[Q] Best music player to work with Google Music? - Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

Hey guys,
I've been using GMusic for a while now, but I always found it very limited and not exactly to my taste.
Does anybody know a better music player that can load songs from GMusic?

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danielfiller said:
Hey guys,
I've been using GMusic for a while now, but I always found it very limited and not exactly to my taste.
Does anybody know a better music player that can load songs from GMusic?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
not sure if google put the music you buy onto your device or its streaming the music but you might want to take a look at cyangenmods apollo.

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Trozzul said:
not sure if google put the music you buy onto your device or its streaming the music but you might want to take a look at cyangenmods apollo.
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Click to collapse
It streams all your library, and that's what special about it.
Apollo doesn't support Google Music streaming.
Any other suggestions?

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danielfiller said:
It streams all your library, and that's what special about it.
Apollo doesn't support Google Music streaming.
Any other suggestions?
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i think there is a way to get it onto your device thought, i got one of their free albums and it was on my device even though data and wifi was turned off. dig around in the files maybe?

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The music that's cached is on your device, but digging through the files won't do anything unfortunately, each one deeply encrypted, believe I've tried
If you're responding to me, make sure to quote me so I get an immediate email

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Trozzul said:
i think there is a way to get it onto your device thought, i got one of their free albums and it was on my device even though data and wifi was turned off. dig around in the files maybe?
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Click to collapse
There is a way to do that, but then I lose the whole point of streaming - not having the files taking up space on my device.
The files you found in Apollo were probably some temp cache files leftovers.
So no suggestions?
Maybe someone else knows about an app like the one I'm looking for?
Maybe even some plugin that enables players to stream from Google?

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been trying to find something for a while with no luck... I think its a great service, and the app isn't even that bad, but sometimes I just need that music to stream through another music program for a certain feature or option... or just because I say so! lol
(Most of my music I uploaded to the cloud was flac, so it is played back as 320kbps... In some areas I get only 1 bar of 3g, and at worst music playback may pause for 5-10 seconds... but even this is a rare occurrence... Others have complained about the quality, but I think it's great considering I have the options set for high quality playback only and still don't have issues)
what I don't quite understand, is the talk of 'lack of an api' for Google Music streaming.....
However, Android app's for DLNA or other wireless streaming, such as Bubble UPnP, and this app which streams to 'Sonos'? wireless speakers: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=dk.youtec.android.macronos&hl=en
They DO support streaming from google music - the actual CLOUD (sorry it bothers me that someone names an app Cloud Music Sniper and flaunts allowing access to google music, then turns out its for the OFFLINE available apps that you pin for offline access? Oh and shockingly there is an app called Offline Music Importer that works the same - except it doesn't piss me off by implying it can access anything associated with my music on the cloud!) /end rant
So why are these streaming apps like Bubble UPnP able to access my Google Play Music collection on the cloud so I can play it back through my home receiver - yet I can't get it to work with a 3rd party music player at all? Hell, all I honestly want is a stupid visualizer, preferably that I can set as a live wallpaper... but they only seem to work with 1 out of every 5 songs that plays.... regardless of offline or streaming... and that REALLY confuses me =/

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purplekush said:
been trying to find something for a while with no luck... I think its a great service, and the app isn't even that bad, but sometimes I just need that music to stream through another music program for a certain feature or option... or just because I say so! lol
(Most of my music I uploaded to the cloud was flac, so it is played back as 320kbps... In some areas I get only 1 bar of 3g, and at worst music playback may pause for 5-10 seconds... but even this is a rare occurrence... Others have complained about the quality, but I think it's great considering I have the options set for high quality playback only and still don't have issues)
what I don't quite understand, is the talk of 'lack of an api' for Google Music streaming.....
However, Android app's for DLNA or other wireless streaming, such as Bubble UPnP, and this app which streams to 'Sonos'? wireless speakers: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=dk.youtec.android.macronos&hl=en
They DO support streaming from google music - the actual CLOUD (sorry it bothers me that someone names an app Cloud Music Sniper and flaunts allowing access to google music, then turns out its for the OFFLINE available apps that you pin for offline access? Oh and shockingly there is an app called Offline Music Importer that works the same - except it doesn't piss me off by implying it can access anything associated with my music on the cloud!) /end rant
So why are these streaming apps like Bubble UPnP able to access my Google Play Music collection on the cloud so I can play it back through my home receiver - yet I can't get it to work with a 3rd party music player at all? Hell, all I honestly want is a stupid visualizer, preferably that I can set as a live wallpaper... but they only seem to work with 1 out of every 5 songs that plays.... regardless of offline or streaming... and that REALLY confuses me =/
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
found this baby:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2169761
check it out

