Replacing Google Play Music

[boyse7en]

My phone is informing me that Google Play music is no more and that I have to switch to YouTube, Spotify or Deezer "services".

I don't want or need a streaming service, I just want to be able to play my Mp3s that are on the phone, but now if I ask Google Assistant to "play artist X" instead of playing the album's I have it starts playing videos it finds online instead. This is flaming useless.

Is there a music player that can be set to be default music player, or am I going to be tuneless on my commute?

[boyse7en]

Crafty_ said:

Just use any music player, there must be loads on the store. I use the samsung one that was already on my phone. I know it is in the store, but not sure if its available for all devices, search for "Samsung Music" and see if it pops up.
If not I just found one simply called "music player" that looks very simle to use.

I did download a music app, but I couldn't get it to play anything using Google Assistant.
I need to be able to use voice control, and if I do it just starts up YouTube

[boyse7en]

IanJ9375 said:

Just transfer all your own music to Youtube Music from Google Music - very easy to do then you should be back to where you were so to speak.
https://music.youtube.com/

Guide on how to transfer - https://support.google.com/youtubemusic/answer/969...

Tried that. It just says "nothing to transfer"

I tried a music player called music player, which works fine if I click,swipe, etc but if I ask Google Assistant it still opens YouTube instead.
"Hey Google. Play Deftones on music player"
"Ok. Searching YouTube for Deftones"

[boyse7en]

The_Jackal said:

Just upload all your music to YouTube Music.
All mine was uploaded to Google Play Music before, and in the email they give a link to transfer it all over to YouTube Music in the background.
I'm assuming this is all the music you have "acquired" over the years.
It may need to be done via a desktop app though.

I tried YouTube music today, but it doesn't work.
I have got my mp3s listed under Device Files, and they will.play if I click on them.
If, however, I ask for a track using Google Assistant, for example "hey Google play Gary Numan", I get the reply "sure, playing Gary Numan on YouTube music" and then the phone screen shows an error saying that it can't play music as there is no WiFi connection.

That implys to.me that it isn't playing "my" music at all, and is streaming it instead.

I've tried numerous MP3 players - Musicolet, Music Player etc, but GA will not play using them even if you ask specifically. "Play Amy McDonald on Musicolet" just gets "sure, playing Amy McDonald on YouTube music".

[boyse7en]

paulrockliffe said:

You have two issues here, first one is that there's nothing that will play local content via Google Assistant. The second is that 90% of the people replying to you are completely ignoring that you asked for options that work with Google Assistant.

The only thing I can think of is that there are caching settings in there somewhere that allocate spare device space to a music cache. You might be able to use that with clever use of playlists to get it to cache what you want so it goes to stream it, fails and then plays from your cache. But it's probably at least a complete pain in the arse, or won't work well enough for you. Or both.

My last throw of the dice would be Routines. You can probably use a Routine to make a particular phrase trigger an IFTTT program to play a particular playlist on a particular app on your device. I'd be a bit more confident that you could get there with Tasker or similar. But again it's going to be a complete pain in the arse to setup unless you're happy to just have a few playlists to cover all your requests. If you want per Artist and have to setup something for each artist, it'll quickly get boring!

Good luck!

Thank you! Someone who actually read the post 😃

It looks like Google has made streaming the only option when using voice on Google Assistant, which I'm sure is more lucrative for them (all those £5 a month to play stuff you already have) but doesn't entirely work when out in the real world of poor connection and no data service. I guess in cities coverage is constant, but over the moors here there are huge swathes of countryside that don't have any/sufficient service.

What's annoying is that Google Play Music does still work to play my device/stored files, but Google has switched off Google Assistant voice control for it.

[boyse7en]

boyse7en said:

paulrockliffe said:

You have two issues here, first one is that there's nothing that will play local content via Google Assistant. The second is that 90% of the people replying to you are completely ignoring that you asked for options that work with Google Assistant.

The only thing I can think of is that there are caching settings in there somewhere that allocate spare device space to a music cache. You might be able to use that with clever use of playlists to get it to cache what you want so it goes to stream it, fails and then plays from your cache. But it's probably at least a complete pain in the arse, or won't work well enough for you. Or both.

My last throw of the dice would be Routines. You can probably use a Routine to make a particular phrase trigger an IFTTT program to play a particular playlist on a particular app on your device. I'd be a bit more confident that you could get there with Tasker or similar. But again it's going to be a complete pain in the arse to setup unless you're happy to just have a few playlists to cover all your requests. If you want per Artist and have to setup something for each artist, it'll quickly get boring!

Good luck!

Thank you! Someone who actually read the post ??

