I fucking HATE YouTube Music.

[Hollowway]

Spotify sucks balls. They pay the least amount of royalties of all of the streaming companies, and they constantly whine, and change service to try to grab more money. For instance, Apple Music pays 2x to 4x what Spotify does, and Apple looooves money. I just can’t rationalize giving Spotify my money, since it goes to the the wealthy owners, and not to the artists. Napster and Tidal are the most artist friendly. Not to pick a fight in here, but I think it’s weird that anyone who is a musician chooses to give money to a company that doesn’t support artists, when they can give the same amount of money to a company that pays artists significantly more. It’s not like Spotify is significantly cheaper than the alternatives.

 

[couverdure]

Spotify sucks balls. They pay the least amount of royalties of all of the streaming companies, and they constantly whine, and change service to try to grab more money. For instance, Apple Music pays 2x to 4x what Spotify does, and Apple looooves money. I just can’t rationalize giving Spotify my money, since it goes to the the wealthy owners, and not to the artists. Napster and Tidal are the most artist friendly. Not to pick a fight in here, but I think it’s weird that anyone who is a musician chooses to give money to a company that doesn’t support artists, when they can give the same amount of money to a company that pays artists significantly more. It’s not like Spotify is significantly cheaper than the alternatives.

Spotify is the cheapest music streaming service available in my country. The family plan (Premium shared up to six accounts) costs less than a monthly single-account Premium subscription in the US, so I can't really complain about using it.

 

[Jonathan20022]

Spotify sucks balls. They pay the least amount of royalties of all of the streaming companies, and they constantly whine, and change service to try to grab more money. For instance, Apple Music pays 2x to 4x what Spotify does, and Apple looooves money. I just can’t rationalize giving Spotify my money, since it goes to the the wealthy owners, and not to the artists. Napster and Tidal are the most artist friendly. Not to pick a fight in here, but I think it’s weird that anyone who is a musician chooses to give money to a company that doesn’t support artists, when they can give the same amount of money to a company that pays artists significantly more. It’s not like Spotify is significantly cheaper than the alternatives.

Spotify is the household name because they made it big first and have a large install base.

But they still literally only have 35% of the streaming market, and more over streaming is an extra stream of income for artists. One they didn't have 15 years ago, arguing that they should earn more per play is an obvious call out but failing to recognize that the death of the artist's income came with the consumer's never ending desire for convenience.

Support your favorite artists directly, buy their merch and albums if you care about them or their music had an impact on you.

 

[Manurack]

Did you toggle high quality audio in the settings?

And I'm not getting that issue you have with shuffling your library on my end.

Library -> Songs -> YT Music -> Shuffle All

View attachment 87663View attachment 87664View attachment 87665View attachment 87668

It consistently just shuffles my entire songlist, are you doing it with any other method?

Google Play was better, and Youtube Music has a ways to go. But for someone who just needs tunes at work or in transit, it does exactly what I need it to do

If I want lossless audio, I listen with my setup at home with my localized music collection. If I stream I can listen to what I want anywhere else, it's not meant to replace all of my other avenues for listening to music.

Thanks for the tip man, after being forced to use YouTube Music, I checked out the settings and did the same thing setting the music quality to the highest setting (which I think is a fucking stupid thing that you have to do)

When I shuffle my music, I hit the shuffle button and pick a song from my library and it never fails to play numerous songs from the same album. I'll have to try your method with shuffle.

RIP Google Play Music, you are definitely missed.

 

[Manurack]

Also, the reason I'm so anal about audio quality is because I like a nice, full sound. Back in high school, I would set the equalizer on my iPod touch to the R&B setting, which made the songs sound fuller and bigger. Ever since then, I've changed the EQ setting on Google Play Music with an EQ app to make the songs sound fuller, rather than flat and dry.

The main problem that I have with YouTube music, it compresses some guitar riffs and pumps the vocals out and totally washes out some guitar riffs like Laid to Rest by Lamb of God for example. I never had that problem with Google Play, all the sounds on every song was balanced perfectly.

I guess it's because I'm a guitar player and picky about tone.

 

[gnoll]

I also tend to use eq actually, when available. That can really make a big difference. I almost always eq out a lot of bass, because there always seems to be too much of it, and not enough mids. Can't hear the damn riffs!!

 

[Andromalia]

I still get my music the regular way, and have my own "streaming service" from a NAS I can access though the internet and read music from.

