Not sure if this has been suggested before but couldn't find anything so apologize in advance if so:
Has anyone done this as a workaround for the 65k track library limit? I have close to 500k tracks in my NAS based library. I gave up trying to make a 65k track library but streaming services have major f'ing holes in their offerings. So here is a proposed solution:
A script that indexes your local library and then queries the services you subscribe to. It then compares what is in your local library with what is available through streaming. Based upon the results of those queries it makes a subset of your local library that moves or makes symbolic links to a library subset (folder) that Sonos then indexes. Your local library thereby only makes a library that complements what is available on streaming. This won't work for everyone like myself (e.g. live music libraries) but it will for studio albums. This could be set up to be done quarterly or monthly to limit overhead of all the queries required.
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But that's presumably only OK if
1. Your chosen streaming service is as good as your local library (I like Spotify for discovering new bands, but I buy lossless over MP3 because I prefer higher bit-rates)
2. You can guarantee that the streamed version is the same as the version you have (we've all heard "remasters" that seek to "improve" on the originals by re-recording parts/musicians, or just don't sound as good as previous editions)
There's no workaround for the physical 65k memory limitation (though a usage indicator would be nice).
However, I believe there are home media servers you can use with Sonos that basically solve your problem, and give you the equivalent of "your own custom Spotify service, running from your NAS".
1. Your chosen streaming service is as good as your local library (I like Spotify for discovering new bands, but I buy lossless over MP3 because I prefer higher bit-rates)
2. You can guarantee that the streamed version is the same as the version you have (we've all heard "remasters" that seek to "improve" on the originals by re-recording parts/musicians, or just don't sound as good as previous editions)
There's no workaround for the physical 65k memory limitation (though a usage indicator would be nice).
However, I believe there are home media servers you can use with Sonos that basically solve your problem, and give you the equivalent of "your own custom Spotify service, running from your NAS".
Hmm, I meant more for supplementing content available through streaming services with what you have locally. For instance, there are a lot of old blues and jazz recordings not available through services but the services will have most recent recordings. Rather than me make subset library manually I want a helper script to do it. Think of it as library assist.
Another example would be Grateful Dead audience recordings (any live recorded music for that matter) versus official releases. Or stuff that was on Oinks Pink Palace, Redacted, Apollo, etc. Millions and millions of recordings available not available on streaming. Stuff that was never digitized or alternate audiophile pressings. But even recent stuff from an artist like Allison Krauss has major holes in her catalog on a ever changing basis. Some recordings ARE also available for x amount of time but then disappear like content on Netflix. Music streaming services also like video services primarily focus on HITS. For instance look at a video service like NETFLIX: It's awful (a kind word) for foreign content but Broadcast The Net is awesome for TV shows from around the world. I pay for a VPN that lets me stream NEtflix content from other countries not available here in the USA. This is another visceral example where this script would work great with media organizers/servers like InFuse, Plex. The UNIVERSAL SEARCH function on SONOS is great; why not leverage it? Based on my informal non scientific survey there are far more people with very large library's than people think. And as far as bit rate depth there are streaming services that offer higher bit rate options. But I don't care about bit rate generally meaning I may differ in this streaming music behavior in that I don't generally use SONOS for discriminating listening: I am a vinyl head also and prefer that aesthetic for a number of reasons but primarily because it forces me to be engaged with the recording rather than it become a background thing.
A Workaround for the 65K Limit using your own CD's that have been downloaded
I’m quite happy to say that I’ve successfully found a way to get
around the 65k limit on SONOS. It certainly isn’t a technical solution, however it is one that will require a little bit of patience, as it involves some rethinking and possibly reorganising your music collection.
Once this is done, you will be able to add a great deal more, while staying within the confines of 65,000 Songs/Tracks. I’m still adding....
This is being done with my own CD collection which I spent many months downloading and turning into digital files, which are located on 2 NAS Drives and are open on my screen.
I have a lot of tracks in total that well exceed the 65K limit.
The two programs I use for organising my collection are
Music Tag from Wide Angle Software which is free and very simple to use & ITunes which I use to link tracks together.
