Topic: House Band -- Amazon Echo integration is available (Read 285711 times)

perry59 · « **Reply #550 on:** October 08, 2018, 03:17:01 pm »

in this case "enya" is a playlist, I'll try some albums or single tracks when I get home.
still curious why the webgizmo won't connect, perhaps I should set a static IP
Thanks

perry59 · « **Reply #551 on:** October 08, 2018, 09:14:09 pm »

well, some success.
when I asked alexa to start houseband and play "enya songs" she said too many to list.
when I told her to "play the enya playlist" that worked!
when I asked her to "play the album ten" she list several albums with number, but not that one (by pearl jam)
when I asked her to "play pearl jam" she could not find it.

I'll have to play with this some more!

sarkonovich · « **Reply #552 on:** October 08, 2018, 09:23:34 pm »

Yes, for playlists, you have to use the word 'playlist', e.g., "play my enya playlist", or "play the playlist enya"

For the last, you could try: "play the album ten by pearl jam"

Here are the rules!

If you say "play" with no modifier, HouseBand should play everything that matches that string, no matter where the terms show up (album title, track title, artist name, etc).

"play the album..."
"play the track..."
"play songs by..."
"play the playlist..."

will look for album, track, artist, playlist, respectively.
Generally, recognition is better with a modifier, because Amazon's AI is contextual. So if it hears keys music-related words, it will be biased toward artists, albums, etc.

perry59 · « **Reply #553 on:** October 08, 2018, 09:57:05 pm »

I'm learning, thanks!
she has trouble with "ten" by pearl jam I think because it is spelled out, not the number 10
so she started listing all my albums with a number in the title like 1984 by van halen, 2112 by rush, etc.
pretty cool though, I'll get the hang of it

Thank!

VenoM · « **Reply #554 on:** October 09, 2018, 08:39:42 am »

Hi,
Just a couple of quick questions that may or may not have been answered already (sorry if that's the case):
1. Will this work on the Sonos One (the one with the integrated Alexa support)?
2. Will this work with a JRiver Id on my home network to play on Sonos speakers around my home?

Thanks in advance!

VenoM · « **Reply #555 on:** October 19, 2018, 10:24:29 pm »

OK, So I took a (stupid) chance and purchased J River Media Center. Apparently, Houseband doesn't like Canadians.
It's been since this app has been out and we're still being neglected? I paid just as much for this ... s any American, as well as the same price for MC. I...

sarkonovich · « **Reply #556 on:** October 19, 2018, 10:42:29 pm »

Sorry. House band is not affiliated with JRiver. It's a 3rd party app that I really wrote for myself and offered to the community here. Unfortunately, I haven't had the time to actively develop it lately, so it's not available yet Canada (or Australia, or India.)

There have been several requests from Canadian users on this board that have made me want to put in the effort to release it in Canada. But I'm pretty sure it will happen anyway.

The folks at JRiver have been kind enough to offer some space here (like they do for other 3rd party plugins, skins, etc.) for me to do a bit of troubleshooting.

JimH · « **Reply #557 on:** October 20, 2018, 01:48:27 am »

Edited rude comments above.

VenoM · « **Reply #558 on:** October 20, 2018, 01:25:39 pm »

TRIGGER WARNING

Quote from: sarkonovich on October 19, 2018, 10:42:29 pm

Sorry. House band is not affiliated with JRiver. It's a 3rd party app that I really wrote for myself and offered to the community here. Unfortunately, I haven't had the time to actively develop it lately, so it's not available yet Canada (or Australia, or India.)

There have been several requests from Canadian users on this board that have made me want to put in the effort to release it in Canada. But I'm pretty sure it will happen anyway.

The folks at JRiver have been kind enough to offer some space here (like they do for other 3rd party plugins, skins, etc.) for me to do a bit of troubleshooting.

@Sarkonovich: Your efforts are appreciated by many, I'm sure, and they would be greatly appreciated by Canadians. Far too many times we're left in the dark and I'm fed up with it. Sorry for any misdirected rage.

Did you know we still don't have "follow up mode"? What's it been since it was released? A YEAR?? Unreal. Anyway, the sooner you can look at that, the better (if you can find the time)! I'm sure it's not even a real issue since we are basically just an extension of the US if you ask me anyway. The only difference is that one province here is primarily French-speaking, but that's no reason for Amazon to stall Alexa plugins. It baffles me as to how this feature is not baked into J River as a basic feature! We aren't playing vinyl here!!!

