Edit: Also please tell me if a meme is even allowed as the thumbnail for the post in this community - just feels like it gets some of my current desperation across :D
Since the last time I posted here sharing my new home server, I’ve gotten a little more acquainted with the services I’m using. After getting acquisition of shows and movies sorted, I ventured into music (streaming).
As many here, I’m used to using streaming services for music, ie. Spotify or YouTube Music. Naturally, I tried a similar approach by setting up my Arr stack to feed its music into Jellyfin where the music is picked up by Symfonium. I tried it out for a couple days and liked it quite a bit since it keeps my phone clean of “unnecessary” data but I still retain access to music. Unfortunately, the way I acquire my music limits my selection quite a bit unless I venture into torrenting, which I’d prefer not to. So unless I figure out a safe way to torrent on my server, I’m stuck with getting access to a very limited selection of artists and albums.
In addition to that limitation, there’s also the files formats of the music. Most of the music I’ve downloaded was only available in FLAC, which is awesome if you’ve got the bandwidth and data plan for playback, but for me it means that I spend 3GB of data for a day of streaming music which is just not sustainable.
In comparison, I can set up a Revanced version of Spotify in addition to my Revanced YT Music to get access to all the music I could want. Unfortunately, that comes with the caveat of still being tied to the companies I’m trying to get rid of - albeit not financially anymore, but I’m still sharing my data.
Ultimately, I’m not sure what to do. What I love about self-hosting is the independence from all the companies we’re being fucked over by in all kinds of imaginable ways. But if it’s free, outside my sharing data with them, can I really compete?
I’d be interested in hearing your opinions and thoughts on this. How did you solve music streaming with your build?
Honestly? I just used PipePipe to download the songs I wanted as MP3 and saved em to USB. This a step above basic caveman shit lol. I suppose I could have gone real 2003, gone to the library, ripped em manually.
In any case, as with all self hosting decisions, there has to come a point where you consider quality over quantity.
Great, you have 10,000 songs. How many of those do you actually listen to? 30? 100? 300? How much is enough? Because if the answer is 10,000…what do you have to give up to get that? Clearly, if you’re uncomfortable with online music hosting, at some point, you need to bail. But how can you keep things fresh?
I have a crazy idea one day that I will use my self hosted LLMs (namely self hosted ACE-Step 1.5) to create my own filler play list, mixed with actual songs I enjoy (say, 350ish, meaningful tracks). The rough idea -
I can see this whole thing being tunable too (mostly AI filler stuff, akin to LoFi girl, balanced mix, mostly my library and AI DJ etc).
I’m doing other LLM based shit right now, but I can 100% see myself doing this out of pure “Fuck it, why not”.
A 10,000 song library can be smaller than a AAA game install these days. The point of a large library is not necessarily to listen to it all, but can be to just listen to what you want when you want. I mean, do what you like, but I work from home full time and listen to music for most of it so it suits me.
To each their own. I prefer a more curated experience for myself but as you say, you do you.
Its a bit like movies. I have a core of about 400 or 500. Sometimes I add some, sometimes I remove some, but for me, that’s more than enough of a pool. Too much, even.
Dragon sickness is a well know issue in self hosting (not accusing you of that) that I assiduously try to avoid; I prefer quality over quantity. Hardware, software - my interest is always doing more with less.
My intent is not to Pokémon catch em all; I’m saving experiences that are personally meaningful.
Less Library of Alexandria, more common book and marginalia.