Messages

31

Questions / Re: Any way to group Album Artists???

« on: March 28, 2019, 07:32:15 PM »

I did catch that line but it seems that what is being suggested is updating the tags for all incoming music which is what I'm trying to avoid if possible.  Incoming music aside I have about 2 TB of music that would need tag updating just to get the existing collection sorted.  All said the music I'm bringing in is tagged to standard and shouldn't need further work.
Or maybe I'm just not understanding what you mean?
I will post my Plex setup tonight but here is what I did with MB:



So just to exaggerate my point i made a "collection" as you would call it in Plex by changing the sort album artist for that Doors album and I named it Sting.  I can put Bon Jovi in that Sting bucket, more Doors, Sting albums etc.  Nice of MB to pickup an artist image for me  So that shows me I can ultimately do what I want except it's going to require me to add this "sting" sort album artist tag for each and every Doors (Bon Jovi, Sting etc) track I acquire.  And since I'll need an entry for every Artist bucket I'm creating (in order to have it show on the list to the left) this means I'll be having to mind the sort artist tag on 100% of my incoming music.  Considering the volume I manage it's just a good chunk of work for something that Plex is offering as a one-and-done task for every Album Artist.  Once I tell Plex that Album Artist Doors = "Sting" collection - I'll never have to worry about another incoming Doors release along these lines.

Sorry if I'm adding confusion here - I know exactly what I want and even though it seems so basic in my head I obviously struggle to explain it!

32

Questions / Re: Any way to group Album Artists???

« on: March 28, 2019, 05:32:42 PM »

OK I will try to provide some images tonight.
That said it seems that both ideas being mentioned here tie back to album/track level which would require regular maintenance even if the music was tagged properly by any other standard.  What I'm getting at is the ability to create a tag/delineation of sorts at the Album Artist level.  This way I would be making the rule only once -->  Any time MB sees Album Artist "Bruce Springsteen with the Sessions Band" it automatically knows to put it in the "Bruce" bucket....or perhaps I would call it the "NJ Jams" bucket.  With this there wouldn't be an ongoing effort of adding a new tag to every release I am adding

33

Questions / Any way to group Album Artists???

« on: March 27, 2019, 09:57:17 PM »

OK so the issue I currently have as a total newb is that I have all of these variations of a given Artist.
I've got Aphex Twin, his 30 aliases......I've got Bela Fleck, Bela and Abigail, Bela and The Flecktones..... and so on!
What I really prefer is to have all of this stuff grouped under one banner for each.

New to all of this, I first set up Plex to run my NAS.  For various reasons I'm trying to get away from it but there is one feature I do like that is a practical solution to what I ask above.  Plex allows me to put Album Artists into a "collection".  So now I have a collection for Aphex Twin and all of his aliases, I have a collection for Bela Fleck.  Since I want this list to include all of my music, I even have "collections" for artists that have never used a different name at all.  Bon Jovi collection is just Bon Jovi.

So far I've figured one way to achieve what I want in MB but it's not quite as ideal as that Plex feature.  What I did was take some albums and update the "sort artist" to what would be a "collection" in my plex setup.  So now I can have a list to the left that have all of my sort artists and clicking into that gives me all the iterations and aliases - everything grouped up like I prefer.  What makes this a lessor method than Plex however is that this one is linked to the albums themselves, and not the album artist like in Plex.  The effect of this is that with Plex once I set up a given Artist or iteration - I'll never need to link to the "collection" i designated again.  All incoming music with that Album Artist name will appear automatically in the bucket I desire.  With MB the way I am currently attempting, I'll forever need to check and likely update the Sort Artist to achieve this same result.  Much more work over the course of time and volume of music I collect

I think the main thing I'm asking here other than general solutions to what I present is....is there any way I can tag or designate an album artist in such a way as I can with Plex?  

Thanks for your time!

