Support NeoGAF

[Serra]

Another useless feature for desktop users.. Why would I use this over foobar on my 2nd (or third monitor)?

 

[Shambles]

Another useless feature for desktop users.. Why would I use this over foobar on my 2nd (or third monitor)?

Obviously you wouldn't...

 

[BennyBlanco]

i hope this means more games will start coming with their OSTs at no extra cost like GOG and humble do

 

[tatsuki]

With Steam Music, you can now listen to your music collection while playing games

Thanks Steam. Now I don't have to waste time opening a preferred music player. It was becoming too much of a hassle.

 

[soultron]

Another useless feature for desktop users.. Why would I use this over foobar on my 2nd (or third monitor)?

It seems the intention is mainly for Big Picture mode and/or Steam Box systems right now.

And if non-Steam OS/Big Picture support includes quick access to Steam Music features via the Steam Overlay, that'd be pretty slick. Especially for games that don't have borderless fullscreen modes; meaning you'd have to ALT+TAB out to get whatever non-Steam music player you're using.

 

[MaLDo]

How does this compare versus alt-tabbing to run Spotify or Google Play Music?

That's the reason why steam music is a feature for BigPictureMode and not for regular steam client.

BigPicture is a mode for gamepad users and you can't alt+tab with a gamepad (at least without using PGP or xpadder, you know).

 

[Deband]

I'll check it out, but I can't see it replacing Winamp. It's unlikely to have most played or new added tunes lists.

 

[Dr Dogg]

Very cool sounding so far. Though I feel this will have a lot more potential going forward than for legacy titles. Loving the amount of betas recently.

 

[ashecitism]

Just got the invite. Check your mails.

 

[dex3108]

I am in.

 

[Phil4000]

Just got the invite. Check your mails.

Signed up a day and half ago, no email yet
Still need to try out the in-home streaming!

 

[DXLelouch153]

Valdis Story + Revengeance music
awwwwww yeah
edit:after playthroughs without it, cause the ingame music is too good to not listen to atleast once

 

[Phil4000]

So exciting, Steam sure is adding lots of features lately!

 

[jediyoshi]

Another useless feature for desktop users.. Why would I use this over foobar on my 2nd (or third monitor)?

You clearly skimmed over that part in the press release.

 

[ashecitism]

announcement page

http://steamcommunity.com/groups/steammusic#announcements/detail/1498873168504761775

We're happy to announce that anyone running SteamOS will automatically have access to the feature once they opt to participate in the Steam Client Beta (via System Settings.) Others may express interest in beta participation by joining the Steam Music group. Members will receive email invites in waves, until the feature is released to everyone.

Why is Valve adding music features to its Steam client?
For years, customers have been asking us to provide a basic way for them to access and play music while in-game. Task-switching between resource-intensive 3D games and other desktop apps has never been a graceful experience for gamers, so an in-game player can help by eliminating that pain point.

Beyond addressing this context-switching hurdle, we see an opportunity to broaden Steam as an entertainment platform which includes music alongside games and other forms of media. With our ongoing efforts to make Steam accessible in the living room with SteamOS and Steam Machines, the timing feels right for us to make an investment in this broader picture.

Why build a local music player when streaming services have become the status quo?
Like many new features of Steam, we’ve aimed to introduce a basic, reasonable set of features to begin a beta. With your beta feedback in mind, we hope to build more features, creating the experience that’s most compelling to our customers. Interested in some sort of streaming music experience? Let us know what you're looking for in the discussions.

Hey, where is the desktop user interface?
On its way!

Does Steam Music work with In-Home Streaming?
When connecting to a remote computer to play, you can also stream its music files via the Steam Overlay.

read the rest at the link

from SteamDB

Don't tell anyone, but if you launch Steam with the -steamos launch parameter you get access to the Music Beta. #secrets

lol

 

[dex3108]

If you exit from BP mode while music is playing it will continue to play without any problem but there is no way (at least i don't see it) to control player XD

 

[ashecitism]

Well yeah, desktop support will take care of that. Hopefully it won't take long.

 

[ashecitism]

beta update:

Improved handling of display of huge music libraries
Better handling of huge or broken cover art
Improved album cover handling if no cover is available
Selecting Artists in Artist Library now possible with controller
Show context menu on right mouse click when selecting album instead of just playing the album
Volume is now clickable with the mouse, and should be persistent after restart

 

[ashecitism]

update:

Simplifying Library Setup
Crawling Drives should work now on Windows
Putting API in place for the next SteamWorks SDK update

I hope desktop version will get in soon

 

[ashecitism]

update:

Improved crawling speed
Respect multiple albums in one directory and respecting disc number if available in tag data
Better handling of faulty tag data
Faster display of album and artist library views
Music features now available while offline
Duplicate artists bug fixed
Better compatibility with MP3 files containing cover art of unusual or big sizes
Database overhaul improves data quality; requires one-time automatic rebuild of beta testers’ libraries

 

[ashecitism]

update:

Making Steam Music available to everyone using a Steam Beta Client
Introducing user interface to Steam Music for the Steam Client
Improved crawling of music files
Enabled media keyboard keys on Windows

 

[Deft Beck]

This sort of feature is useless for me, as a Spotify subscriber, but it's nice that it's there.

 

[Arkanius]

Still no FLAC support?
.flac am cry

 

[cheststrongwell]

Great, more bloat.

 

[ashecitism]

Still no FLAC support?
.flac am cry

Yeah, after all these months this is just a small incremental update.

 

[Htown]

Great, more bloat.