P.S.- Thanks, Jim, for editing my comment in favor of making me look like a disjointed idiot. Good thing you can't edit all the forums. ;|

(disclaimer: this comment may have been edited to reduce hurt feelings and/or put J River Media Center in a better light.)

sarkonovich · « **Reply #559 on:** October 20, 2018, 03:51:01 pm »

@VenoM

I should know more about this, but I know you can access the US store by changing your language settings to EN-US in the companion app. Also know this has some downsides (e.g., cannot access prime music for a Amazon.ca account), but maybe this the tradeoffs are worth it?

You can also assign two profiles two the device, which I think can each be associated with accounts from different regions. Then you can just say, "Alexa, switch profiles" to access the different stores. (I'm not really sure about this last one.)

Steve

VenoM · « **Reply #560 on:** October 20, 2018, 06:52:06 pm »

Thanks for your response, Steve.
The problem with that is that I will not be able to use the device for weather forecasts, which is one of my primary uses. Switching profiles will greatly degrade the convenience of the device and make it a pain to use, in effect. It's already a hassle to get the syntax correct in many cases.
Also, I understand how difficult it can be to find the time to work on these "non-essential" projects. Perhaps you could consider a modest usage fee? I'd be willing to pay for it if it weren't for the bad taste in my mouth over my dealings with Jim. I'll be looking for other solutions in all probability.

sarkonovich · « **Reply #561 on:** October 20, 2018, 06:54:28 pm »

Just use Big Sky. It's way better, and completely location agnostic. You can set your default forecast for anywhere, then just say "Alexa, big sky."

VenoM · « **Reply #562 on:** October 20, 2018, 07:15:52 pm »

I do, but I wasn't aware of that shortcut. Thanks!! Pretty cool.
(above post edited before our last two responses)

The only drawback with that method is that I'll get erroneous information if I ask more natural questions, like "What's the temperature outside".
Guess it's not a huge deal though. Just another annoyance.

VenoM · « **Reply #563 on:** October 27, 2018, 03:18:32 am »

Hi Steven, I was just wondering if you could clarify what's involved in making this available in Canada. I've been very curious about this for a while now. If it's not too tricky and you think there is a good chance that you'll get around to setting whatever variable needs changing at some point

, I won't bother continuing with the chargeback services dispute that I initiated with my credit card company for a refund for the software. "Houseband" was the main reason I chose to purchase the software. JRiver has some nice features, but the vast majority I would never use.
Thanks in advance for the info.

VenoM · « **Reply #564 on:** November 18, 2018, 09:51:18 pm »

It's been a while since I posted here. Just wanted to bump this in case you forgot about this thread.
Thanks

sarkonovich · « **Reply #565 on:** November 18, 2018, 10:12:41 pm »

@VenoM

Sorry I dropped the ball on this. Resubmitting it for approval in CA is easy. However, there is a 99.99% chance it will be rejected for various reasons, and it's at that point that things will take a awhile to address. So, I haven't resubmitted it because I know that when it gets bounced in a couple weeks, I won't have the time to fix the things that need fixing.

I wish I had something more helpful to say. I do fully intend to get back to this project, especially in light of the new Music Skill API that they've just released. But, in all honesty, it likely won't be until the summer.

I'm sorry. It's just a question of time!

Steve

VenoM · « **Reply #566 on:** November 19, 2018, 05:39:44 pm »

I understand and it wasn't my intention to hound you. I can totally relate to your lack of free time.
I'm really just curious about the differences between the US version and the Canadian one. I can't understand what would be so different about them. After all, we speak the same language and consume the same media even. Really puzzling.
Thanks for your reply.

sarkonovich · « **Reply #567 on:** November 19, 2018, 05:47:28 pm »

No worries. Actually, a little hounding is good!

There is no difference between CA and US at all. (Actually, there can be: there are features that can be used in US but not in CA, but this isn't the case for House Band.)

All the same points apply for resubmitting the skill for US. The process is a bit haphazard. If I submitted the skill and it passed, then turned right around and resubmitted, it very likely would fail. It can be a frustrating process!

Steve

DJLegba · « **Reply #568 on:** November 19, 2018, 07:24:33 pm »

One big difference is that Canada has two official languages and Amazon probably has to make sure the service is available in French and English before it is launched here.

sarkonovich · « **Reply #569 on:** November 19, 2018, 07:35:40 pm »

The Alexa service is launched in Canada, in both English and French. (These require separate certifications.)

Steve

VenoM · « **Reply #570 on:** November 19, 2018, 10:47:35 pm »

I sure as hell hope that this won't require you to learn French!