34

Questions / Re: Streaming from a NAS - super confused

« on: March 24, 2019, 08:39:05 PM »

Ah I see.  I've noticed the inability to FFWD when using VLC Android direct to chromecast as well.  Pretty beat when you have like an hour long track
Anyway I'm not sure if Bubble is set to startup - definitely not sure the java part I'm not sure how to check that.
I will look into this tonight.  At the moment I'm still a bit hesitant to proceed if things will be wonky for me but I still have plenty of hope.  Been playing around with the panels etc and getting some things in order and anticipation

35

Questions / Re: Streaming from a NAS - super confused

« on: March 22, 2019, 07:33:18 PM »

Indeed!
So the other night I quickly and easily connected to the stereo, once I realized I needed the MB BubbleUPnP extension
Very brief test thus far.  Sounded fine but for some reason the MB interface was very laggy when switching between tracks or to the middle point of a song.
Is this to be expected due to the way I have things set up?  Will it be even worse if I get this pointed to my NAS?
Weekend is here so I'll have more time to dig into this more and see if it can be my permanent solution.



UPDATE - Got home tonight and MB is not seeing BubbleUPnP
Realized then I cannot open the Bubbleupnp UI???
"The site cannot be reached" is what Chrome tells me.....yet I've opened it fine more than once before?
Not sure what I did...rebooted that didn't work and then i started looking at the some of the shortcuts and it said something about not pointing to javaw.exe or something like that windows found a similar whatever and I said ok fix it.  That still didn't work yet when i clicked my desktop shortcut once again it magically worked.
Hmmmm

36

Questions / Re: Streaming from a NAS - super confused

« on: March 19, 2019, 03:29:15 PM »

Indeed - was just thinking ahead about having the option should i choose.
So last night very very late i installed both on my work laptop.  i'm not ready for all this to touch my home PC and music just yet lol.  Bubble found my chromecast immediately and I created the DNLA renderer so I think that's ready to go as long as I can select it in MB (haven't tried yet).
I put two albums on the laptop this morning so when i have a minute hopefully tonight i will fire this up and see what i can see.
or hear what i can hear rather

37

Questions / Re: Streaming from a NAS - super confused

« on: March 17, 2019, 09:15:49 PM »

ah gotcha
putting on the NAS does make sense as you say then I can use the android app should i wish.
just seems a bit involved so I'll have to see if i have the courage.  if not i could live with it on a tablet and keep plex for the on the go option.  i rarely use it that way anyway as i have a DAP and phone with a good ton of music on them as is stands

this is exciting thank you so much I hope to report back soon some great results!

38

Questions / Re: Streaming from a NAS - super confused

« on: March 17, 2019, 05:12:30 PM »

Hi guys just for clarification I'll need to ask the following one more time and then I think I'm going to roll up the sleeves and see what i can't do

-So bubbleupnp server is what I need - Why is it preferable to have this installed on the nas rather than the tablet? I think the latter would be easier and just trying to understand more of what's going on there
-You are saying I should be able to do all of this while at the same time running plex just as i have.  And I take this to mean that CCA will then be able to function as designed receiving the communication it's used to getting from Plex, but I can also run this layer to make it DNLA and use bubblupnp etc.  What I was getting at there is just that this DNLA mod isn't "changing" anything with the CCA - there is no way I can "break" it and lose the normal functionality I already get from it by trying to work this out??  I'm not like jailbreaking it kind of thing.


Thanks so much I'm feeling that this could really work out

39

Questions / Re: Streaming from a NAS - super confused

« on: March 16, 2019, 06:04:24 PM »

OK!  Let me first say thank you so much for taking the time to read my issues and give such a response.  I've been asking these questions on a few different forums for a few weeks now and your answer here has been by far the clearest, easiest to understand (though I'm still getting there lol), and specific to what I'm after.  Awesome!
Please allow me to continue with the confusion - this thread could go down in history as the true "streaming from NAS to CC for dummies"

-So all that you describe in your suggestion - would the stream be going straight from NAS to CCA (via bubblpnp) - or would it go to the tablet and then to CCA?  Is the latter thought even an issue?  Coming from analog and hard connections we know the shortest and most direct link gives the best fidelity - is this still essentially the case when stuff is rolling through LAN/WiFi connections?  Or is it all just "pure digital" that either works or doesn't?

-BubbleUPnP is confusing me.  I suppose there are different offerings out there? one that allows me this CCA trick and another that would serve to create a library index and have a UI and player use just as i would plex?  I obviously would have no need for any of that - i want MB to control the library and where I'm triggering playback/playlists etc.  Why is installing on the NAS preferable?  Would that make the NAS to CCA direct connect I mention above?

