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General => Beyond MusicBee => Topic started by: awh11 on September 30, 2017, 08:42:06 PM

Title: Android Music Players (Discussion)
Post by: awh11 on September 30, 2017, 08:42:06 PM
Wanted to re-open up a discussion regarding Android music players. (The last thread was over a year old, and per the forum suggestion I'm opening up a new thread to get some new opinions.)

Has anyone been using a specific Android music player that they really like, that supports 2-way sync with play counts? On my Google Pixel, I am able to check the box that enables 2-way sync for play counts, but I've only been using the stock Google Play Music app that came with my Pixel.  It is pretty barebones, I don't think play count sync works with that because my play counts weren't updating in MusicBee after. Considering that app really tries to get you to use Play Music, I'm surprised it even supports playback of local music files at all, let alone play counts. (Google has their own play count stat that seemed to be cloud-based and did not update or reference the file's tags).

So yeah, just looking for opinions on players people have liked on their Android phones, which again, ideally would support play counts, and I'd also like something that does a good job with Podcast playback (ie. treating it differently than just a standard song). Rating would be nice too, but that wasn't an option under 2-way sync for me so that might just not be possible.

Cheers!
Title: Re: Android Music Players (2017)
Post by: Freddy Barker on September 30, 2017, 09:27:26 PM
I'm still using Media Monkey, seems to sync with MB and play counts still updated by the Android Last.fm App

Regards :-)
Title: Re: Android Music Players (2017)
Post by: awh11 on October 01, 2017, 12:13:29 AM
I'm still using Media Monkey, seems to sync with MB and play counts still updated by the Android Last.fm App Regards :-)

Thanks for the recommendation. I'll check Media Monkey out, although ideally I'd like to use a media player that can update the play counts without the use of Last.fm. Hopefully I can achieve that with some player, but if not I suppose Last.fm will be the fallback.

[Edited by moderator to remove large font]
Title: Re: Android Music Players (2017)
Post by: psychoadept on October 01, 2017, 02:00:39 AM
I'm still very happy with GMMP.  I wish they would hurry up and add multiple artist support, but all other players I've tried have more irritating down sides.
Title: Re: Android Music Players (2017)
Post by: awh11 on October 01, 2017, 07:00:22 AM
Thanks psychoadept!

I will try GMMP out, seems to be pretty cool player with a lot of features! Fingers crossed that the play count sync works, although from what I'm finding, it seems to be a tough nut to crack outside of the Apple/iTunes sphere. Well, here's hoping for the better.
Title: Re: Android Music Players (2017)
Post by: Freddy Barker on October 01, 2017, 10:23:19 AM
Before Media Monkey I used Rocket Player on Android, and that was nice looking and fully functional, the guys responded well to questions and wishlist requests.
I only moved to MM when I started using the MM Windows meia player... The amount of effort that goes into Music Bee is phenomenal, thus should very soon include every conceivable option, if not already available!

Good luck, and please let us know what player you end up using and if satisfactory.
Regards :-)
Title: Re: Android Music Players (2017)
Post by: psychoadept on October 02, 2017, 03:56:46 AM
Thanks psychoadept!

I will try GMMP out, seems to be pretty cool player with a lot of features! Fingers crossed that the play count sync works, although from what I'm finding, it seems to be a tough nut to crack outside of the Apple/iTunes sphere. Well, here's hoping for the better.

Yeah, I doubt you will be able to achieve playcount sync without using one of the scrobbling websites.  GMMP works with Simple Last.fm Scrobbler (which also supports Listenbrainz and other sites)
Title: Re: Android Music Players (2017)
Post by: awh11 on October 02, 2017, 07:52:48 AM

Thanks psychoadept! I will try GMMP out, seems to be pretty cool player with a lot of features! Fingers crossed that the play count sync works, although from what I'm finding, it seems to be a tough nut to crack outside of the Apple/iTunes sphere. Well, here's hoping for the better.
Yeah, I doubt you will be able to achieve playcount sync without using one of the scrobbling websites. GMMP works with Simple Last.fm Scrobbler (which also supports Listenbrainz and other sites)

Well, I must say I have come to the same conclusion myself haha. I bothered to drum up the strength to fetch up my old last.fm account (which I had used a bit from 2009-2012, but not much thankfully) and clear out all of the scrobbles from it, and created a clean slate. After doing this, I've actually underestimated how much I like having a cloud-based service handle the play counts and being able to sync that info back to MusicBee. So, Im sold! I'm doing that. I'm using Simple Last.fm Scrobbler on mobile.

