Step by step install guide for MusicIP on ReadyNAS x86

I can explain it, but it's not a trivial process; it requires SSH access to your NAS and at least passing familiarity with the Linux command line. And once you have a headless MusicIP server running on your NAS, you'll probably want to run the Spicefly Sugarcube plugin rather than the MusicIP plugin, and that's a minor pain, too (Sugarcube isn't free, and you need to install a License Manager plugin to authorize it). And every time you update the LMS addon, you'll need to SSH into your machine to make a small change to one of the files it installs.

The biggest problem with MusicIP, though, is getting its special tags into your files. The MusicIP song-matching servers have been down for a while -- it really looks as though it's permanent this time -- so you'll have to do the MusicIP analysis on your own machine. To do that, you'll need to find exactly the right version of the MusicMagic Mixer software that hasn't been distributed for years, and you'll need your files not to be in AAC or ALAC (or WAV) format -- FLAC or MP3 will work, so long as you aren't using the wrong version of MP3 tags.

You'll also need a lot of spare computer time: My 2.9GHz quad-i7 laptop can process around 20 albums per hour with its fans screaming and all 4 cores (8 threads) running at 100%. With the CPU utilization turned down to levels that didn't push the thing into thermal throttling, it took over a week to do the initial MusicIP processing of my collection, not including the numerous false starts and trial runs that were necessary to get the MusicIP tagging to work exactly right (and the full backup that I made just in case something went dreadfully wrong).

So... Unless you absolutely need your smart playlist generator to be MusicIP-based (and there are reasons you might, particularly if your collection contains a lot of original music or self-recorded live music, or if your collection is largely untagged or is tagged extremely poorly), you might want to try one of the other smart mixers. My favorite, which I use almost exclusively now (I hardly ever use MusicIP even though all my files have MusicIP tags and I've got a perpetual Sugarcube license), is Michael Herger's fantastic SmartMix plugin.

SmartMix uses The Echo Nest's remarkable technology, so it will stop working if The Echo Nest ever shuts off its public API, but until/unless that happens, it produces results as good as MusicIP with only a tiny fraction of the effort and setup time, and it doesn't require any modification of your files.

Details of the SmartMix plugin are here: http://www.herger.net/slim-plugins/detail.php@nr=1352&kategorie=slim-plugins

To install the SmartMix plugin, go to the LMS Settings:Plugins tab and add Michael Herger's repository (http://www.herger.net/slim-plugins/repo.xml) to the list at the bottom of the screen. You might have to check a box to allow 3rd-party plugins, but then it will appear and you'll be able to install it right from that tab.