here:

http://albumplays.com/playlists/

Contact me if you are interested

So this brings me to my question. For you MM users out there, what have you found to be the most power, feature rich streaming service that integrates the best with MM?

I use Google Play. It isn't especially MM friendly, but at least there is an (unofficial) API which has enabled me to link my MM library with my tracks in my Google library. So I can readily produce Google play lists based upon my MM centralised criteria such as date last played, track rating etc.

It would be good if I could extend my MM database to also cover tracks which only exist in my Google Library (ie. those I don't own). I would like to keep data upon these too, such rating & date last played, so that they could also be part of any playlists exported into Google. ... I have just started looking into this. ... Anybody know of any work to extend a MM library with Google Play Only tracks?