I need help with streaming music services..

I am starting to dislike YouTube Music for cramming in music I don't like no matter how many times I use the thumbs down. I have already tried Spotify and Apple Music and didn't like either. I do buy records from Bandcamp but a streaming service is necessary as well. Should I try Deezer? Pandora not available here. Or even Amazon Music?

AlphaOmega ,

I use an SD card and carry my phone with me everywhere I go. What do you need streaming for?

BonesOfTheMoon OP ,

Those are things I don't know how to do.

SuperSpruce ,

Do you have an iPhone? They are notoriously hard to play back local music on, I don't blame you if you do.

BonesOfTheMoon OP ,

No I don't, a.Pixel.

SuperSpruce ,

Pixels unfortunately don't have a MicroSD slot, but it's easy to play back local audio files on their internal storage. Download Musicolet or any other music player app for music playback, and FX file manager for robust file management (although you can get by with the stock Google Files)

BonesOfTheMoon OP ,

Thanks!

Toes ,
@Toes@ani.social avatar

Could you expand on why you didn't like Spotify?

It's really popular with my friends and family. So I'm curious what's missing to make it a winner for you?

BonesOfTheMoon OP ,

A. I will not support anything to do with Joe Rogan, or the way they destroyed some of the best podcasts out there.

B. I like classical music, and Spotify liked to put a little Britney Spears in the mix when I'd be listening to opera.

C. I don't like the interface. Google Play Music was impossibly perfect and everything else is a downgrade.

Toes ,
@Toes@ani.social avatar

Great thanks for that.

I can't think of an exact solution but are you open to creating your own playlists and using your phone like a mp3 player?

Newgrounds has a lot of indie music to explore and freely download.

Soundcloud might also be suitable?

BonesOfTheMoon OP ,

Sure if I knew what I was doing.

HobbitFoot ,

You can switch recommendations to "familiar" if you don't want new music.

BonesOfTheMoon OP ,

It's the My Mix section that always screws me up.

waterbogan ,

I've been using Deezer for the last few years, and its (mostly) great

Have used Spotify in the past, then went to google Play Music, then tried YouTube Music for three frustrating months before coming to Deezer.

Deezer pluses;

Absolutely awesome range, more music from more artists than any other service I've tried, and very little missing. They have every Johnny Cash album bar one, pretty impressive. Their Country and Western catalogue is unparalleled

Although you can only download onto three devices, you have unlimited downloads on each one, as opposed to Spotify which limits you to just 50,000 tracks. I blew past that on my phone in three weeks. I cant see myself needing to download into more than three devices

Good stable Android app, better even than Spotify, as good as GPM, and far far better than YTM. It isnt perfect, can be a little slow to load playlists sometimes, but I have only had to shut it down and restart it 2-3 times in almost a year of use. YTM had to be restarted 2-3 times a day, the Android app fell over more often than a drunk after happy hour.

Great sound quality on mobile and web, I really cant fault it

Good simple web interface too, and I can edit playlists and tracks fairly easily

Good value for money - cheaper and better than the rest

Apparently pays artists better

Deezer minuses;

Android app playlists only have a shuffle play button, and there is no way to change this to regular linear play in settings, even for Premium users, or disable shuffle across the app. This is the biggest flaw by far, and it is shared with Spotify. It is the only aspect of YTM that is superior

The MP3 upload feature is a bit clunky and not terribly intuitive, and limited to only 2000 tracks. However this really doesnt matter as I havent needed to upload much music at all as practically everything I want is available on Deezer anyway

Editing big playlists on the web interface can be a sluggish and buggy, especially moving around large blocks of tracks. Was a bit frustrating when I needed to edit playlists I'd moved across from YTM, I found that often it was easier to just delete almost all the tracks and rebuild from scratch. Now all my playlists are cleaned up it isnt a major - building new playlists works fine

You need to favourite a lot of artists and/or tracks to get the automated recommendations after a playlist finishes to work properly (as opposed to Flow which just works off one artist). Artist exclusions dont seem to work, but now I have favourited 190 artists that doesnt seem to be an issue now. Minor glitch though

BonesOfTheMoon OP ,

Thank you for this extensive answer. I am trialing the free version this week to see.

zakobjoa ,
@zakobjoa@lemmy.world avatar

How has no one said SoundCloud?

Used to be mostly remixes and DJ sets, but nowadays almost all artists got their music their also. Most of that is behind the premium paywall, but it's only €10 a month.

BonesOfTheMoon OP ,

Hmm good suggestion.

11111one11111 ,

Is it different for non premium accounts? Or is it because I use a created playlist? I have 1 playlost I use as a "like" button and just add songs when I listen to a new album or just one that isn't on the playlist. When I'm listening to music normally, I just put it on shuffle and it plays thru only songs on the play list. The same add to playlist turns to remove from playlist whe it's on there so I'll also just add a bunch of albums from a genre and remove songs that really don't fit my liking. I'll do that when I want to bulk up the variety.

BonesOfTheMoon OP ,

I have a premium account. But you know those My Mix channels? They try to put classic rock in there which I loathe.

RBWells ,

I have noticed, with YouTube Music: if you play a new song, it plays similar sounding songs, old and new - that's great.

If you play an old song, though, it just plays other music from the same time period regardless of what they sound like. Stupid.

MigratingtoLemmy ,

The way I use YT Music is in the browser with an adblocker. Then, play a song you like and start the radio. YT usually has an excellent algorithm handling music recommendations in such cases

BonesOfTheMoon OP ,

I pay for YTM so no ads, I just hate the classic rock and stuff they try to get me to listen to despite my preferences obviously not being that.

BlazarNGC ,

Wavlake

LadyMeow ,

I use tidal and i like it, it pays artists better than most which is also nice. Napster pays the most, but their app is gaaaaaarbage.

BonesOfTheMoon OP ,

I need it to have specific classical music in particular.

LadyMeow ,

Give some examples and ill see if its there. One thing i would say is ridiculous is if you are just trying it out (free not paying) its a horrible experience

BonesOfTheMoon OP ,

The Lyric Opera of Chicago live opera recordings, there's like a dozen.

LadyMeow ,

https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/pictrs/image/3c06c4d2-e991-466a-a48c-d9e872e615e4.png
Well they definitely have something from them

BonesOfTheMoon OP ,

Fantastic thank you!

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