As a New Xbox Music User, Here's What I'm Thinking...

[ShaneRay]

So, as a relatively new owner of a Windows phone (L520), an upgrade to Windows 8.1, a probable Surface purchase, and a Canadian (lack of music services), I subscribed to an Xbox Music Pass this past week.

I have no issues with the app as far as playing music is concerned, but as discussed many times, the management of a locally stored personal collection is a mess. I have a fairly small collection of about 200 CDs archived in FLAC on a local drive. I took the time to convert it all to MP3 so XM could match them. Of course, only about 1/4 of my songs were matched properly. After about an hour or so of manually stepping through the Wizard, I just got fed up and stopped. Granted, my meta-data probably isn't in absolute perfect shape, but when a song isn't matched because of a simple "space" or apostrophe, well, there's something wrong with the logic there.

So, this morning I deleted everything from my cloud collection and now I'm starting over.

I think the best way for me to do this is this:

1) Leave Match out of "most" of the process.
2) Instead, go through a list of my albums one-by-one, search for them in the store, and then manually add them to my collection.
3) For any of my albums/songs that don't exist in the store (like the Beatles), bring match into it then, so at least I can play them locally on this PC.
4) Enjoy.

I can't think of a better way to do this. The above is quicker than using the wizard to correct mismatched songs.


Anyway, I really like the service for it's cloud capabilities and music discoverability (Radio), but the first attempt at organizing a local collection almost made me give up and cancel my subscription. But, I'm going to hang in there as I think it's the best option for me at the moment.

Anyway....that's my ramble for the day.

 

[Neibl]

Yup, you pretty much just summed up the issues ever since the abandonment of Zune software (THE GREATEST MUSIC EXPERIENCE EVER). The solution is so simple, literally just re-brand the Zune software that's already made as Xbox music and Microsoft has an amazing music experience. Give us the option to use the desktop or a metro version. Making a metro version of the Zune software would be as easy as scaling it to the screen as it's designed in that design language anyway. I'm pretty close to canceling my Xbox music pass of four years I think. I really like the Google music service as it syncs between computers a lot better and allows me to upload my own music as well. Just need a way to use it on my phone is the issue. Might get a nexus 5 to offset my 920 for this reason Gmusic is a great Google music app for the tablets and computers though.

 

[Kevin Rush]

The ZUNE media software ( music, video, and podcasts! ) is still the greatest amazing software, even though Microsoft has removed some of the functionality and hasn't updated the USB sync for Windows Phone 8 nor Surface RT. Microsoft, just take the great and wonderful ZUNE software and rename it, so we can continue to have that great functionality!

 

[ShaneRay]

To be honest, I probably would have gone with Google Music and All Access if both were available here in Canada (I have a nexus 7), but Xbox Music is it. I'm not interested in Apple, nor do the other services hold any interest for me.

Other than a few plays with the Zune software quite a ways back, I never really experienced it. So, guess I don't know what I'm missing. I'm determined to make this work, though...well, at least until Google Music gets here then I'll reevaluate.

 

[gsquared]

I think you are saying what I'm thinking in another way. I would get the mucis library on the PC straight first before every turning on the match to cloud option. Whatever doesn't matchup and you want on your device simply copy it over to the device.

 

[RTGent]

...Long agreement

Every choice in life involves compromising -computing devices and software included. Patience and learning come with the compromising; it also took time for me to learn how to fine-tune and optimize my amazing Zune/XB Music Pass functionality across several devices. I'm in year 4 and I'm still learning because collecting and managing a digital music library are dynamic, complex, and evolving activities. If music is important enough for you and XBM is your service choice, take your time learning what is possible and rewarding, if not perfect or ideal. Meanwhile, enjoy your music.

I strongly agree with gsquared's advice. Get the PC Collection set first, and then experiment with and learn the best methods to sync or copy elsewhere. Music is one of my passions, and thus a priority on my PC. I ordered a new upgraded PC last year with Windows 7 so I could continue to run Zune -at the time, I had not learned how Zune worked in W8. Zune may be dated, but so is my MS Office 2007: yet, I've developed advanced knowledge of both and they both work flawlessly, or sufficiently so. I also am still using an original WP (the Focus -on my third issue, after abusing the first two) because it gives me 35.9gb of storage compared to the 32gb current WP limit. I can't sync the phone any more because my XBM Collection is approaching 7K tracks. The phone music app still works and syncs flawlessly otherwise. My RT can't sync at all, and the cloud sync has never been satisfactory because the matching can't keep up with the wide variety of audio formats I store on my PC, and because I am constantly adding and deleting content, and upgrading audio compression/etc. It's also true that I haven't taken the time to learn matching well, and it may be that the RT could handle my Collection fine or well enough. As it stands, I compromise because the RT is such an ideal tablet for me otherwise. I settle for manually syncing the phone and one of my Zune players (HD32) up to their storage limits. A second Zune 80 is not Xbox-registered and only syncs about 15 GB of unprotected audio. My RT also has only my own music on a 64gb card -again, because the matching work presumably required has not been worth it to me -surely because I have plenty of preferred playback options. Only my Zune HD64 is perfectly synced with my full Zune/XB collection.

Those are my compromises. I have an annual subscription to the original Zune/XB music pass and still consider it the best entertainment value anywhere -only Amazon Prime and Roku come close for accessing video, one my other passions. I will probably upgrade to a Lumia superphone as soon as I can get a 64gb version, and then I'll have a new set of compromises to learn.

Best of luck to the OP in learning if not mastering the software and the processes. I hope the XBM pass eventually brings you the joy it has brought to me.