I also have all my collection on a program called Music Collector, which includes cover art which I am able to cut and paste over to
Music Tag & which shows up nicely on SONOS.
Okay ..... The first thing to consider with SONOS is the word Songs
Or Tracks. Each entry or Song, could contain many tracks.
If, you consider linking tracks together. Which you can only do when you download the album. So you may have to delete and re download albums you wish to link.
Example: Tale of Daring Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3 &
Chapter 4 (4 tracks) .by Chick Corea
Use Itunes to link all 4 tracks together, then modify the title in Music Tag to Tale of Daring or Tale of Daring Chapters 1 – 4.
Reducing the number of Songs/Tracks used but still getting all the music from the CD.
The number of Tracks on this CD (Inside Out by Chick Corea)
Is 11
Tracks 2 & 3 Make A Wish Part 1 & Make A Wish Part 2
& Tracks 4 & 5 Stretch it Part 1 & Stretch it Part 2 could both be linked. Now the track number is reduced to 6 in total.
Now that the album is partly linked I drag the file over to music tag
To renumber & rename the tracks. The original track listing was:
1 Inside Out
2 Make A Wish Part 1
3 Make A Wish Part 2
4 Stretch It Part 1
5 Stretch It Part 2
6 Kicker
7 Childs Play
8 Tale Of Daring Chapter 1
9 Tale Of Daring Chapter 2
10 Tale Of Daring Chapter 3
11 Tale Of Daring Chapter 4
And now reads;
1 Inside Out
2 Make A Wish Part 1/Make A Wish Part 2
4 Stretch It Part 1/Stretch it Part 2
6 Kicker
7 Childs Play
8 Tale Of Daring Chapter 1/ Tale Of Daring Chapter 2/ Tale Of Daring Chapter 3/ Tale Of Daring Chapter 4
Tidy up the tracks and renumber on Music Tag and it then should
Read:
1 Inside Out
2 Make A Wish Parts 1 & 2
3 Stretch It Parts 1 & 2
4 Kicker
5 Childs Play
6 Tale Of Daring Chapters 1 – 4
Sorry if that seems a little long winded, but you should get the idea.
And of course you can take that concept a lot further. I recently downloaded from my own CD collection, the entire piano works
Of Liszt. Which is about 100 albums. I did a great deal of linking by actually cutting them down into Sections and adding linked tracks
Into that, sometimes complete sides. I ended up with 1,454 individual tracks linked into about 120 entries on SONOS.
If you are using Music Tag for adding multi album sets.
Always set your Disc number at 1 of 1 .
And renumber your tracks as if it was just one CD.
Find out how many tracks there are in total
That will then be the entry in the second box under track number.
And the first box will be the number of the track ie, 1, 2, 3 etc.
In a 3 Disc Set for example
Disc 1:
Track 1
Track 2
Track 3
Track 4
Track 5
Track 6
Track 7
Track 8
Disc 2:
Track 1
Track 2
Track 3
Track 4
Track 5
Track 6
Track 7
Track 8
Track 9
Disc 3:
Track 1
Track 2
Track 3
Track 4
Track 5
22 Tracks in total
Renumber as if it’s one Disc,
With 22 as your total number of tracks & 1 to 22 as the number of tracks. So Disc 2 track 1 would become 9 of 22, Disc 2 track 2
Would become 10 0f 22 and so on up to 22 of 22..
You now have three discs showing up as one entry in SONOS.
It’s handy to have a piece of scrap paper on which to work out the numbering. As once it gets to 4 or more albums, it can get a little confusing.
I am currently running at 64861 Songs, adding new tracks every week In reality it’s probably closer to around 80,000. Everything is working just fine. I normally just put all my songs/tracks in to Shuffle Mode with Crossplay on, and let SONOS do the rest, Providing me with a soundtrack to my life
I’m quite happy to say that I’ve successfully found a way to get
around the 65k limit on SONOS. It certainly isn’t a technical solution, however it is one that will require a little bit of patience, as it involves some rethinking and possibly reorganising your music collection.
