Spicefly SugarCube

Last Updated on Thursday, 19 May 2011 16:58

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Spicefly SugarCube is a plugin written to achieve my desire for Squeezebox and MusicIP to work between themselves and play music, nonstop with no hassle and no annoying playlists!  SugarCube uses the great MusicIP product but has a number of custom written functions to take it to the next level, allowing you to drift through your music library and discover those great tracks you forgot you had, offering far greater functionality than the official Squeezebox MusicIP plugin.

How it Works
Just pick a single track, Artist or genre to play from your library and the journey begins!  While that track is playing, SugarCube uses it with MusicIP to select a track that is similar to the playing track (based on specified criteria). SugarCube then tweaks the result further to queue up the next track which matches your criteria.

Once the first track ends, the second track is now your seed track and the process continues, on and on!

You will find you drift through your music library without all the hassle of playlists or lots of key pressing and you never experience the same playlist.

Main Features List

• Seed by Song, Album, Artist, Genre, Recipe or Filter.

• Restrict Mixing to the Genre of the Seed Track

• Vary the Style and Variety of the mix on the fly from the player or web interface.

• Schedule based Filter mixing, to enable changes in musical taste throughout the day.

• Completely player based so SugarCube can be switched on/off and run completely independently on multiple devices, this includes mix and style.  So each player can be playing completely different styles of music at the same time.

• Sleep mode and Volume Fade to assist with a restful nights sleep.

• SugarCube Genre Mix as the Alarm Clock, wake up to a different track each day.

• Replace Next Track; in the Playlist menu for Jive based players, if you don't like the upcoming track, simply replace it from the playlist menu without having to stop the music.

• Utilises TrackStat to enable greater control of the music selection.  Block tracks under a certain rating level.  Prefer tracks with a Low or High Playcount or Recently/Least Played and High or Low Ratings.  Ensure you dont always hear the same tracks.

• Block Album from repeating for a specified number of tracks, to ensure you don’t end up listening to the same tracks of an album.

• Block a Genre. Make sure Christmas tracks dont play in June!

• Block Artist Repeating for a specified number of Tracks, to ensure variety.

• Block a Specified Artist Option if you don’t want to hear a specified Artist.

• Display Coming up Next, showing the next track in the playlist.

• Will remember played tracks between sessions, ie. if you power off and resume later.

• Dynamic timeout to the Web Interface Player preference loading page, ie. if MIP is not running it will wait less time while drawing the web page.

• Warning in the Web interface, if the player is part of a sync group but is not the master. The master of a sync group drives the show and therefore only its settings apply, this warns you that you are wasting your time making changes when its a slave player.

• Auto Toggle of the Squeezebox Play "Only Song / Play Directory" when SugarCube is Enabled/Disabled.

• Custom written encoding routines to improve resilience.

• Stay quiet and don't try to mix if the playing track is .asx, rtmp, pandora, slacker, lastfm, live365, mediafly and Sound Effects streaming content

• Technical View which is mainly for use on the SB3, it denotes whether the current playing track has cover artwork embedded or folder based and Replaygain Track/Album are set.

• Works completely independently of the Squeezebox official MusicIP plugin, so does not require it to be setup or installed.  This saves time as you don't need a Squeezebox MusicIP rescan when updating your library and enables the two environments to be separated.

Plus lots more...

How is SugarCube different from the official MusicIP plugin or Random Mix?
The key differences are that the official MusicIP plugin adds complexity that isn't always required.  It adds additional time to the rescan of the music library and produces static playlists of a certain length.  Sugarcube is dynamic and not limited to a static playlist, it will continue seeding from the current playing track and so you will often find subtle changes in your music will take you down another path in your music library.  Sugarcube also does not require any integration between Squeezebox and MusicIP, you can keep the two environments separate so there is no chance of cross contamination.

Random Mix is just that, its random!  So you may end up with tracks that are at opposite ends of the spectrum and jar your listening experience.  MusicIP however does a one off scan of your music library and fingerprints each track.  This allows tracks of similar styles to be identified and chosen.  Sugarcube uses MusicIP plus its own custom functions to tweak the next track selection, so it bends to your criteria and provides a much improved listening experience.  If you fancy a chilled out ambient moment, select an ambient track forthcoming tracks will then be similar in style, or fancy some uplifting dance music, just select a dance track and dance the hours away!


I've heard that MusicIP is no longer supported why should I bother with it?
MusicIP has been reborn as Amplifind Music services though the product doesn't appear to be developed anymore.  However its still the best, returning much better results that Mufin or Apple Genius.  MusicIP was fortunate to reach a point where it was strong enough for day to day use and the fingerprinting of tracks is reliable and can be done offline even if the backend servers are turned off.  Until such time as a new product comes along there isn't anything better for finding those great obscure tracks buried in your music library you forgot you had!

Pre-requisites for Sugarcube
You ideally require MusicIP to be configured and running in headless mode; However it can work with just the MusicIP GUI open and the API running. See my other pages for guides on how to do this or if you get nervous around a command prompt, use my new SpyGlass tool to setup Headless for you!  Once MusicIP has scanned your music library, install SugarCube and away you go!

How to Install It
Use the Extension Downloader and add the url
http://www.spicefly.com.previewdns.com/public/public.xml

Don't forget to install MusicIP and fingerprint your library!

Please note that MusicIP is the property and copyright of AMPlifind Music Services and is no way related to Spicefly.  Spicefly is just one man, a self taught Perl fumbler and SugarCube is the result of roughly two years of head scratching coding.  Version 1.0 was released 25th June 2008 and donations have helped keep motivation and contribute towards the upkeep of this site!

Example of Coming up Next Display on the SB3


Support
You can contact me via the contac form on the site or find me hanging out on the Squeezebox Forums

People who have donated and therefore become Friends of Spicefly can access the Spicefly private forums, for additional support and request feature requests.  They also get access to the latest versions of SugarCube before anybody else and get access to new applications and plugins.