On the Android player side of things, I actually tried GMMP as you suggested psychoadept and really like it, although it will take a bit of getting used to UI changes from Google. Ironically, with the decision to go with last.fm for handling play counts, in theory it's possible I could get by just deciding to use Google Play Music again, but honestly I think I'll wind up sticking with GMMP. I'm not 100% sold that the last.fm scrobbling would work with Google playing LOCAL files (again, I'm convinced Google Play's focus is strictly its cloud based music service), and to be honest GMMP seems like a spiritual sister to MusicBee in the sense that it is very customizable. I just wish that there was a separate tab for Podcasts (something Google admittedly does very well). Not a big deal though.

If anything GMMP wins from the fact that although I purchase my music from Google, whenever I use the mobile app it's so darn easy to accidentally toggle between local music only, and my full cloud library to stream (which I don't want). Plus....dark UI's for the win.

Thank you both again for the recommendations and information!
Title: Re: Android Music Players (2017)
Post by: patial on October 10, 2017, 10:56:47 AM
I'm using  Media Monkey as well and I think it's not a bad choice
Title: Re: Android Music Players (2017)
Post by: Panjim117 on October 30, 2017, 01:02:33 PM
Hi, i use and recommand Black Player Free since months. But i'll check gmmp later
Title: Re: Android Music Players (2017)
Post by: Shaman Studios on January 15, 2018, 06:35:17 PM
I too am looking for my preferred Android music player. I just bought the Note8 last weekend and have not been happy with the interface in GMMP. I googled reviews and read that it is considered to be one of the poorest default players in many respects. I installed Poweramp last night and will report back after using it for awhile.
Title: Re: Android Music Players (2017)
Post by: NickIst on February 08, 2018, 04:10:36 PM
I too am looking for my preferred Android music player. I just bought the Note8 last weekend and have not been happy with the interface in GMMP. I googled reviews and read that it is considered to be one of the poorest default players in many respects. I installed Poweramp last night and will report back after using it for awhile.
Poweramp is one of the best audio players. I'm using it for 4 years. There are few players that have higher audio quality (Neutron Music Player: it decodes with floating point) or the same (Gone Mad and PlayerPro), according to russian site audiophilesoft. In plus talking about performance/power cosumption it's considered to have the best ratio.
Title: Re: Android Music Players (2017)
Post by: HonHarv96 on April 16, 2018, 07:15:39 AM
I've been using Poweramp for years. It's really the best I've come across, both in terms of sound and interface (its interface is really superb and the latest paid version also supports albums by album artists). Neutron is another top player that even supports DSD files, can drive external DACs through USB, and can import and play network files/libraries, but its interface is a bit fiddly. Here I must say that I've tried a few of them Android players out and I use the paid versions of both Poweramp and Neutron but I prefer Poweramp due to its interface - still its sound is excellent. A new version of Poweramp is on the way although a bit delayed, still the current version is really top.
Title: Re: Android Music Players (Discussion)
Post by: so_la_la on May 26, 2018, 12:42:19 AM
When I still could use PowerAmp I clearly thought this was the best. However it's impossible to purchase without a google account so that's nothing for me.
@awh11: There are a lot of other sync services around but what makes you turn down last.fm? Privacy concerns?
Title: Re: Android Music Players (Discussion)
Post by: Perfume of a Nerd's Burning Flesh on July 10, 2018, 08:23:57 PM
Poweramp, due to a bug that made all other players unable to read my file titles. It's also a pretty sweet app with the only weakness being the lack of regular updates and limited sorting options.
Title: Re: Android Music Players (Discussion)
Post by: SandaruLJ on July 20, 2018, 04:40:10 PM
I've tried several android players. Black Player Ex and GMMP are the best ones I've come across. I'm currently using GMMP 2.x because it's rating system is fully compatible with MusicBee's. The dev is working on 3.x now and has already released several alpha versions. It supports multiple artists and genres now, which as far as I know, no other android player does. Once it gets all the other features the dev has planned (including the artist image downloader), no other player will be able to top GMMP.
Title: Re: Android Music Players (Discussion)
Post by: Mauser69 on July 30, 2018, 06:37:42 PM
I tried Black Player for about 5 minutes and hated it (but I frankly cannot remember just why).  I like Rocket Player, but I do tend to get a fair number of random freezes and crashes with it when browsing through various long playlists, album lists, etc., but that is on an older Android 4.1 phone - no idea if it is still doing that on a current product. 

