A few thoughts. I have a similar sized library (210k tracks).
First, for some reason, if you let the Butler do it, it will take a lot longer to process all the tracks. I have found that you can temporarily set the “analyze tracks for sonic data” to “when media is added" and then just trigger it that way. It will do the whole library much faster. No need to add new music even. Just running the scan triggers it for the whole library every time. The Butler seems to wait a bit between the albums, which adds up immensely for libraries like ours.
And let’s get into the feature itself. It is both over-hyped and under-hyped, depending on what you want out of it.
If you expect it to really be able to give you similar music, you will be disappointed. There are too much variables it simply can not handle. If you are a person that (sub)consciously compares the tracks as they come, you will not like it. I had issues with this at first honestly.
But, if you want just a flow of music for the sake of exploration or variation that should be “in your ballpark” then it’s very good. Extremely good even, especially the musical journeys or DJ stretch.
This is a must though: You must have only music in your library that you actually want to listen to. Trust me on this, it is extremely important. I had genres in there that I wasn’t particularly fond of myself, either for collection purposes or for friends. This is a very bad idea because the DJs etc will ruin the mood then by bringing them into the mix. I will give a quick example:
I like melodic death metal. This is kind of cheesy easy listened metal with death growl vocals. But the DJs would constantly mix it with ordinary death metal (which I don’t like) which is very different and a lot harder to listen to. Ruined the mood all the time. The only solution was to remove all death metal.
And it think it’s worth it personally. I have removed a lot of music from my server since the sonic stuff was introduced. At this point it’s very enjoyable. But of course, it will depend on what you prioritise.
A little note on the Artist radio feature:
Without sonic metadata (like you have now), it just uses lastfm similar artists.
With sonic metadata it will use both lastfm similar artists and sonically similar artists.
This means that depending on your priorities and library, the Artist radio can be either upgraded our downgraded from the analysis.
I’d really like to hear your own thoughts of the feature if you end up letting it finish.
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