It looks like Google has made streaming the only option when using voice on Google Assistant, which I'm sure is more lucrative for them (all those £5 a month to play stuff you already have) but doesn't entirely work when out in the real world of poor connection and no data service. I guess in cities coverage is constant, but over the moors here there are huge swathes of countryside that don't have any/sufficient service.

What's annoying is that Google Play Music does still work to play my device/stored files, but Google has switched off Google Assistant voice control for it.

I tried setting up a routine. Created a playlist in YTM from my device files and made a routine that should open and play it.
All went well right up to the "playing" part, at which point Google Assistant tells me that I have to have a YTM Premium Account to be able to play playlists.

So they have you by the short and curlies whichever way you do it. Want to play your own music using GA? You'll have to pay £10 a month for the privilege *and* jump through hopes in order to do it.

TBH this might mean I swap over to an iPhone if that will do the job. Google just seem to be taking away features rather than adding them.

[boyse7en]

shed driver said:

I can cast my GPM library to my Google speaker from my laptop or phone, so at least I have that option. Sadly, the ability to play songs I have bought directly from my Google speaker using voice control has been lost. It's not the end of the world, all I really wanted was to have some of my playlists playing via voice command.

SD.

It isn't the end of the world, you're right. But is a bit galling that Google has seen fit to remove a perfectly usable function (and one that does have some specific, if niche, uses) simply to steer everyone to having to pay a subscription every month simply to play music they already own.

[boyse7en]

paulrockliffe said:

I doubt Apple will let you do it if Google won't. Your problem is the Google Assistant bit, it doesn't really work with local content. Paying for the Music streaming thing gets you round that, but it still won't work if you have no signal as it won't play from local anyway.

Try using a routine, possibly with IFTTT with a local player? Try Android Auto with Media Monkey. You're obviously prepared to suffer a bit for this, so they might be worth messing around with.

I'll have to look into it further as I haven't got any experience of using IFTTT. I don't mind putting in a bit of effort - it's become as much a challenge to get around Google's money-grabbing practices as anything else now

[boyse7en]

untakenname said:

I subscribe monthly to playmusic/youtube premium but recently discovered that using play music on my android wear watch that I use for running has stopped communicating and pulling down playlists, did a hard reset and re paired but still no luck, I bet this is the reason why

Yep. As far as I can see GPM will no longer play Playlists at all, and YouTube Music will only play generated Playlists, not your self-created playlists, even if you have a subscription. Google says that Playlists are coming, but no indication on when, what or how.

I think if you have a Spotify subscription, that will still work with playlists if you set it as default music player. The only options now are YTM, Spotify or Deezer.

[boyse7en]

So I dug out an old iPhone 5C of my daughters to see whether it would work. First job was clearing off enough space to put some music on there, then learn how to set up Siri. All great seemed to work perfectly.

Got on the bike this morning and tried it...
"Hey Siri, play some Deftones"
"Sorry, Siri needs to be connected to the internet to operate..."

Bugger!


At least it shows that an iPhone will work. The problem is that I can't afford an iPhone with sufficient storage to use as my only device.
Back to the drawing board.

[boyse7en]

sideways sid said:

Its quite possible that I have misunderstood, but your music remains on your phone to be played without streaming, but to change track you need to use the screen instead of talking to it?

Yes that pretty much the problem.

The phone has got about 25 albums stored on it in MP3 format

I used to play these through Google Play Music using voice control via Google Assistant - "Hey Google, play songs by placebo" for example. Would auto open Play Music and start playing tracks.

Google has more-or-less shut down Play Music and has switched over to Youtube Music. In doing this, they have disabled the ability to play stored music using voice control - YTM will only stream music by voice control.
Google has also switched off the ability to use voice control to request music be played on any other app - "Hey google, play Placebo on Bitplayer" just opens YTM instead and it tries to stream stuff.

[boyse7en]

paulrockliffe said:

Media Monkey is good too.

Actually OP, Media Money works to play local content via voice, certainly from within Android Auto, I've never tried it directly from Assistant. If you have Android Auto open the Voice Search runs from there and can respond to "Play Oasis from Media Monkey".

I *think* with Auto open Hey Google defaults to using that search rather than the usual thing, so this might work for you. Though it will mean the screen is on the whole time and maybe some other drawbacks.

Tried this...doesn't work.

I've set Mediamonkey as my default player in android auto, and if I navigate using screen button it will play tracks.
I press the button to activate the voice assistant (while in Android Auto) and ask "Play Gary Numan from Mediamonkey" just gets "no track found" despite me looking at the screen which shows two whole albums! Even if I ask for the track by name ("play Mercy by Gary Numan from Mediamonkey") it still says no such track found even if it is on the screen showing as the next track to play.

If I just say "play mercy by Gary Numan" it replaces "sure. Playing Girl you know its true by Milli Vanilli in Youtube Music" then tells me I need to have a premium account to do that. Not even close!