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THANKS! Know a way to pick output device for the Web based version?
danielfiller said:
found this baby:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2169761
check it out
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Click to collapse
WOW! thank you so much for letting me know about this! :good:
I'm definitely gonna check it out and see how the streaming quality compares...
[sometimes it makes the difference between playing and buffering when using the Google Play Music app's settings for mobile streaming - the High, Normal, and Low quality setting]
Regardless, this is a good step in a good direction... I know Bubble UPnP app and even some file explorer apps could access cloud storage, including the google music account - so I'm glad someone finally incorporated that in a way that let other music players on the device see the cloud storage as if they were local!
As exciting as it is, I'm also cautiously optimistic... While this means that Google's All Access music service will become much more attractive and viable for multiple device use compared to it's competitors --- there will, of course, be issues regarding protecting digital rights. Already I mentioned the 'misleading' programs that allowed ON DEVICE/'pinned' music from Google Music to be played in 3rd party players, and some convert the file to a properly labeled mp3. Considering Google Play Music already allows for All Access subscription users to do the same to songs within their entire catalog (that is, 'pin' it to the device for offline play - which was really a surprise to me), this means those same programs can now convert the All Access music that is pinned to allow offline play into proper mp3 files.... Thus with some coding to make the process faster, one can essentially download any song they want from All Access and keep it as an mp3 - altho it is only meant to be a subscription service and the option to pin music from all access is just supposed to allow access to the subscription service without signal or without eating up data from a data plan.
I guess that means if Google Music wants their music streaming service to succeed, rather than taking away support for 3rd party players - they must provide an official API and a better means of protecting the songs stored for offline playback using a database and/or file level encryption for the 'pinned' songs. I'd hate to see the ability to use the service on other players be stripped and locked down even more to a single player due to these kind of concerns that Google surely already sees as an issue and is likely brainstorming solutions.
Question:
On the topic of Google Play Music, does anyone happen to know of a similar solution regarding Google Music Streaming on a DESKTOP ??
I have found gmusic (not the iOS app), but a standalone program that sits in the system tray...
http://gmusic.codeplex.com/
Some of the chrome plugins actually offer better features (last.fm integration, lyrics, etc....), but the one I found that said it allowed use of media keys didn't work for me...
This is the only one I found that allows me to A) not get my music player lost in a massive field of tabs, and B) change songs while playing a game!
The Main Player window, although, is nothing more than a customized browser window (like the ability to view webpages within winamp and other programs). It is nice that it is a separate icon not mixed in among other browsers, supports media keys, can be minimized etc ----
The one major thing I'm still unable to find a solution for, is the ability to select (non-default) audio output device!!
I have always had my pc connected to my receiver/surround sound system since I got 'my own' computer, so being able to select the audio output is crucial for me when playing music, as I direct the music through digital output to the sound system, but still want to hear other audio through the output jack.
Many times I'll have -Music through digital optical output, -Game SFX through pc speaker output, and -Google Hangouts (for voice chat with teammates) through USB headset.
However it isn't as common for a game to have audio device options as it is for a music/media player.... and always remembering to alt-tab after the games started to change the the default device is a major pain!
(Not to mention even if I'm just listening to music, I don't want to hear audio from a random ad... esp when I can't track down the source of the ad among my tabs, and it is blaring loud out the sound system along with my music)
Many people have complained/requested this to be a feature of Google Chrome - of course the Google team reading these complaints are thinking from the perspective of a simple web browser, something that usually has no need for such a feature...
However, plenty have brought up the issue of Google's Music Service being web-based, and thus such a feature is needed.
I'm not quite sure it is an issue that needs to be addressed by the Chrome browser, but it should definitely be an option within the Google Music web app itself - similar to how one can choose their input and output device in Google Hangouts, which is also a web-app run within a browser.
Of course, the best solution for me would be to find someone that has created something similar to GMusicFS that allows the music to appear as if it is local (similar to google drive's client) or if one of the better music players (Winamp, Foobar, MusicBee, etc.) had an extension somewhere that allows adding cloud music services like Google Music.
Anyways,
@danielfiller Thanks so much for pointing me to that app!
(sorry to any mods about how this post isn't -exactly- a proper topic for its location. Its just that Google Music is cross platform, not limited to mobile devices. While my question does not relate to any mobile platform, it is regarding the exact same functions the android app provides for the exact same streaming service.)