[Android Central Question]

Hi folks,

I’ve just moved over to Android, having had iPhones for years. I’m having a really hard time finding a music player which does everything I want it to do. Here’s what I want:

• Something I can use on my desktop PC and my Android phone, which syncs automatically in real(ish) time.
• To be able to create my own playlists, from my own mp3 files, in the order I want them to play
• Volume/ loudness normalisation

Not much to ask, right? But I can’t seem to find anything which does all of this. Can anyone recommend a player they currently use (as I will inevitably have follow-up questions!). I don’t want anything fancy, as I’m a bit of a luddite.

Thanks in advance.

[ManiacJoe]

I am guessing that the hard part will be the pc-phone sync. What are you looking to sync? The position in the play list?

[Le Duffeurs]

Thanks for getting back to me! I just want one which behaves pretty much like iTunes, in that I can play the same, custom-made playlists through my PC as I can on my phone.

[ManiacJoe]

The trick here will be finding a PC music player than can share play lists with your phone's music player.
Then there will be question of whether or not you want the phone and PC to share the same cloud source for the music.

This is probably easier than I make it sound; but since I have never looked into this, hopefully someone with more knowledge will be by soon.

[Le Duffeurs]

Thanks anyway. I can't believe how difficult this is proving to be!

[oldmobie]

Have you considered Media Monkey? It lets you create your own playlists with your own tracks. It says it syncs with your PC. (Though I haven't used it that way.) It has a feature called level volume. The description of it is a bit ambiguous, but it could be the normalization you're looking for.

I used on PC years ago to solve a problem I no longer remember. I found it easy enough to use, but I ignored most of the features and used it as a player and playlist editor.

Now I'm using it on android to solve problems with Play Music. PM would loose tracks out of my playlists. (And loose playlists.) Finally, I tried to play my one remaining playlist one night and PM said there was one song in it. I tried to add the others back, but PM only found one more track on the phone. So I rage quit and installed Media Monkey. It found (and plays) all six of my playlists and seemingly all of my songs. The playlists are intact. (One has 206 tracks.)

Again, I'm not using every feature, but it seems to be a quality product with decent playlist handling.

Note that the app is free, with a free trial of the wireless syncing, but continued use of that feature requires a purchase. It said USB syncing is unlimited.

[Le Duffeurs]

Well, I finally got round to trying this out, and it took me a while but I finally have it working the way i want it to! Thank you, oldmobie!

Only one snag: my headphones remote will only allow me to pause a track or change the volume - I can't skip back or forwards any more. I'll do a bit of hunting around, but any compatible headphone suggestions would be very welcome!

[oldmobie]

Thank you, oldmobie!

Only one snag: my headphones remote will only allow me to pause a track or change the volume - I can't skip back or forwards any more. I'll do a bit of hunting around, but any compatible headphone suggestions would be very welcome!

Glad to help!

Sadly, one of the drawbacks of having a Samsung is that my headphone button alternates between being ignored and opening irrelevant apps. I get a dialog asking which app I want to use. One of the choices is google assistant. (Wish I could still get decent quality headphones with no button!) So, I guess I have no advice for this.