Reddy Kilowatt · « **Reply #571 on:** November 29, 2018, 10:03:21 pm »

So.... I got my new Echo Dot and House Band set up tonight. It works. Sort of. It successfully follows enough commands to assure me that I've set it up right. But beyond that, it's not performed well. I have 3 zones set up and it won't recognize my requests to change them. I even went as far as renaming the troublesome zone to a different name. It would tell me that Greatroom was one of the zones, but it didn't like me asking for it. I changed it to Main. Surely that would be easy to understand (and a real word!). Alas, it didn't work any of the dozen or so times I tried it. Similarly, it's been pretty horrible at getting to the right CD. When I requested of Alexa that she "Ask House Band to play Surfing with the Alien by Joe Satriani", she had no clue what to do. AC/DC didn't work. "For Those About to Rock" didn't work. "Dorina" didn't work. A lot more didn't work, than did. Does the Dot (or House Band) have to get used to my voice? Is there something else I need to do? Thanks.

sarkonovich · « **Reply #572 on:** November 29, 2018, 10:10:39 pm »

@Reddy Kilowatt

Sorry to hear about the experience. I need to go back and fine tune the voice model.

However, generally recognition is better if you use a command like:

"Play the album X by y"
"Play the song X"

etc.

I definitely remember testing on AC/DC a lot!
Did you go through voice training after the set up? (I think there is still voice training in the app.) That helps recognition.

Steve

Reddy Kilowatt · « **Reply #573 on:** November 29, 2018, 10:23:27 pm »

Quote from: sarkonovich on November 29, 2018, 10:10:39 pm

@Reddy Kilowatt

Sorry to hear about the experience. I need to go back and fine tune the voice model.

However, generally recognition is better if you use a command like:

"Play the album X by y"
"Play the song X"

etc.

I definitely remember testing on AC/DC a lot!
Did you go through voice training after the set up? (I think there is still voice training in the app.) That helps recognition.

Steve

Steve, I did do the voice training. That didn't resolve the zone issue. I'll try it a bit more and see what happens. Thanks for the response.

Moe · « **Reply #574 on:** December 16, 2018, 08:13:56 pm »

I recently got a new computer and replaced my Ver 1. Echo Show with an updated model. During all of this routers were unplugged, stuff was moved around, etc. Ever since the upgrade I cannot get House Band to work (which really sucks as it's by far my most used skill).

In the Alexa app it says that my library is synced.

If I say "Alexa, ask House Band to play". She responds with "Resuming music" but nothing actually happens.
If I tell her to skip, she responds with "Next track" but again, nothing actually happens.

What's even weirder is if I tell her to play the album "Moving Pictures" it says I have no album with that name. If I say play songs by Rush, she says I have no songs by the artist Rush. These two things are obviously false.

I have tried everything that I can think of.

I have disabled and re-enabled the skill multiple times.
I have generated a new access key
I have tried changing port numbers (and yes, my port is open and I have confirmed it is open)
I've tried restarting the computer, the echo, etc.

Any thoughts?

Thank you!

sarkonovich · « **Reply #575 on:** December 16, 2018, 10:21:46 pm »

Hmm. Sorry for the hassle.

My first thought is to make sure there's just one problem, and not several.

Can you view MediaCenter (or is it running headless?)
If so, see what House Band is doing. You can just watch to see if it plays anything, or even better, monitor the network traffic.

Make sure that House Band is controlling the correct zone (so it's not resuming music somewhere you're not hearing.)
As for not finding music you know you have, look at the card it sends and look at the search it's doing. You can copy that exact search into the search bar of media center and see what's up.

There's one thing that would explain all of this, though it's a long shot: you're controlling a different media center. You don't have more than one, or have a key that could associated with a different player?

Moe · « **Reply #576 on:** December 16, 2018, 11:14:34 pm »

I can view MC, I am not running it headless. Nothing happens in MC when I give it a command via house band. I am not sure how to monitor network traffic.

I don't use zones, I thought maybe that was an issue too, but if it is, I don't know how to deal with it. I asked "Alexa ask house band what are my zones?" and the response I got was "I'm sorry, I couldn't access your zone information, what should I play?

When I ask House Band to play the artist Rush, I get a card that says:

Search String(s) Used:
House Band
[album artist(auto)]=rush

There are no brackets around rush, so if I copy/paste it into MC it doesn't return any results, if I add [ ] around rush, it works as expected.