Pros:
-you decide what format
-Can't complain "artist X is missing", just go buy his stuff
-Free once you bought the music and the equipment
-No need to have enormous storage on your listening device

Cons:
-Expensive to setup
-Requires a reasonable upload bandwidth
-Probably expensive to run in third world countries without unlimited internet offers where you actually have to count your GB of upload
-No connection: no music

 

[Randy]

Biggest complaint about Youtube Music is the recommendations from search history now crossing over from one to the other, despite being two distinct and separate apps with no way of disabling it without turning off your watch history entirely, thus handicapping your music recommendations.

 

[rokket2005]

The worst part of Google music shutting down for me is that their market place closed. I refuse to stream stuff cause I like having the actual files available, and that means that basically the two music markets left are itunes and amazon. I don't use itunes and while I'll buy everything else from amazon, getting mp3 downloads from them seems weird for whatever reason. Bandcamp is awesome and I use that whenever I can, but if a band isn't on there that leaves just amazon. Why are there seriously only 2-3 places online to buy digital music vs. streaming it? Also why don't all bands or even their labels have mp3 downloads available on their actual websites or merch sites. I hate going to a bands website to try to buy music and being redirected to youtube, itunes, or amazon.

 

[Bearitone]

I would start building a library of What about slowly putting Flac files on a hard drive so they’re backed up and then buy some kind of WAV/FLAC player that you can just bring around with you to connect to whatever speakers you’re trying to hear it through.

No accounts. No Streaming. But you will need to take the device with you

 

[Hollowway]

Support your favorite artists directly, buy their merch and albums if you care about them or their music had an impact on you.

100% this. It's soooo easy to communicate with and support individual artists these days. It's really a win-win for both sides.

 

[budda]

Used android auto for the first time in a while today.

YT music doesnt show my saved files on my phone.

Awesome. Thumb drive time (which I meant to do before )

 

[InHiding]

Piracy is just a better alternative then support the artists by bying something from their website. If I had a band I’d sell hard drives with a band logo.

 

[BusinessMan]

I don’t know, what did you expect from these greedy companies?
I buy mostly physical or MP3 albums and put them on your phone/laptop/cloud etc., a bit more work but it’s all mine and I can use it how I want.

I did that and used the Google music player just fine. Then the bs in the OP happened and I couldn't use the player anymore. Youtube music even compressed my mp3 files audio. It's garbage and laggy and it's shit

 

[bostjan]

Most artists will make effort to make sure you can get their music, but a lot of older artists don't care, so it depends on what you like.

Personally, I'll stream music when I'm prowling for new artists to discover. Once I find something I like, I will buy a copy. I've used amazon plenty of times when bandcamp wasn't available, and it was super easy. Even bandcamp, as much as it's better than amazon, isn't as good as getting music directly from the artists, which is usually possible with most newer smaller artists.

But I really feel the folks who say pirating music is just easier. There are a handfull of artists who seem like they don't want to be a part of the digital music racket. If their CD's are out of print, and they aren't on any services, you could be looking at the only two options being piracy or paying $100 for physical media from a shady overseas seller. Neither is a good option, but one is clearly faster and less costly.

 

[Manurack]

One thing that really annoyed the shit out me was the available storage space on my LG G7 One phone - Google Play Music still took up 7GB of space, despite not being able to use the app anymore.

After I transferred my music library and playlists to YM, I uninstalled Google Play Music and currently now have 9GB of space available on my phone now.

So many saved files that I wasn't even able to access anymore because Google Play Music cancelled.

 

[Metal Mortician]

If you’re unhappy with your streaming service, do some 1-2 week trials of other places. Play the field. You’re too young to settle down with just one service for the rest of you’re life.

 

[beatfromthesun]

Has anyone here EVER been paid by Tidal? I've never known anyone to be paid by it big or small.

Spotify seems ok for your needs. Better for selection and playlists and just do the 3 month free trials. Other than that soundcloud and bandcamp for all things underground of course.

 

[Manurack]

So I decided to download Spotify and now transfering my entire library of 2,157 songs from YouTube Music.

I haven't listened to any songs yet as this transfer will take a while. One thing that I do like that Beatfromthesun mentioned is 3 months free until March, 2021! Shit ass YouTube Music didn't even offer a 1 week free trial at all.

 

[Kaura]

100% this. It's soooo easy to communicate with and support individual artists these days. It's really a win-win for both sides.

This is why I don't feel bad about using Spotify. I try to support smaller, independent artists as much as I can by buying their stuff from like Bandcamp where they get 90% of the profit (at least, last time I checked). Bigger bands don't even get money from their albums sales even if they sold million copies so I try to support them by going to their shows if they end up here.