Ways to pirate music as convenient as Spotify?

The reason I gave up on MP3’s and subscribed to Spotify was because Spotify was easy. I’ve been listening “Iron Maiden - Empire of the Clouds” song every day and like a week ago, its removed. This was the last straw for me. Right now I’m trying to find “Stremio” of the music world. Can someone assist?

Key features I’m looking for:

  • Synchronization between devices
  • Offline play
  • Playlist support
  • Both desktop and mobile apps
  • Wide music library (optional if I will upload music)
  • Lyrics (optional)

Update: thanks to everyone who shared their solutions 🙏

Towerofpain11,

I have Lidarr on Steroids to automate downloads. It uses Deemix to download automatically. Deemix will download in MP3 with a free Deezer subscription, but if you want FLAC you need the premium suscription, or the month trial.

In Lidarr you can import a spotify playlist and it will add all the artists for you, which then downloads through Deemix. You can even download the entire discography if you like. Plus extras like album art.

For streaming I use Airsonic from my PC, then the Substreamer app on my android for the front end. You can create playlists in here and can also download songs on your device for offline play.

When I’m done downloading the majority of my playlists Artists and want to get rid of the Deezer subscription, I’ll probably switch to Usenet and Soulseek to download.

It payed off today, we had a mobile/internet outage for most of the day and I was still able to stream music.

ashok36,

This looks great. Im using the lidarr extended scripts which can use deezer or tidal.

Towerofpain11,

Yeah I tried to get that working but couldn’t get it going for some reason.

Aussiemandeus,
@Aussiemandeus@aussie.zone avatar

Are you Australian and with optus by chance.?

Towerofpain11,

Yeah both my mobile and internet are with Optus haha

angelsomething,

My setup is lidarr+airsonic. This setup fulfills all the requirements you listed. The webplayer is really good and you can use free apps to stream your library on mobile devices. Highly recommend “substreamer” for iOS and android. To access my library at home, I use Twingate (Zero Trrust Access VPN that uses the QUIC protocol and it’s lightning fast). Also, the mobile app allows for offline playback and has cool playlist builder features.

HerbalGamer,

On mobile; Soundbound is the new Spotiflyer and recently still worked for me

fluffery,
@fluffery@lemmy.ml avatar

Is it on f-droid?

HerbalGamer,

think it is

1984, (edited )
@1984@lemmy.today avatar

Use deezer. I’ve been on them for many years and it’s just like Spotify without the social media shit.

www.deezer.com

Good looking apps etc. It’s also French so no bullshit around privacy.

This is not piracy though but it’s such a good service that I’m paying for it.

HotChocoBum,

It’d also French so no bullshit around privacy

Lol no 😂

SilentStorms,

The was an app a couple years ago called Freezer, which was cracked Deezer with HQ playback and offline downloading. It shut down a while ago, and I’ve been looking out for a replacement ever since. It was perfect.

It should still be possible because deemix, free-mp3-download etc. still grab from Deezer afaik

Oha,

Tidal-Dl/Soulseek + Navidrome works for me

Sanyanov,

Can confirm, incredibly powerful combo. Allows for lossless downloads!

RatzChatsubo,

This is great, but you should consider setting up Plex if you are downloading from tidal. I say this because the file structures are the same and Plex has an awesome app called Plexamp now

Oha, (edited )

Plex shitty account system can suck my ass. I always prefer open source stuff and Navidrome has a few really nice clients on Android

Jakdracula,
@Jakdracula@lemmy.world avatar

Take a look at funk whale.

www.funkwhale.audio

Norgur,

The easiest thing to do is probably something like YouTube Music revanced and/or Spotube.

calzone_gigante,

Doesn’t have offline support, but it’s easy to setup, ytmusic vanced on mobile with ytmusic with ublock origin on desktop.

flora_explora,

Another even easier only-online solution would be to install modded Spotify via xManager

coughrelief,
@coughrelief@lemmy.world avatar

Download your stuff with soulseek, sync them between devices with syncthing

theskyisfalling,

Seen as OP already uses Spotify I would add in ripping music directly from there using something like soggfy for anything you can’t find on soulseek.

Obviously doesn’t help with the removed iron maiden song but is an easy way to be able to make your own copy of things still on there.

warmaster,

There’s a bunch of apps on Flathub for that, but if you’re looking for a Windows app, then iidk.

zaknenou,
@zaknenou@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

There’s a bunch of apps on Flathub
come on bro, don’t let us hanging on the cliff

webghost0101,

I much prefer to download music as flac and keep them local but i have 2 issues.

Finding new musis is hard because i am rarely exposed to it.

Music i like tends to be more obscure and harder to find a flac download for.

Ive started to use Spotify this year for those reasons but i hate it. I would love an alternative.