My setup is the following. I have an Unraid server that is running a Windows 10 VM that acts as my HTPC. This is the main computer running MC and the one I am trying to control via house band. I am utilizing library server and I have another computer in my bedroom that accesses the library hosted on the HTPC. None of this is new though, I have had this setup for over a year now. I did recently switch which computer hosted the library server, it used to be the computer in my bedroom and my HTPC connected to it, those roles reversed not too long ago. To be completely honest, I am not sure if house band has worked since that switch, I had some major computer issues and I just can't remember. House band always controlled the HTPC though, I never had house band controlling the bedroom computer.

I had the same thought about House Band connecting to some phantom media center. That is why I generated a new access key in my troubleshooting. The access key given to House Band is definitely the same access key listed in MC.

Moe · « **Reply #577 on:** December 16, 2018, 11:37:48 pm »

FIXED!!

I decided to reset the access key one more time. Reset the access key, restarted the computer, linked the account via Alexa app and it is working again!

There is a bit of a gotcha though. It was working fine with Authentication turned off. Once I turn authentication back on it stops working. The good news is I can turn on authentication as long as I have the "Read-only Authentication" set to "Everyone", if I have it set to "username and password" it stops working.

Happy to have house band back

markh56 · « **Reply #578 on:** December 17, 2018, 10:25:29 am »

I have same problem with authentication. Turn it off in Media Center 24, house band works. Turn it on in Media Center 24, house band doesn't find anything to play.
Media Center 24.0.68 (64bit). Thanks, Mark

markh56 · « **Reply #579 on:** December 17, 2018, 10:37:00 am »

Seems I also have the zone switching problem too. House band will only play on the zone currently selected in Media Center. If I switch the zone on the computer running Media Center then House Band will play to that zone. Can't change to a zone via House Band but Alexa does list my zones. Thanks.

datdude · « **Reply #580 on:** December 21, 2018, 11:23:25 am »

I had the same problem a long time ago. Turning off authentication makes everything work again. However that means I can’t make tag changes remotely.

datdude · « **Reply #581 on:** December 21, 2018, 11:26:15 am »

Another piece of feedback is that houseband is very verbose in its feedback particularly if it doesn’t understand you in which case it’s goes on this extremely long rant about what you should have said. Instead I wish it would just do nothing or at the very least just say ‘I didn’t get that’ and stop.

kfrank · « **Reply #582 on:** January 05, 2019, 12:50:16 pm »

I am also having the problem that house band does not work with authentication turned on.
When setting up the app I turned authentication off as instructed by the house band app. However the app also says that you can turn on authentication after you have set the skill up on alexa. When I turned authentication back on house band no longer works.
Has anyone found a solution to getting house band to work with authentication on??? ?

Moe · « **Reply #583 on:** January 05, 2019, 01:27:43 pm »

You can turn on authentication as long as you have the "Read-only Authentication" set to "Everyone".

dtune · « **Reply #584 on:** January 05, 2019, 02:26:42 pm »

It seems House Band skill for Amazon's Alexa is not available in Canada. I read somewhere that software developers can easily copy their US programming to the Canadian Amazon market. Will this be happening soon?

Thanks.

Denti · « **Reply #585 on:** January 06, 2019, 10:45:06 am »

I just can't get this to work consistently.

I turn off authentication to set up and it works. But once I turn authentication back on it stops working.

With authentication on I say "ask house to band play the album X" and it plays

With authentication off, Alex responds to this command with "no results matching, album name X"

nobody40 · « **Reply #586 on:** January 08, 2019, 06:54:17 am »

So currently with version 23 I can only play music on my computer and not through the speaker of my Alexa Echos?

Moe · « **Reply #587 on:** January 08, 2019, 11:21:41 am »

Quote from: nobody40 on January 08, 2019, 06:54:17 am

So currently with version 23 I can only play music on my computer and not through the speaker of my Alexa Echos?

Read the thread, House Band is not designed to play back to your Echos.

VenoM · « **Reply #588 on:** July 14, 2019, 09:34:36 pm »

@sarkonovich

Hey Steve,
I know Amazon doesn't believe that us Canadian rejects deserve the same treatment, respect and privileges as our American neighbors, but how is that English to English translation coming along for us less-fortunates up here north of the border?

ruze · « **Reply #589 on:** October 26, 2019, 03:09:23 pm »

The only thing I'm missing is playing the music directly to the Alexa device. That would be the killer feature for me! Appreciate your hard work for free however.

Edit: Seems you can add the ability to play fairly easily with the AudioPlayer interface: https://developer.amazon.com/docs/custom-skills/audioplayer-interface-reference.html

HamDog · « **Reply #590 on:** November 06, 2019, 10:17:49 am »

Another vote for Alexa playing directly from the device.

