Camp Posted August 16, 2004 Report Share Posted August 16, 2004 I was just recently exposed to a cool idea for finding new music: http://www.last.fm and http://www.audioscrobbler.com It's a site that tracks what music you listen to and finds similarities between your tastes and the tastes of others. It makes recommendations based on those similarities and allows you to explore and find artists you might never have known about on your own. Start by setting up an account at audioscrobbler and then you can stream audio using last.fm. Take a look at my account to get an idea of how it works. Best of all the site is not commercialized in any way. It was started by a music fan and appears to have every intention to stay that way. If you're interested sign up for an account. You'll need to install a plug-in for whatever media player you use (iTunes, QCD, WinAmp, Media Center, foobar2k, SqueezeBox, etc.). All the plug-in does is send every track name/artist name to your account. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Graeme Posted August 16, 2004 Report Share Posted August 16, 2004 Sounds pretty cool. I've signed up and got the plugin going. My only problem is that my roommate uses this computer too, so some stuff will be a little out of whack. http://www.last.fm/user/DrunkOM Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Camp Posted August 16, 2004 Author Report Share Posted August 16, 2004 It's now your opportunity to alter your roommate's musical tastes. Yea, I'm the same way though...my GF will play her stuff from time-to-time. I wonder if I can delete her stuff from the site somehow.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zathras Posted August 16, 2004 Report Share Posted August 16, 2004 I remember this cool site that had all bands linked via bubbles so you would search on a band and then it had bands that were like them as offshoots of them and similar bands around. It was very cool I'll need to find it again - does that ring a bell to anyone? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rob B Posted August 16, 2004 Report Share Posted August 16, 2004 I added myself to this thanks for the info seems neat Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
reeldeal Posted August 16, 2004 Report Share Posted August 16, 2004 Originally posted by Zathras@Aug 16 2004, 06:11 AM I remember this cool site that had all bands linked via bubbles so you would search on a band and then it had bands that were like them as offshoots of them and similar bands around. It was very cool I'll need to find it again - does that ring a bell to anyone? i know i saw it on a link from here, but i can't even begin to think what to search for. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kain rising Posted August 16, 2004 Report Share Posted August 16, 2004 Originally posted by Zathras@Aug 16 2004, 08:11 AM I remember this cool site that had all bands linked via bubbles so you would search on a band and then it had bands that were like them as offshoots of them and similar bands around. It was very cool I'll need to find it again - does that ring a bell to anyone? Yup musicplasma Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blackcalx Posted August 16, 2004 Report Share Posted August 16, 2004 Wow, using the musicplasma site I discovered that both Bjork and The Tea Party have new albums coming out this month. Excellent! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rob B Posted August 17, 2004 Report Share Posted August 17, 2004 is there someting I am missing to get the song titles I play in winamp to uplad to my account , http://www.audioscrobbler.com/user/Bobbio/ . Or is it that since I am playing these, wfi, on my laptop and the actuall file is on another puter? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Camp Posted August 18, 2004 Author Report Share Posted August 18, 2004 I assume you installed the Winamp Audioscrobbler plug-in? If not, do so here: http://www.audioscrobbler.com/download.php#Winamp If that's not it, I'm not sure. I know you have to have at least 100 tracks played before it can accurately compare your habits to others (which it then bases its recomendations on). Still, it 'saw' my playing files right away. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xPieter Posted August 18, 2004 Report Share Posted August 18, 2004 Cool plugin. I'll be very interested to see what gets generated. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rustyjaw Posted August 18, 2004 Report Share Posted August 18, 2004 I joined, seems cool already, although the first few track I played aren't in anyone else's list, when I played Casino Versus Japan, I got a bite. I guess after a while you probably start noticing patterns, other people with tastes like yours, etc. http://www.audioscrobbler.com/user/tendril/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cyberwoo Posted August 18, 2004 Report Share Posted August 18, 2004 Interesting plugin. So far a few of the tunes I played weren't recognizable and thus not submitted. Whats up with that? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rob B Posted August 18, 2004 Report Share Posted August 18, 2004 Originally posted by iCamp@Aug 17 2004, 07:44 PM I assume you installed the Winamp Audioscrobbler plug-in? If not, do so here: http://www.audioscrobbler.com/download.php#Winamp If that's not it, I'm not sure. I know you have to have at least 100 tracks played before it can accurately compare your habits to others (which it then bases its recomendations on). Still, it 'saw' my playing files right away. o forgot to "restart" winamp :roll: duhhhhhh (and i am slaping my chest) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cyberwoo Posted August 18, 2004 Report Share Posted August 18, 2004 Also I noticed in the view log that when a song finishes it didn't upload. For example: 20.031 08/17/2004 19:00:18 CScrobbler::SubmitSong Submitting 'Ulrich Schnauss - Gone Forever (A Strangely Isolated Place)' 20.031 08/17/2004 19:00:18 CScrobbler::SubmitSong Not in a position to send data. Caching for later. Anyone else get that? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Camp Posted August 18, 2004 Author Report Share Posted August 18, 2004 I joined, seems cool already, although the first few track I played aren't in anyone else's list, when I played Casino Versus Japan, I got a bite. I guess after a while you probably start noticing patterns, other people with tastes like yours, etc. I checked out your profile...every artist listed as listened to (by you) has links to other users. Perhaps there's a delay? Your "Top Artists" and "Top Songs" will update after you've listened to 100 tracks. So far a few of the tunes I played weren't recognizable and thus not submitted. Whats up with that? Did you install the plug-in for your media player? Maybe it's not working. The sister site is http://www.last.fm -same site, same operators but for some reason last.fm updates much faster and has a cleaner look. http://www.last.fm/user/iCamp Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Obnoxious Posted August 18, 2004 Report Share Posted August 18, 2004 very cool. http://www.audioscrobbler.com/user/obnoxious/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Camp Posted August 18, 2004 Author Report Share Posted August 18, 2004 I created a group for us LCVG-ers. I'm not 100% sure but I think you should be able to join it if you follow this link: http://www.audioscrobbler.com/group/LCVG or here (if you prefer the last.fm site): http://www.last.fm/group/LCVG Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rustyjaw Posted August 18, 2004 Report Share Posted August 18, 2004 Originally posted by iCamp@Aug 17 2004, 07:50 PM I created a group for us LCVG-ers. I'm not 100% sure but I think you should be able to join it if you follow this link: http://www.audioscrobbler.com/group/LCVG or here (if you prefer the last.fm site): http://www.last.fm/group/LCVG Good idea, Camp! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blackcalx Posted August 18, 2004 Report Share Posted August 18, 2004 Great idea. I've signed up as [gasp] blackcalx. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robot Monkey Posted August 19, 2004 Report Share Posted August 19, 2004 Okay, I signed up as robotmonkey and joined the LCVG group. I have a playilst running with some of my favorite bands. Some questions: 1. What does the group function do? 2. How does it work with last.fm? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rustyjaw Posted August 19, 2004 Report Share Posted August 19, 2004 I'm not 100% sure of either of your questions Jay, but AFAICT, groups is just a way of finding like-minded people, who are into the music and/or genres that you are. The group link leads for discussion groups divided up by bands, or genres, and other things. last.fm seems very much like a work in progress. I believe the idea is to be able to not only see what other people are into musically, but to also be able to listen to their favorites, or at least portions of it, via streaming audio. But so far I haven't been able to get the streaming to work, and from visiting the forums on the site, it seems like it's not really working yet. What I can't figure out is where the audio will come from. Will last.fm crate a catalog of music snippets on their site? Or will there be some kind of P2P streaming (seems unlikely). Maybe I need to RTFM. Another problem is that they only seem to have records (as in database records) and cover art for certain albums. I would say that they have about 30% of the one's I have tried to find. Speaking of finding, I have had problems with the search as well. I have done searches for groups I like, only to turn up with nothing. But if I play a song from one of the groups and last.fm catalogs that, I can then click on the track name and find that the given group does exist on the service, with a record of the number of times that track has been listened to. Maybe searching only finds groups with album art, etc, in the system? I really like the idea of the service, but I think they are still working on it. My fear is that another company with more resources (like Apple or MS) may come along and either buy them outright, or just copy the model and include it with an existing service. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Graeme Posted August 19, 2004 Report Share Posted August 19, 2004 I fell asleep last night with the Beatles playing on repeat... they're now my #3 artist. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rustyjaw Posted August 19, 2004 Report Share Posted August 19, 2004 Speaking of that, I'm confused about how last.fm ranks your artists. My current #1 is Radiohead, but I haven't listened to Radiohead in a while, more than a month. I think it adds 'listens' when you select an album to add to your profile, since I added 4 Radiohead albums, I guess it adds in tracks from those albums as if I had listened to them. Audioscrobbler seems to strictly stick with stuff you have listened to when creating it's list of favorites. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blackcalx Posted August 19, 2004 Report Share Posted August 19, 2004 I've noticed that music sporadically dissapears from your list on occasion. For example I was listening to Tantric this morning before I left for work and got through the first eight or so tracks. They were showing on my recent songs list when I left for work, but when I got home they were gone. It happens in the Top Artists list as well. I listened to the full Sylvia's Ghost album but only three tracks show up in that list. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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