Get all your own music on all of your devices for free with no adverts (up to 100,000 songs)!!
Wouldn’t it be great to be able to listen to music at any time simply by saying “Play my music”?
To get music for all your devices you have a few options.
- Subscribe to a music service and use their app to play the music. The popular music services are: Spotify, SoundCloud, Jango, Deezer, Amazon Music, Google Play Music, Apple Music.
(Some of the above are subscription based or free with adverts) - Copy your existing music (CD’s and files) onto the storage of all your devices and use an app to play your music.
- Copy your music once to a cloud provider and use their app to play your music on all your devices.
In this instance I am going to cover no 3 above using Google Play Music.
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Google Play Music
With Google Play music you have a Free option or a Subscription option.
Free: Upload your songs to Google Play Music. You are allowed up to 100,000 songs. There is no charge at all.
Subscription: The same as the Free option but for £9.99 per month you get ad-free on-demand streaming of over 40 million songs, unlimited radio and a subscription to YouTube Music. For £14.99 you can include the family of up to 6 members.
Subscription
To subscribe to Google Play Music:
- Website: https://music.google.com.
Make sure you are logged in with the SAME Google account you use on all your devices (Tablet, Mobile, Google Nest etc.). - Click the three stripes on the top left and click SUBSCRIBE
- Choose INDIVIDUAL or FAMILY and follow the prompts to set up your payment.
Now you can listen, play internet radio and watch YouTube Music video as much as you like and on any connected device which is logged in using the same account. You can also create playlists of up to 1,000 songs per playlist.
Use Google Play Music for Free
If you already own a CD collection, save yourself almost £100 per year and upload up to 100,000 songs to your Google Music account. Want to add more songs you don’t already own? – buy them directly from the Google Play Music Shop. If you are spending less than £100 per year on your new purchases you would still be scoring. Individual songs are usually £0.99 and albums between £5.99 and £10.99.
How to get your CD collection into your Google Play Music account
- Rip your CD’s to your Music Library on your computer
- Upload to Google Play Music
- Create custom Playlists
- Listen to your music on any of your devices.
Rip CD’s to your Computer
Preparation
What you will need:
- A computer with a CD/DVD Drive
- Windows Media Player on a Windowss computer or iTunes on an Apple computer. These are already installed. There are other software options, but these work fine.
- Music Manager (Software from Google)
- A collection of music CD’s (1 or more)
Get your existing music files and software ready
Below are my recommendations for a smooth experience and the best sound quality
Music folder on your computer
ALL files in your Music folder will be added to Google Play Music. If you already have stored music in your Music folder, it is important at this stage to delete or move unwanted songs to another location on your computer.
Windows Media Player
- Open Windows Media Player (Start>Windows Accessories> Windows Media Player)
- In the menu, click Tools>Options: select the Privacy tab>untick “Download usage rights automatically when I play or synchronise a file
- In the menu, click Tools>Options: select the Rip Music tab> under Rip settings>Format, select the drop down and choose MP3, untick Rip CD automatically, tick Eject CD after ripping, under Audio quality move the slider to Best Quality (320 Kbps).
- Click OK
- Close Windows Media Player
iTunes
Please see the following video which guides you through the process.
Transfer Music to Google Play Music
There seems to be three methods in uploading your music files to Google Play Music. Using…
- The Google Play Music web page (not recommended)
Click the 3 stripes on the top left>click + Upload music and drag songs from your Music folder using Windows Explorer or use the SELECT FROM YOUR COMPUTER button. - A Google Chrome Extension (not recommended)
Click the 3 stripes on the top left>Settings, scroll down to ADD YOUR MUSIC, click INSTALL. This then takes you to the Chrome Web Store>Google Play Music. Click Add to Chrome. Note: Be careful when using this extension as the default setting performs a scan of both the Pictures and the Music folders for audio files. You can unselect this option and change the selection to a custom folder – e.g. Music. - Music Manager (recommended)
(Windows, Mac and Linux)
Using Music Manager
Before ripping your CD’s make sure Music Manager is setup correctly on your Windows computer.
- Download Music Manager: https://play.google.com/music/listen?u=0#/manager
- Once saved in your Downloads folder, click on the downloaded file (bottom left of the Chrome window) and install the software.
- Sign in with your Google account
- For further options find the Music Manager options:
>In the System Tray, click the up arrow to show hidden icons (bottom right of the main computer screen), find the Music Manager icon, right click >Options>Advanced.
>Untick Start automatically when computer is restarted (recommended).
>You can sign in and out in the Music Manager should you wish to manage someone else’s Music. In this case store their music in a different folder and Change the location of the music collection on this same “Advanced” tab.
RIP your CD’s
Get ready to start ripping your CD’s
If you have followed the recommended guides above please follow this procedure:
Start the Music Manager before ripping your CD’s to your computer:
Start>Music Manager>Music Manager
Put your music CD into the CD/ DVD drive.
Opening Windows Media Player
If nothing happens when the CD is inserted, open Windows Media Player (Start>Windows Accessories> Windows Media Player).
If you get a prompt from Windows as to what to do when an audio CD is inserted into the drive, click Open with Windows Media Player. It may be opened in Now Playing mode. If this is the case, then switch to Library (icon at the top right of the Now Playing Mode window).
Selecting the songs to rip
In the Windows Media Player library a list of songs on the Audio CD will be displayed. Put a tick mark in the box for each song you would like to rip to your computer. You can sample each song simply by double clicking on the song.
Once you are happy with your ticked selection, click “Rip CD” in the player task bar which is found along the top of the Windows Media Player window.
The CD should eject when the ripping is complete. At the same time, Music Manager will detect new songs in the Music folder and automatically begin uploading these to your Google Play Music account.
Creating Play Lists
Open the Google Play Music website: https://music.google.com
You can now add either individual songs or albums (multiple songs) to a playlist.
You can create a new playlist on the fly as you are adding songs or use the Playlist drawer. The Playlist drawer is the icon at the top right with three horizontal stripes with the small right pointing arrow at the bottom stripe. Once clicked, click the + button to create a new playlist name.
Click on Music Library on the left task pane. Click on either the Albums or the Songs tab at the top. You can click the vertical ellipsis (three vertical dots) or right click on a song and select “Add to playlist” and choose a playlist.
Playlist name ideas
“Love Songs” for those romantic, candlelit evenings.
“Dance Music” for discos, dancing or parties.
“Relaxing Music” or something like that when its time to sit back and relax.
Listening to your music
Now you are ready to listen to your music.
What you will need to listen to your music
Any signed in device such as
- A computer opened on the https://music.google.com web site
- A tablet or smartphone with the Google Play Music app
- A Google Home or Nest mini
- Google Chromecast connected to a monitor or TV
- A good quality speaker or pair of speakers connected by cable or bluetooth to the computer, tablet, smartphone, monitor or TV.
Now simply give a voice command using the Google Assistant to play your music
E.G. “Ok Google, play [song name] [album name] [on [name of chromecast device]]”
Further commands you can use:
“Ok Google, play next”
“Ok Google, volume down”
“Ok Google, volume up”
“Ok Google, set volume to [number 1 – 10]”
Would you like help setting up your music?
We charge £1 per CD to upload to your Google Play Music account
We’ll upload all songs from each CD and it will then be up to you to delete the songs you don’t like and create your own playlists.
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