Once this is done, you will be able to add a great deal more, while staying within the confines of 65,000 Songs/Tracks. I’m still adding....
This is being done with my own CD collection which I spent many months downloading and turning into digital files, which are located on 2 NAS Drives and are open on my screen.
I have a lot of tracks in total that well exceed the 65K limit.
The two programs I use for organising my collection are
Music Tag from Wide Angle Software which is free and very simple to use & ITunes which I use to link tracks together.
I also have all my collection on a program called Music Collector, which includes cover art which I am able to cut and paste over to
Music Tag & which shows up nicely on SONOS.
Okay ..... The first thing to consider with SONOS is the word Songs
Or Tracks. Each entry or Song, could contain many tracks.
If, you consider linking tracks together. Which you can only do when you download the album. So you may have to delete and re download albums you wish to link.
Example: Tale of Daring Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3 &
Chapter 4 (4 tracks) .by Chick Corea
Use Itunes to link all 4 tracks together, then modify the title in Music Tag to Tale of Daring or Tale of Daring Chapters 1 – 4.
Reducing the number of Songs/Tracks used but still getting all the music from the CD.
The number of Tracks on this CD (Inside Out by Chick Corea)
Is 11
Tracks 2 & 3 Make A Wish Part 1 & Make A Wish Part 2
& Tracks 4 & 5 Stretch it Part 1 & Stretch it Part 2 could both be linked. Now the track number is reduced to 6 in total.
Now that the album is partly linked I drag the file over to music tag
To renumber & rename the tracks. The original track listing was:
1 Inside Out
2 Make A Wish Part 1
3 Make A Wish Part 2
4 Stretch It Part 1
5 Stretch It Part 2
6 Kicker
7 Childs Play
8 Tale Of Daring Chapter 1
9 Tale Of Daring Chapter 2
10 Tale Of Daring Chapter 3
11 Tale Of Daring Chapter 4
And now reads;
1 Inside Out
2 Make A Wish Part 1/Make A Wish Part 2
4 Stretch It Part 1/Stretch it Part 2
6 Kicker
7 Childs Play
8 Tale Of Daring Chapter 1/ Tale Of Daring Chapter 2/ Tale Of Daring Chapter 3/ Tale Of Daring Chapter 4
Tidy up the tracks and renumber on Music Tag and it then should
Read:
1 Inside Out
2 Make A Wish Parts 1 & 2
3 Stretch It Parts 1 & 2
4 Kicker
5 Childs Play
6 Tale Of Daring Chapters 1 – 4
Sorry if that seems a little long winded, but you should get the idea.
And of course you can take that concept a lot further. I recently downloaded from my own CD collection, the entire piano works
Of Liszt. Which is about 100 albums. I did a great deal of linking by actually cutting them down into Sections and adding linked tracks
Into that, sometimes complete sides. I ended up with 1,454 individual tracks linked into about 120 entries on SONOS.
If you are using Music Tag for adding multi album sets.
Always set your Disc number at 1 of 1 .
And renumber your tracks as if it was just one CD.
Find out how many tracks there are in total
That will then be the entry in the second box under track number.
And the first box will be the number of the track ie, 1, 2, 3 etc.
In a 3 Disc Set for example
Disc 1:
Track 1
Track 2
Track 3
Track 4
Track 5
Track 6
Track 7
Track 8
Disc 2:
Track 1
Track 2
Track 3
Track 4
Track 5
Track 6
Track 7
Track 8
Track 9
Disc 3:
Track 1
Track 2
Track 3
Track 4
Track 5
22 Tracks in total
Renumber as if it’s one Disc,
With 22 as your total number of tracks & 1 to 22 as the number of tracks. So Disc 2 track 1 would become 9 of 22, Disc 2 track 2
Would become 10 0f 22 and so on up to 22 of 22..
You now have three discs showing up as one entry in SONOS.
It’s handy to have a piece of scrap paper on which to work out the numbering. As once it gets to 4 or more albums, it can get a little confusing.
