music

Mike is a big music fan and he uses Spotify to manage it. But it's not very good for that. Leo says that Spotify Playlists is the chief way to do it. But you're "renting" the music with a subscription, and that means a third-party app that can do it would be a challenge. Spotify is probably the best out there though, and that's not really saying much. But it's not really their business model either. It's more like a jukebox.   

There are plenty of apps for curating your personal mp3s out there, but that's not what Spotify is about.

Bob wants to know where Windows Media Player stores his music files on his old computer. He has no idea. Leo says you can use the manage file memory command. Ideally, it'll be in the music folder. Then, to start using iTunes, you can add the folder into the iTunes Library. But make sure you check the "let me manage my music" option in iTunes settings. Once that's done, you can connect your phone via USB and then sync. You may also have to convert them to mp3 because your phone won't play WMA files. What's a lot easier is to use iMazing.

David wanted to create his own internet radio station. Leo says the problem is, that one will have to pay ASCAP/BMI license fees based on how many people are listening and how often one plays the music. There are internet radio options out there that offer the service including ASCAP/BMI fees. Live365.com is one option. There's also a free tier that enables one to play up to 25GB of music for free.

Ed has a 13" MacBook Pro and after moving his music over using iTunes, he now has duplicate files and they won't play anything. Leo says what you want to do is import the music and not make a copy of it. That will tell iTunes where to go to access the music. So now, Ed will need to get a dedupe app to remove the duplications. Or you can search for everything that includes "copy 1" and "copy 2" and delete them. Then reimport them without "making a copy" enabled. That will reindex iTunes, pointing to where the files live on your external drive. 

David wants to stream music to multiple rooms in his house. MultiRoom music is a challenge because it has to sync from room to room with no latency. But it is doable with Amazon Echo. He can get a dot in each room and add some speakers and it'll work. The Echo is smart enough that he can even command it to play in different rooms as well. The Amazon Echo Input connects to one's own speakers, and right now it's only $10.

Jim says he's a bit of a luddite, but he's discovered the Sonos Amp with Klipsh speakers, and it's just plain nice. Leo says the nice thing about the Sonos is that you can control it with your phone and stream from any music service. So you can listen to just about anything ever recorded. 

Ted has a business and plays a pandora in the background. Is he breaking the law? Leo says that technically, you need a license fee to play music in your business. ASCAP/BMI has secret shoppers that go around looking for this kind of thing and then sends businesses letters letting them know you're in violation and have to buy a license. Google ASCAP BMI, you'll find a page on what to do in order to play music. The fee is about $250 a year. There is a service called MUZAK that does just that. They handle all that, but you pay for the service. Also, check out SoundTrackYourBrand.com.

Clyde ripped all his CDs and has the music on his phone, but he doesn't have any backups anymore. How can he back them up from his phone? Leo says that if you backup your mobile phone, your phone backs it up. But Leo wants Clyde to also make a separate, accessible copy of the music from his phone. Connect your phone back to your computer and then let iTunes back it up and add those phones to the iTunes library.  Here's how. There's a third party program called Senuti that can also work. 

Patty wants to know about an app called iMazing for transferring her music from her phone to her Mac. But when she tried to use it, she lost all her music from her phone. Leo says Patty should have backed up her iPhone with iTunes before doing it. Anything non-standard can cause problems like this. She could check to see if she has a backup of her music on iCloud.