Filed under: Audio, Windows, Freeware
MusicIP: Free mood-matching mix software
by Jordan Running Apr 11th 2006 at 6:05PM
I used
MoodLogic for awhile to create playlists tailored to my moods, and it performed pretty well, but I wasn't really
satisfied with the limitations of the free version. MusicIP
Mixer is a free Windows app in the same vein. You choose a song from your collection and it will generate a
playlist of songs that it deems similar. While you can start generating playlists as soon as it's installed, the
initial algorithm, though fast, seemed wanting to me, and the subsequent (and presumably more accurate) algorithm takes
a long time to analyze your songs. It does have some nice features, though, like integration with other players so you
send generated playlists to Winamp or iTunes, and compatability with portable devices. It also has a built-in
music-recommender that will query the web for new music you might like. Though I haven't been using it long enough to
really judge the quality of its algorithms, MusicIP Mixer has a nice polished feel and is worth checking out if you're
sick of assembling playlists by hand.[Thanks, Tim!]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Guillermo said 6:53PM on 4-11-2006
An interesting thing about this software, is that its song analysis generates a PUID fingerprint that is linked to MusicBrainz for easy identification of music files with missing or wrong tags.
I'm not exactly sure of how the whole thing works, though. There's mor information at the MusicBrainz blog: http://blog.musicbrainz.org/
By the way, MusicIP Mixer is also available for Linux and Mac.
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AFD said 11:29PM on 4-11-2006
No thanks, I'm staying away from anything that messes w/my ID3 tags. After installing Winamp 5.2 and enabling the included Predixis MusicMagic plug-in, any tags that were touched became unreadable on my car stereo. Problem went away after reverting to Winamp 5.0 and correcting the tags in another program.
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Diddle said 12:45AM on 4-12-2006
If you're looking for a smart algorithm to play someone else's music, try Pandora - http://www.pandora.com
I'm a DJ, I prefer to pick my own tracks to listen to from my own collection, but Pandora's pretty good for hearing new tracks in the styles which I've told it I like.
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tevetorbes said 11:01AM on 4-12-2006
Pandora is OK in a pinch: listening in my browser gets a bit annoying after a while.
I've used this MusicIP software for a bit, and its not bad, although it seems like it picks songs from the same artists to generate a playlist for me. Hell, I could've done that.
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Wendell Hicken said 1:46PM on 4-12-2006
(Disclaimer: I'm a dev on the MusicIP project)
AFD: The Winamp plugin doesn't have any way to edit your tags, so I'm not sure what problems you were seeing. In any case, the Mixer only changes tags if you tell it to, and this isn't necessary for the product to work.
tevetorbes: Try going to the mix options and tell it to never use any artist more than once in a given playlist (you can be more specific, like never within 30 minutes, or whatever). Lots of other options to tweak the variety as well, including the variety slider.
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Jordan Running said 1:48PM on 4-12-2006
Thanks for stopping by, Wendell. One thing I was going to mention in the post but forgot was how configurable MusicIP Mixer is.
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SDE said 2:35PM on 4-12-2006
Any spyware involved?
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Wendell Hicken said 6:23PM on 4-12-2006
SDE: No spyware, but there is information sent anonymously to the central servers as part of the analysis process. This information is used, for example, to validate metadata which we serve back out through the MusicDNS service (to cover places where we aren't fully connected to MusicBrainz yet). We deliberately do not store any data which we can connect back to users, so we don't have anything for any "interested" parties to subpoena.
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AFD said 11:50PM on 4-12-2006
Thanks for the info Wendell.. perhaps it was Winamp 5.2 itself, and not the Predixis plug-in doing this. Overall results were very odd, though. ID3 tags were read fine in Winamp and WMP 9, but were completely blank on my player and in other apps. File > properties > description (in WMP 6.4) listed question marks, instead of track name.
After spending sooo much time keeping my tags accurate over the years, I don't think I'll ever upgrade to another version of Winamp - whatever the actual cause was. Might give MusicIP a try, though.
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