Purchased an "Amazon Echo Show 5" yesterday on a whim at local Amazon store since it was on sale. This will replace my alarm clock in the bedroom as it can wake me up to CNBC radio in the morning. I was really thrilled with I found this thread. Thought I could also play my JRiver playlists. But then I found the audio comes from the computer. Wish it could play directly from the Echo.

If it could, I would buy an Echo for every room, including the kitchen and bathrooms! Would be nice to have my playlists play as background music in some rooms. Would be awesome to give the command "Alexa, open House Band and play playlist Classic Rock" and it would play on whichever device that heard my command.

BTW, I had no problems linking accounts. After a little research (opening ports and turning off authentication) it worked flawlessly. Thanks to the developer for all their efforts.

TXgary · « **Reply #591 on:** November 06, 2019, 11:39:46 am »

HamDog
Your request can be handled by using MyMedia on Alexa. Install and export the playlists you want to use into a computer connected to same WIFI then simply say "Alexa, ask my media to play *****playlist". There is a charge for MyMedia, but something like $5 a year. Here is the site: https://www.mymediaalexa.com/
It works well. I only use a few of my many many playlists, but in theory you could export all playlists and point mymedia for alexa to the folder containing all your exported playlists and play any of those on any alexa connected to the same wifi.
It works well.

Moe · « **Reply #592 on:** November 06, 2019, 12:16:18 pm »

You can do the same for free with Plex as well.

HamDog · « **Reply #593 on:** November 06, 2019, 12:41:38 pm »

Quote from: Moe on November 06, 2019, 12:16:18 pm

You can do the same for free with Plex as well.

Thanks for the help! Been researching this topic further today and have found several apps that can catalog your personal music and play through echo devices. Plex is certainly a good option. What I really need is to play my playlists which have taken years to create in JRiver. And to complicate things further, these include many DSD files and tracks within an SACD ISO! This really complicates things. Still searching for viable solutions.

Moe · « **Reply #594 on:** November 06, 2019, 01:15:29 pm »

I have not used this, I am not big on Playlists, but you may want to check this out.

https://github.com/XDGFX/PPP

Moe · « **Reply #595 on:** November 08, 2019, 12:39:40 pm »

There is also this to import playlists https://soundiiz.com/tutorial/import-m3u-to-plex

Mike Foran · « **Reply #596 on:** December 26, 2019, 06:08:23 pm »

I'm jumping on this old thread because I’m not sure where else to go for this. Just got an Echo Show for Christmas, and went straight to the House Band skill. I’ve had a media server set up for years, with port forwarding and all that, and it’s been working great. I followed the directions, I turned off authentication and the skill linked to my server and was working great, until I re-enabled the authentication and then it stopped working. Instructions say I should be able to re-enable authentication once it links, and I don’t want to leave it off. Any advice?

Moe · « **Reply #597 on:** January 07, 2020, 01:09:10 pm »

Mike

You can turn on authentication as long as you have the "Read-only Authentication" set to "Everyone".

acampm · « **Reply #598 on:** November 06, 2020, 02:23:55 pm »

Ooh! I have been looking for something like this for years! Amazon seem to have knobbled the Plex skill a few days ago by stopping it from forwarding to the Echo Link, which even with an external DAC wasn't brilliant anyway (hence wanting something else). Thank you very much indeed!

I'd like to set up five players in a perfect life though, is that possible?

It's not the end of the world if it's just one, there is only one room where I am not sitting near a PC. Nice to add it to the lot though...

[Later]

Voice recognition nearly had me nearly chucking it out of the window, but in fact it's quite clever.

I particularly like that it displays on the screen what the useless piece of junk (Hi, Amazon) thinks I said. My standard test is to get Alexa to play the Album Loup Garou (French for wearwolf, voice recognition will end these stupid titles) by Willie DeVille. It normally takes me about five attempts to get Alexa to find that itself, but House Band just wasn't going to do it, ever. However, "Alexa, ask House Band to list albums by Willie DeVille" [...] "Select loop". Not bad. Same thing with Bob Geldof, Loudmouth, which it wants to render as Loud Mouth (idea, get it to try running words together if it fails on the first attempt).

Axedall · « **Reply #599 on:** May 01, 2021, 11:37:39 am »

Have really been enjoying this skill and appreciate all the work you've done. Is there a way to assign a star rating to tracks through house band? I searched the forum and couldn't find any mention of that. If you are still doing work on the app that would be a killer feature addition for me. If it is already possible and I just missed it then even better. Thanks again for making this available though!

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Author Topic: House Band -- Amazon Echo integration is available (Read 285711 times)