Alternative to iTunes for a mac?

[wolfer]

I’ve done a lot of cleaning, fixing and retagging my files using songkong. And I’ve been experimenting with synology itunes server, which seems simple enough, to store and share my music in the house. Except now Mac Catalina doesn’t support itunes without workarounds, and I’m not sure if I can get apple music to work with my itunes server or if I want to be stuck paying for itune match every year.

I want to be able to synch with my old ipods, listen on my ipad or phone, and stream to the apple tv connected to my stereo. I mostly listen to my own music and am not that interested in apple music or similar.

Seems like I have no choice but to subscribe to itunes match and might as well give up on synology itunes server.

What are my other options at this point?

[paultaylor]

Could you use something like Plex or UPNP server such as MinimServer to serve your music to different clients (UPNP Control Points). Don’t be put of by the rather dated MinimServer website, it can be configured to make excellant use of SongKong metadata - see guide at http://blog.jthink.net/2017/03/introduction-to-upnp-av-for-streaming.html

On a PC you can use MediaMonkey to transfer music to your iPod (that is what I do) . Im sure Macs must have an alternative to using iTunes but I dont have experience of them.

[wolfer]

Thanks!

Sure, I could use Plex. I use it for video. I also have a lic for MediaMonkey but never set it up to share music across devices. I guess it can connect to a Plex server and synch to my ipod on my win machine.

I’ll have to research a player for mac - looks like there’s a few. Or I just use plex.

I guess the good thing is the time I’ve spent retagging and trying to sort out my messy collection with songkong wont be in vain. I have a lot of garage, punk and psychedelic music that’s hard to impossible to find. Or they’re in compilations that have gotten messed up over the years.

thx