Aux,

Spotify is pretty much the only quality tool to learn about new music which fits your taste. Google services tend to disappear after a while, like Google Music did, and the only other option is Apple Music I guess, but I’ve never used it, so not sure.

I remember the days before Spotify still: downloading gigs of music, only 1% is ok, loads of time wasted. Fuck it, I’ll pay for Spotify and then download what I like for permanent collection. My time is a lot more worth than a subscription fee.

MoxFcCloud,

I've had better luck with Tidal's recommendations. Spotify just kept playing me covers and live music on my weekly and it was driving me crazy.

Aatube,
@Aatube@kbin.social avatar

It’s the opposite for me.

small44,

Warez websites
Blogs
Bandcamp daily
Youtube and twitch feedback channels
Sorry but it’s easy to discover new music without algorithms

webghost0101,

I am glad those work for you but music is very subjective and personal and these wont work for me. and my autistic peculiar tastes

I literally just managed to build a system so i never need to see the youtube website again. Its what made me wonder if i could do the same for Spotify

Nervyalloy5,
@Nervyalloy5@kbin.social avatar

Take a look at Musicroamer
you type in a favorite artist and it uses the spotify recommendation stuff to find similar artists
if you find one that sounds nice then you can then create a branch of artist that are similar to them
(probably a horrible explanation, just mess about with it for a minute and you'll get an idea how it works)

I've personally used it to find quite a few new favorites since ditching Spotify in favor of a self hosted Navidrome server

as for FLAC downloads check out Qobuz, which has unlimited DL plans
alternatively if you would rather sail the seas, search up Firehawk52 for a guide

HeavyRaptor,

I don’t know if there exists a solution with all your requirements. You could host your own music library via Plex or something, and aquire stuff via lidarr but this doesn’t have the instant availability of Spotify.

I’d probably use ViMusic (android) if we didn’t have a family apple music sub going. It basically uses the YouTube music backend. Super easy to set up and use, has on-device playlist and download support. I don’t think it does synchronisation though.

Saxoboneless,
@Saxoboneless@lemmy.world avatar

Hyperpipe (self-hostable YTMusic frontend) supports accounts, which allows for syncing between devices. It really needs an app on at least mobile for it to really be worth it though, as right now it can only be used through the web UI.

beerclue,

Does ViMusic support Android Auto? That’s a nifty find, thanks!

HeavyRaptor,

It seems there is a way to get it to work https://lemmy.zip/pictrs/image/741559ee-b8e4-4273-bbde-22c61e6ce0e1.webp

janguv,

What’s the bitrate gonna be on ViMusic though – is it whatever is on actual YouTube video uploads? I imagine that would be very lossy. I could be wrong. If it was ~320kbps I’d be all over it. That’s what I’m looking for really. Short of my current solution, which is Soulseek > cloud service storage > CloudBeats (Android app) for stuff I want decent quality of, and Spotify adfree using XManager for discovery and lower quality listening.

jack, (edited )

Most songs are between 130 and 160kbps

janguv,

Ah thanks for letting me know. Not ideal

HeavyRaptor,

I think YouTube music is different to actual YouTube but I’m not exactly sure. You can always just try it and see if it’s good enough.

Dasnap, (edited )
@Dasnap@lemmy.world avatar

I think a mixture of Jellyfin and Lidarr are what you’re looking for, but I haven’t tried out Lidarr personally. If it’s as good as Sonarr then it probably works well.

Jellyfin is a media server, so can be access from any device. Most use it for TV and films but its music player and library work well also.

-Arr services are used to crawl usenet/bittorrent trackers for different kinds of media.

I’d imagine the process for this would be you add an album you want to Lidarr, which will then look around for the audio files, use a downloader you point to in order to download it, and then move it into your Jellyfin library.

Edit: I’ve pointed at Docker repos because I’m a container whore but I believe they all have bare-metal builds also.

helenslunch,
@helenslunch@feddit.nl avatar

This person gave up on pirating MP3s because it was too complicated and the top suggestion is to start a homeserver. LOL you guys are woefully out of touch.

be_excellent_to_each_other, (edited )
@be_excellent_to_each_other@kbin.social avatar

I was an early adopter of Jellyfin and love it - but personally prefer Navidrome for my music server. Granted, I haven't looked at the music capabilities of Jellyfin in a long while, because I've been running Navidrome.

Symphonium android client is my recommendation for that (and I believe it also works for Jellyfin) but there are others.

My pipeline is essentially as you describe though Lidarr --> nzbget --> Navidrome

Dasnap,
@Dasnap@lemmy.world avatar

Never heard of it, but it does look nice.

I’d recommend OP tries kicking up both for a bit and pointing them both at the same music collection to see which they prefer.

banneryear1868,

deleted_by_author

    •
    be_excellent_to_each_other,
    @be_excellent_to_each_other@kbin.social avatar

    I was about to move from Plex to Emby when the whole controversy erupted, and I waited excitedly for it to be ready.

