Why do people persist with local music collections still? Rare tracks? Quality? Poor web connection?
I persist with local movies but conceded to a Spotify subscription a while back.
If nothing else I hope Plex will look at using any MusicBrainz GUID type tags Picard may have put in there. Itâs not ideal but it should be safe for the dev team to assume if I went through the trouble to add those tags it is the ultimate âFix MatchâŠâ.
This is very ignorant. Some people still purchase their music, whether that be through online sites or actually buying a CD. Furthermore, people may still have a collection of CDs that theyâve bought that theyâd rather listen to over a transcoded, objectively worse version.
As a lurker can I thank you all for a fascinating insight into Plex and music. As a Foobar user I hadnât really considered adding my music to my movies and TV shows in Plex and thus making them easily available across the house.
Now I understand how Plex works, that it plays FLAC files etc. I will give it a go, in the knowledge that I already had my metadata pretty sorted.
1 Like
Agreed. Although generally the following works well:
Artist
Album
Song name exactly as released
Things still missing:
- Reading of metadata like ratings (yes I know this is hard, yet everyone else has no problem)
- Storing of ratings.
- Android auto cannot load large playlists.
- You canât use Google assistant to shuffle or even play a playlist (to work around #3 )
- You canât sync music to the device in such a way that itâs available to other music players that donât have these issues.
- You canât export to a USB stick for cars etc.
- Plex doesnât have any way to start playing music when Bluetooth audio is connected from say a car, so every time I get in I have to go through 4 menus to play music. (And canât use AA)
Ie at best Plex is an absolute PITA to use in 99% of real-world cases for music. And you canât interop with another player or devices to make up for it because of all of the other limitations. And thatâs true even with tidal.
Please take music seriously Plex. Look at real world use cases:
- Running/walking/subway:. Ok Google shuffle playlist x or similar voice control via ear buds.
- Car with AA/cp:. Tap playlist and shuffle or ok Google shuffle playlist
- Car without AA/cp:. Play on Bluetooth connect with a default playlist or all.
- Car without AA/cp and doesnât want to use Bluetooth audio: download playlist to USB stick periodically with updates from the playlist. (In the 3 formats that cars support and updating the file system id so the car gets the changes)
- TV:. This is fine, but favoriting is too hard which is the #1 way to create an auto playlist. So is just adding to a playlist, at least on Android TV.
- Computer: ok with Plex mini player app, awful with full app. Keyboard next/back donât work in the app and the next/back/volume card that pops up has no way to set rating. Same with web browser version. Plex mini player app keeps the screen awake and prevents sleep even if music is paused which means you have to close the app or your device wastes power all of the time.
Ie every single access point to music in Plex has major issues that need to be addressed to fix basic use cases. You say that most users donât use music in Plex. But youâve dropped causality. The reason they donât is because Plex is awful at music, no because people donât want to use it for music so thereâs no point in making it not awful for music.
1 Like
I find this focus on folders very odd, if your files are tagged right then the folder structure shouldnât matter at all right?
Plex could indeed be better for music, but it also has some pretty unique features, such clients on most platforms, and 3rd party apps like Prism, and support for indirect connections. As far as I know Emby and the other competitors donât work behind CG-NAT, which completely rule them out for me and probably millions of others.
2 Likes
I have confirmed the following:
Albums tagged as âCompilationsâ in Itunes, that are m4a format, no matter the AlbumArtist, the individual artist information is preserved / shows up in plex.
Albums tagged as âCompilationsâ in ITunes, that are in mp3 format, with a blank AlbumArtist, the individual artist information does not show up in plex.
If you add âVarious Artistsâ (or probably anything else) to AlbumArtist for mp3 files, then refresh metatdata, Plex will then show the artist tag properly.
As this worked for m4a files but not for mp3 files, I reckon this is a bug, the behavior is bizarre. Could we get a developer response on this?
