How to add custom theme music for TV shows?

General Discussions
1

Ok so I am loving the automatic background theme music that plays while I am browsing a TV show, but there are a few shows that don’t have music and I would like to add my own mp3 file. I read that you can do this by just putting a mp3 file called theme.mp3 in the folder of the show I want to use it for.

Here is the link: https://support.plex.tv/hc/en-us/articles/200220717-Local-Media-Assets-TV-Shows

If you scroll down until you see this you what I am talking about:

Local Theme Songs
Many Plex Apps can play the theme song for a series when viewing that series in your library if a theme song is available. You may use your own MP3 file for the show theme song. To do so, simply place a “theme.mp3” audio file inside the main show directory:
/TV Shows
/Heroes
/Season 01
Heroes - s01e01 - Genesis.avi
theme.mp3

I have put “theme.mp3” in the right folder, but when I browse to the TV show in plex, no music is played.

PS I also made the file 29 seconds just in case you needed it to be under 30 seconds.

If you guys can help, please comment!

2

@ckdhalver10 said:
I have put “theme.mp3” in the right folder, but when I browse to the TV show in plex, no music is played.

You need to enable the ‘local media assets’ agent for tv shows.
all 3 places:
Settings - Server - Agents - TV Shows - Personal Media Shows
Settings - Server - Agents - TV Shows - TheTVDB
Settings - Server - Agents - TV Shows - TheMovieDatabase

After adding the file, you need to Refresh the show.

PS I also made the file 29 seconds just in case you needed it to be under 30 seconds.

No need. You can add the full song if you have it.

2 Likes
3

@OttoKerner said:

@ckdhalver10 said:
I have put “theme.mp3” in the right folder, but when I browse to the TV show in plex, no music is played.

You need to enable the ‘local media assets’ agent for tv shows.
all 3 places:
Settings - Server - Agents - TV Shows - Personal Media Shows
Settings - Server - Agents - TV Shows - TheTVDB
Settings - Server - Agents - TV Shows - TheMovieDatabase

After adding the file, you need to Refresh the show.

PS I also made the file 29 seconds just in case you needed it to be under 30 seconds.

No need. You can add the full song if you have it.

THANK YOU SO MUCH!!! I just needed to refresh it, I was updating it. Thanks again!

2 Likes
4

@OttoKerner: just curious because we had a discussion about local theme songs in a different context.
do you know if those need to be mp3 or could it also be different containers w/ regular music content (not necessarily ac3/dts/6-channel aac – but mp4/m4a/2-channel aac…)?

5

I have only tried with mp3. Other formats may work too.

6

thx; I’ll give it a try :wink:

7

I was thinking of creating a new topic, but it seems adding to this topic may be better, and hopefully create a little more discussion on the matter.

I do have things working nicely for theme music for TV series in general, and as people all seem to eventually learn the real trick is a REFRESH after getting everything set up.

MP3 files do work well, I have attempted a couple others that DO NOT work, and it is always easy to make an MP3 file anyway so, no big deal there I feel.

Now to my BIG WISH and question… There are MANY TV series that CHANGE theme music over time. Some have different themes each season, some even have different music with different episodes! Is there NOW a way, or is it in the works, to not only have local media assets for theme music for the FULL TV series when placed in the root of the TV series, but to also have additional theme music for other seasons, and episodes when additional theme music files are available for them (on a local media asset basis)?

My thoughts were to place theme.mp3 in each season folder of a TV series with alternate themes, and even in each episode directory, or named like “episode name - theme.mp3” I have not found any combination that currently works, as I am pretty sure the coding is not there to support it currently.

Can a metadata file be manually edited to provide what I am wanting to hear, or is it also only treated by plex at the SERIES level, so any metadata changes would be ignored?

Any thought would be great on this, as this is a very important issue to me. Since I was young, in the 70’s, I would collect TV Theme music recording the audio from the TV with an audio recorder, delighting to new theme arrangements as they happened, and even special episode opening and closing music to fit in with special episodic themes. As a result, it is the top desire I have for Plex, to hear all the great music, and variations that exist for seasons and episodes of my favorite, and even not so favorite TV shows.

8

No, no and no.

The themes in Plex are only intended to either call up memories or to illustrate what the show might be like.
What you want is far above that. I wouldn’t expect that to become a reality.

If you are looking for a detailed listing of all musical themes of a show or a movie, you should arrange them into a music album.
Then add both the tv show and the music album into a collection of the exact same name.
That way you will see the ‘soundtrack’ album on the main preplay screen of the show.

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9

Thank you! While not what I was hoping for, creating collections will definitely help me to be a little happier! :slight_smile:

It also will help me more with some of my other organization concerns and frustrations I have had with Plex.