    Switched as soon as it was viable and have not regretted it one time.

    TacoNissan,

    I just set up navidrome after reading this, and I really like it, but it’s an absolute pain to install on windows

    be_excellent_to_each_other,
    @be_excellent_to_each_other@kbin.social avatar

    Ah sorry! I have only run it from within Docker on Linux. BUT, I'm glad you got it working!

    TacoNissan, (edited )

    Yeah, it comes as a command-line exe. you have to manually set it up as a service so it can autorun and have the right permissions. But I really do enjoy it so far

    watson387, (edited )
    @watson387@sopuli.xyz avatar

    I also use Navidrome and Symphonium, along with Wireguard.

    Damage, (edited )

    Same, Navidrome, Lidarr, Symfonium and Nginx reverse proxy. Plus last.fm scrobbling.

    But getting new music takes a while, I should probably try the OPS interview.

    be_excellent_to_each_other, (edited )
    @be_excellent_to_each_other@kbin.social avatar

    Plus last.fm scrobbling

    Every app seems to offer this. Why do I want this? I feel like I've been wondering this for like 20 years, but have been too afraid to ask lol.

    lea, (edited )

    It’s a music tracker + finder + social network. You can see how your taste changes over time. Personally my favorite feature is the weekly stats with a genre timeline.

    be_excellent_to_each_other,
    @be_excellent_to_each_other@kbin.social avatar

    Thanks!

    Damage,

    For new music suggestions

    be_excellent_to_each_other,
    @be_excellent_to_each_other@kbin.social avatar

    Thanks!

    deeznutz,

    Navidrome, symfonium, lidarr+soulseek, npm, and for scrobbling I use multi-scrobbler hooked into maloja.

    iso,
    @iso@lemy.lol avatar

    I checked out Lidarr and it only supports usenet and bittorrent. Unfortunately it won’t work for “local” music I think.

    Dasnap,
    @Dasnap@lemmy.world avatar

    Lidarr doesn’t need your whole library, just what you need to download. You can add your local music to Jellyfin alongside anything you get from -Arr services.

    I know when I’ve used Sonarr it’s also managed to parse my local library when I’ve added a series I’ve already downloaded to look for future episodes.

    iso, (edited )
    @iso@lemy.lol avatar

    Makes sense 🤔 I’ll check Jellyfin for music capabilities first and maybe then I can try Lidarr. Thank you 🤗

    Haphazard9479,

    What do you mean “local”? Lidarr is not a player. It looks at your already existing music files and pulls any missing albums from the list of artist you already have.

    iso,
    @iso@lemy.lol avatar

    Wrong word. I meant I’m from a 3rd world country and the music from my country can’t be found on public indexers. Not a native speaker 🤷‍♂️

    Dasnap,
    @Dasnap@lemmy.world avatar

    Haha, be careful with the word ‘local’ when talking about IT stuff. I took it as ‘local machine’.

    In terms of your actual tastes, I wouldn’t know where to recommend for that. I don’t do much music piracy myself outside of SittingOnClouds for game soundtracks that I then put on Jellyfin and YouTube Music (Nintendo put your fucking soundtracks on music services I swear to God).

    wccrawford,

    Unfortunately, I think “local” is the best word usually, just not when also talking about computers. I’ve tried to think of an alternative and haven’t come up with one. I think you need a phrase like “music from local artists” or something.

    Norgur,

    Yet, that's the exact opposite of Stremio for the music world. The point of Stremio is that you do not queue stuff, download it, save it all to your hard drive and all.

    Dasnap,
    @Dasnap@lemmy.world avatar

    Music Stremio would be cool, but I think hosting it yourself is the closest you can get with music while still retaining a decent user experience :/

    I guess they could also throw a load of adblockers onto YouTube? Ublock Origin, ReVanced YT Music etc. But that isn’t really ‘piracy’ at that point if OP is purposely wanting to avoid the actual big names.

    Norgur,

    I mean, the label doesn't matter in the end, does it? Like, it doesn't need.to be called Piracy to be worthwhile. If you use the big one's servers without any limitations but aren't paying them for it,.isn't that "avoiding the big one's" in a way?

    Dasnap,
    @Dasnap@lemmy.world avatar

    I’m not sure if OP is privacy focused, or doesn’t want their playlists tied to one service, or something like that; I’m just pulling assumptions out my arse.

    Dreyns,

    Yt-dl and use any media player, it’s the easiest way to get most of those option ticked.

    Aatube, (edited )
    @Aatube@kbin.social avatar

    yt-dlp, the p is important

    atom,
    @atom@lemy.lol avatar

    deleted_by_author

    •
    theshatterstone54,

    Janky setups, or functional setups? For Janky setups, sync manually. For functional setups, I’d suggest hosting your own Nextcloud instance and using it to sync your music library throughout your devices.

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