1 Like
Additionally, if you do the fixes above (e.g. explicitly make âVarious Artistsâ the AlbumArtist tag, then plex will show the actual track/album artist
However, when playing the song (in web or IOS), either the artist doesnât show up correctly, or it does show correctly but clicking on it brings you to the âVarious Artistsâ page. That is a bug that should be able to be fixed - can this be passed to the developers?
In the screenshot above, you can see âRegina Spektorâ is identified correctly as the artist; however clicking on âRegina Spektorâ while the song is playing brings you to various artists. I think on iOS the behavior is similar - âgo to artistâ brings you to the âVarious Artistsâ page.
well, for one I donât have to pay $10/month for the rest of my life to listen to music Iâve already bought.
Additionally, not all music is available on Spotify. There is a whole world of music out thereâŠ
1 Like
Plex does not support the Part Of Compilation (TCMP) tag for MP3 files unfortunately, so the scanning agent has to rely on various fuzzy criteria to identify various artists compilations, which as youâd expect is a hit and miss affair.
Itâs been a source of much frustration for years and by now the devs should know that adding support for Part Of Compilation is how to fix it, itâs just not high on the priorities list.
1 Like
I have struggled with Plex for far too long. I have meticulously maintained my music data base for years. I have maintained the Metatags to the highest degree and know that every song that is located on my server is exactly the way I want it and the tags are correct. Unfortunately, When Plex loads the tracks in it changes the tags and creates itâs own tags. I have looked at every track and know they are correct before Plex loads them. It changes the album/album artist/artwork to something that doesnât exist in my data base. I would like to know how I stop Plex from changing my Metadata when loading the tracks. I donât want it to do anything to the data except load it into the artist folders that are located on my server.
1 Like
Could not agree more, @powerplaytwo
The amount of time I have spent rectifying metadata which I have carefully tagged is something I would prefer not to do.
1 Like
When importing music into Plex that is already tagged the way youâd like you need to set the music agent for the library to âPrefer local metadataâ and it will not overwrite your tags. There are also settings to turn off generation of artist bios, album reviews, and track popularity. You can also set Genres to use embedded tags and use only your embedded album art. Also set the agent to Personal Media Artists. Thatâs the best you can do, but it goes a long way to what you say you want.
Unfortunately, even if you do set âprefer local metadataâ, Plex will still overwrite your tags with matched data from Musicbrainz.
With the new âPlex Musicâ scanner, the âPersonal Media Artistsâ setting doesnât do anything anymore, that was for the old scanner.
Iâm still walking on egg shells, but using the Prefer Local Metadata and Personal Media Artists - I am having no issues. I never had a âPremium Music Libraryâ and maybe thatâs why (I have no idea).
I have no endless scanning. I have instant Artwork (embedded) and instant listings (Embedded Metadata) and instant access (Hit Play - It Plays).
I even have Local Media Assets at the bottom of every active agent - anywhere.
I donât have a Musicbranz agent. For music I have Personal Media Artists and last.fm Tabs - and thatâs it. <âyears ago, last.fm was âde-activatedâ when I âpreferred local metadataâ and havenât heard a peep out of 'em since.
My music is as Rock Solid now as itâs ever been and I canât explain it:
Edit Music Library - thatâs how mine is and has been set for ever. Nothing changed (I pray thee oh lordy - keep up the good work. Smite down these Plex Developers that would make my music painful)
1 Like
Thank you and I have changed my settings to conform to yours Juice.
Jason, my settings were already set as you indicated. There is so much metadata missing (artwork, years, genre) that the data base is almost unusable from a filtering stand point. With 30K+ tracks you have to save playlists in order to make best use of the music. I know that the music stored on my server is spot on and contains every thing I need. I have checked the metadata track by track to make sure it is all correct. I have been doing this for over 15 years.
Fordguy61, another extremely unuseful reply. Does plex really think this is a good strategy?
My take on it is, Plex has no Media management functions - even the most basic thinkg like the idea that a âLibraryâ canât be virtual and must reflect the logical directory structure. They should come straight out and say âyeah no one with any brains was managing development of the program and you will have to make separate directorys and duplicate files if you want to use our programâ.
This topic was automatically closed 90 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.