-Do you know if there is subsonic solution that I mention above?  I know there is a MB subsonic extension to be had and also that "subsonic can stream to CCA" though I put that in quotes because I'm not exactly how that streaming occurs.  Again this would not be a solution for me it if has be using the subsonic UI or library.

-Windows tablet it would be then!  And with that my understanding is that I could have MB installed on my tablet, and also on my PC.....and they could both access the same library correct?  I don't care about sharing playlists or anything.  This would allow me to be sure i could get things going to my satisfaction before opting for a windows tablet - and it would be nice to do the UI work and tag tweaking etc from a PC rather than tablet.  I suppose I would have to transfer those template settings somehow once i'm settled on how i want it to look.

-Absolutely MB library and ditching plex!  I wouldn't mind it's sleek interface so much if it would just be more able to be customized and allow me to then browse easier.  It doesn't recognize album artist and generally doesn't allow for a lot of tag fixing/customizing to get things in the buckets i want them in.

-You mention MB portable mode.  I'm reading the forums and Steven's explanation but not sure i really get it in terms of advantage one or the other.  Is portable like I could take the MB folder on my PC and just copy it to a thumb drive then I would have my custom MB ready to throw on a laptop etc?  If so why is the other full install version offered?  Why wouldn't everyone just get portable for that extra flexibility?

-Finally, could I do all we are talking about right and now and still keep everything I currently have with plex?  MB could do what it wants with my NAS and it's library and plex will behave and allow to still easily listen on android phone/online/via xbox.  Would doing this whole "bubbleupnp will transform your CCA" change my chromecast so that it would not be able to receive from my plex/android anymore?  Would I be doing something to the firmware/software that would cause me to have to reverse some things to be able to use plex again??  What i'm getting at is an easy fallback should all of this not work - and also pondering if i have this added flexibility.

sorry to overwhelm - i literally aired out and feel better for having done it.  there truly is a lot of emotion and passion in those questions if you can understand in this way lol
again thanks so much for your help i've been getting close to losing hope but feel a bit of it come back.  I've been looking at jriver as well as it seems to have similar achievable UI/tag abilities/able to customize.  it too has the same issue with chromecast though and idk.  MB is free and from the music sites i frequent people really just rave about it.  I love some of the screenshots they post

cheers!

40

Questions / Streaming from a NAS - super confused

« on: March 14, 2019, 04:03:03 PM »

Hi all -
You'll quickly see that I know little of what I'm talking about but I promise I'm trying to understand, every day!  Kind of ready to rip my hair out with confusion though

So I recently set up a synology NAS - put plex on that and my android phone and I also got a chromecast audio that I can stream easily to.
Thing is I never sit at my PC, so the interface (controller) I'll be using in the living room is my phone or rather, a future tablet purchase.  The problem I'm having is that plex just doesn't have the look and feel i'm going for. 

The dream would be to have MB on a tablet and be able to stream directly from NAS to chromecast - but I see this isn't so easy (if not impossible because I don't understand how the various software interact).  I'm well confused about renderer, controller, library etc.  I know there is the UPnP trick to be able to stream to my chromecast - but would that be a direct NAS to chromecast stream??  Or would it be first going through my tablet and then to the chromecast?  And would I actually be using MB on the tablet or would I have to use the UPnP interface?  Managing my music is one thing - but the issue I'm coming with today is the ability to use it as my player.

I see there is a subsonic plugin, and subsonic supports chromecast.....but I'm still getting the impression that on the tablet I would have to use Dsub or some kind of subsonic related app rather than musicbee itself?

Putting chromecast aside, is there any solution out there that would match my desire here?  To be able to pick up a tablet and use musicbee as my player that will stream content direct from NAS to my receiver?

Thanks much for reading my woahs here.
Very sensitive topic as music means so so much to me.  Just want to get this right and start looking forward to pure enjoyment

41

Questions / Re: Casting MusicBee from PC to Chromecast - UPDATE

« on: March 13, 2019, 09:02:19 PM »

Very curious about this too.
I just got a NAS set up and installed plex and not terribly happy with the interface.  Currently I can use my android phone to choose tunes to stream directly from the NAS to my chromecast audio.

Musicbee looks beautiful and I would love to use it but not sure how and I don't want to sacrifice quality/user experience just for the sake of having it.

I plan to purchase a tablet to use as my main controller (PC will remain on but I very rarely sit there).  It will be android or windows based on what will serve me best.


Hella confused over here