I am currently running at 64861 Songs, adding new tracks every week In reality it’s probably closer to around 80,000. Everything is working just fine. I normally just put all my songs/tracks in to Shuffle Mode with Crossplay on, and let SONOS do the rest, Providing me with a soundtrack to my life
That is a clever solution but it would take me years to accomplish that I think. 500k tracks would be a lot to reimagine using your schema. Thank you for all of the detail though. Anyone starting now should employ that kind of schema.
I've been using a Synology NAS and Plex Server. You can run Plex server on a Windows PC also.
I have a few issues with it, like speed and no ability to have a Folder view so I don't need to even use Id Tags at all if desired. If I could get them to break down a subfolder A-Z beneath Artist, I think the speed wouldn't be an issue. And/or having a Folder view would allow me to have that sub folder because my files are setup that way.
But overall I am happy with it and think it will be my music library manager for the near future.
I have a few issues with it, like speed and no ability to have a Folder view so I don't need to even use Id Tags at all if desired. If I could get them to break down a subfolder A-Z beneath Artist, I think the speed wouldn't be an issue. And/or having a Folder view would allow me to have that sub folder because my files are setup that way.
But overall I am happy with it and think it will be my music library manager for the near future.
@jmw_sono
I have Plex also going, however Sonos and Plex are not getting along. I have remote access enabled and is working with a solid green light, but when I go to play a song, it will pull up all the songs, I select to one to play, it then says it can't play the song and skip to the next with the same error message, and then keeps repeating it until it gets to the end of the songs. I have been on the Plex forums and there seems to be a couple different threads on it. Was wondering if you have had any issues recently?
I have Plex also going, however Sonos and Plex are not getting along. I have remote access enabled and is working with a solid green light, but when I go to play a song, it will pull up all the songs, I select to one to play, it then says it can't play the song and skip to the next with the same error message, and then keeps repeating it until it gets to the end of the songs. I have been on the Plex forums and there seems to be a couple different threads on it. Was wondering if you have had any issues recently?
I have Plex also going, however Sonos and Plex are not getting along. I have remote access enabled and is working with a solid green light, but when I go to play a song, it will pull up all the songs, I select to one to play, it then says it can't play the song and skip to the next with the same error message, and then keeps repeating it until it gets to the end of the songs. I have been on the Plex forums and there seems to be a couple different threads on it. Was wondering if you have had any issues recently?
I havent noticed anything, but havent used Plex alot the last few weeks. I think i did play a few songs with it over Thanksgiving and didnt notice any problems. Let me try remotely from another state and see if i can use Plex with Sonos.
I can try it on my local Sonos system late next week.
I have Plex also going, however Sonos and Plex are not getting along. I have remote access enabled and is working with a solid green light, but when I go to play a song, it will pull up all the songs, I select to one to play, it then says it can't play the song and skip to the next with the same error message, and then keeps repeating it until it gets to the end of the songs. I have been on the Plex forums and there seems to be a couple different threads on it. Was wondering if you have had any issues recently?
I was just able to use Plex from my Sonos App on the local Plex server also on the same laptop. Played songs fine.
I then was able to use the same Sonos Plex App and connect to my remote Plex Server at my house and was able to play music without issues.
@jmw_sono,
Can you tell me what router you are using? I am using a Verizon FiOS G series router and from the Plex forums, there seems to be some issues with that particular router. Being able to use Plex has always been hit or miss. I can use Plex with no issues outside of Sonos, in fact it is really all I use. But for some reason, the haven't been playing nicely together.
Like you, I can play music outside my network via Plex, inside my network via Plex, my appletv via Plex, web browser via Plex, plexamp on several computers, but not able to play via Sonos.
Can you tell me what router you are using? I am using a Verizon FiOS G series router and from the Plex forums, there seems to be some issues with that particular router. Being able to use Plex has always been hit or miss. I can use Plex with no issues outside of Sonos, in fact it is really all I use. But for some reason, the haven't been playing nicely together.
Like you, I can play music outside my network via Plex, inside my network via Plex, my appletv via Plex, web browser via Plex, plexamp on several computers, but not able to play via Sonos.
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