Nobody is stopping you from putting Steam in Small Mode and just launching your game from a list if you want.

 

[Denton]

Great, more bloat.

Great, more functionality I might use.

 

[Doctoglethorpe]

Wait so.. are they adding it to the desktop client now? Update's wording is confusing me.

 

[The-Bean]

Wait so.. are they adding it to the desktop client now? Update's wording is confusing me.

Yes.

 

[TimFL]

Wait so.. are they adding it to the desktop client now? Update's wording is confusing me.

It's available in the desktop version. The settings part is in your settings menu and you can access your music via the library (change the filtering to Music) or open the music player via the View dropdown menu.

It looks HORRIBLE though...

 

[Visualante2]

I wish they spent the time overhaulin' the client instead of adding more stuff tbh.

Felt this way for a couple years now. Since they added chat tabs I guess.

 

[baterism]

Thanks Steam. Now you reminds me that I can play music on computer. I usually play it on my phone even while I'm using computer.

 

[Nzyme32]

Could really do with them getting round to implementing support for stuff like m4a and flac. I'm missing a good chunk of my library. I do like the slightly slicker BPM though

Thanks Steam. Now you reminds me that I can play music on computer. I usually play it on my phone even while I'm using computer.

whooooosh

 

[MarionCB]

Hopefully they'll use this as an opportunity to slip in automatic audio switching when entering Big Picture mode, like the existing video switching. A tiny thing, but it would make such a big difference.

 

[Elija2]

Yes.

Sweet. Is it accessible in-game in the Steam Community overlay? I didn't like using Steam Music before because Big Picture runs like shit for me so I'm glad it's in the desktop client.

 

[The-Bean]

Sweet. Is it accessible in-game in the Steam Community overlay? I didn't like using Steam Music before because Big Picture runs like shit for me so I'm glad it's in the desktop client.

Yeah there's a link at the bottom of the overlay next to web browser that opens the pop-up player. You can't seem to select different albums from there though, only play through songs/albums you added to the queue in the client.

 

[Doctoglethorpe]

It's available in the desktop version. The settings part is in your settings menu and you can access your music via the library (change the filtering to Music) or open the music player via the View dropdown menu.

It looks HORRIBLE though...

Checked it out, its not that bad. Once I get to the band I want, I like the layout. Itsj ust finding the band that sucks. Needs a more organized list, like cover art tiles, alphabetical splitting, and give the whole thing its own page instead of burying it in Library. If they did that, I'd use it as my default player.

 

[Elija2]

Yeah there's a link at the bottom of the overlay next to web browser that opens the pop-up player. You can't seem to select different albums from there though, only play through songs/albums you added to the queue in the client.

That's kind of weird. I guess I'll hold off until they improve it some more.

 

[Li Kao]

I can't for the life of me find anything music-related. Been looking for several minutes but nope. I'm in the beta, I tried in the desktop and BPM settings.... nothing.
Oh and I tried to opt-out and in the beta again.

I'm puzzled.

 

[Doctoglethorpe]

So I played some songs and then it suddenly hit me.. I can't skip around to different parts of a song... that's pathetic. Guess its called beta for a reason? I wish they would make a solid media player, for video too. And sell music and movies while there at it, oh steam sales for tv shows, hell yeah, Just get all my entertainment in one client. But man, this music player is actually half-assed to hell the more I look at it. Gonna need a better effort then that for them to take over my computer.

 

[Exuro]

This sort of feature is useless for me, as a Spotify subscriber, but it's nice that it's there.

I'm pretty sure it's going to have spotify integration in the future.

 

[cheststrongwell]

Nobody is stopping you from putting Steam in Small Mode and just launching your game from a list if you want.

I already use small mode, which is a bloated mess compared to how it used to run. Instead of screwing around with this big picture mode, I wish they would fix the original client.

Edit:I sound like a grumpy old man.

 

[ashecitism]

They just posted the announcement in the group and it seems the open beta isn't live yet? Could anyone who wasn't part of the beta check it out if opting into the client beta gives access to it?

edit: I see they removed that part from the client beta changelog

edit2: okay now it's back

 

[ashecitism]

update:

This update will recreate the music database, and an automatic recrawl of the music files.

Playlists
Music Library in 2’ overlay
display of track positions, track count and overall duration in albums and playlists
display of discnumber if discnumber is >= 2 in album title
removal of ‘Play Next’ functionality
crawling improvements: Artists names are case insensitive now
several user interface fixes and improvements

 

[ashecitism]

update:

Scanning for music inside Steam directories
Music Queue is persistent between sessions, and gets loaded after a restart of Steam
Fixing crash during scanning, when the artist name is the empty string
User interface improvements

 

[ashecitism]

update:

Implemented 'Repeat Once' to repeat one song
Added functionality to automatically search for soundtracks when games are installed or deleted
Fixed several context menu labels

 

[ashecitism]

update:

fixed automatic removal of soundtracks if their game is removed
fixed display of discnumber in album titles in Big Picture
added Music Player in the task bar menu on Windows
implemented steam://musicplayer/play and similiar commands
tweaked user interface

 

[ashecitism]

It's available to everyone now.

 

[ashecitism]

From SteamDB: How to download soundtracks on Steam without downloading the whole game

Edit: it works but the music doesn't show up in the music player. I added the Steam/steamapps/content folder to the music library and now it is perfect. But you should add this to your list otherwise some poeple wonder where the music ends up.

 

[anthn]

Display/Sort by folder, FLAC playback, and Spotify support would make this a gem.