Right now I am focused on Pulsar - seems very good, and it presents long playlists sorted and displayed by album, not just a long list of tracks - something that is very important to me.
Title: Re: Android Music Players (Discussion)
Post by: ma_t14 on July 31, 2018, 02:02:38 PM
Currently on BlackPlayer (Ex version) as well. The amount of sheer options and things that are customizable is insane. It kinda reminds me of MusicBee in that regard. I also really like the UI as well but your mileage may vary.

But I'm keeping close tabs on the development of GoneMad which is looking promising.
Title: Re: Android Music Players (Discussion)
Post by: vanhoivanbinh on August 03, 2018, 06:32:59 AM
I am hoping to have the musicbee android version to sync Rating, playcount, playlist, Popcast; internet Radio to my PC Musicbee
Really hope one day it will come true!!!
Title: Re: Android Music Players (Discussion)
Post by: tential on August 06, 2018, 11:13:17 PM
I am hoping to have the musicbee android version to sync Rating, playcount, playlist, Popcast; internet Radio to my PC Musicbee
Really hope one day it will come true!!!

So far MediaMonkey supports this feature.
Itunes + Rocket Player also supports it.

I just don't think it's a huge feature that most people care about.  I searched long and wide for it.  I'm currently using Rocket Player + Itunes, I'll switch to MM by the end of year, but I've been checking back on MusicBee too.  I hope they do release an android version with cross sync.

I'm reading the release/description of MusicBee and it does support 2 way syncing.  It's supposed to work with ipods?  Has anyone ever tried?
It also says it can work depending on the player used.

So maybe try MusicBee + Rocket Player and see if it works?

Anyone willing to try it?
Title: Re: Android Music Players (Discussion)
Post by: Varick on September 20, 2018, 01:31:45 AM
I've tried several android players. Black Player Ex and GMMP are the best ones I've come across. I'm currently using GMMP 2.x because it's rating system is fully compatible with MusicBee's. The dev is working on 3.x now and has already released several alpha versions. It supports multiple artists and genres now, which as far as I know, no other android player does. Once it gets all the other features the dev has planned (including the artist image downloader), no other player will be able to top GMMP.

So, with GMMP, I can rate a song on my Android and when I sync up to my computer via MB I will see that rating pop up on that song in MB? 

Does anyone know if GMMP allows someone to move a song into a particular playlist on an Android and then when syncing up to MB, that song will be in said playlist?

V
Title: Re: Android Music Players (Discussion)
Post by: psychoadept on September 20, 2018, 02:19:35 AM
Y'all might want to take a look at this discussion: https://getmusicbee.com/forum/index.php?topic=26619.0
Title: Re: Android Music Players (Discussion)
Post by: hentrop on September 30, 2018, 08:36:27 AM
I recently got an Android phone (switched from iPhone), so I've been trying out LOTS of music player apps over the past few days.

The one I ended up going with is Onkyo HF Player. It has a nice interface and lots of features that many other apps lack. One key feature is an "infinite-band" EQ: you can set as many EQ points as you want, at whatever frequency you want. This allows for a great level of customization, and you can equalize out imperfections in sound systems that normal equalizers can't. I didn't find this feature in any other music app. I also like that lots of features are easily-accessible from the main playback screen: lyrics, song info, EQ setting, volume level, app settings, and more. I highly recommend this music player app.

Some other good apps I found were:
- GMMP (GoneMad Music Player): very customizable and overall pretty good. However, some features are a bit of a pain to navigate to (Playlists, EQ, and lyrics), and it costs $5 (there's no free version, other than a 14-day trial)
- Pi Music Player: has a nice interface, but lack some features I want (lyrics display, and only has a 5-band EQ). If you don't need advanced features, this might be a good free player for you.
- MediaMonkey: same notes as for Pi Music Player, except that MediaMonkey is more customizable than Pi.
- Rocket Player: this one is pretty good, but the free version has lots of intrusive ads, and it's $3.49 for the paid version.
- Samsung Music: this is quite a good music app -- probably one of the better free ones. The interface is clean and it has most of the usual features you'd expect. No ads. The only reason I didn't choose it is because I like Onkyo HF Player more.

Other apps I tried, but didn't like for various reasons are: Blackplayer, DoubleTwist, foobar2000, Music Center (Sony), Music Player (I tried 3 different apps with this same name), Musicolet, Muzeex, Neutron, Poweramp, Pulsar, Shuttle, Stellio, and VLC.