Amarra Playlist Woes

[DancingSea]

Aloha - I'm auditioning Amarra (the $99 version) and Audirvana Plus. With Amarra's playlist mode, when I select multiple tracks from an iTunes playlist, from a variety of artists and albums and click "Add iTunes", Amarra only imports the first track. I can select 300 tracks, it will only import the first. I tried to make an Amy Winehouse playlist on Amarra, selecting 18 tracks from 3 albums. Amarra imported all the tracks from just one of the 3 albums, not the just the tracks I selected, but the entire album, and ignored the other 2 albums entirely. I had to import all 3 albums separately, in their entirety, and then delete the unwanted tracks.

 

I see nothing in Amarra's preferences that control how playlists are imported. While I like both players, I lean towards Amarra's sound quality as Audirvana is a tad bright. But the idea of converting my iTunes playlists to Amarra's playlist mode via the steps above is a disturbing, and tedious thought.

 

Also, with Amarra, is there a shuffle option for its Playlist mode? If yes, how does one turn it on?

 

Any advice would be appreciate. Thanks.

[DancingSea]

I just upgraded to El Capitan, hoping that would fix things, it has not.

 

How do you other Amarra uses bring iTunes playlists, or multiple tracks (I tried 900) from iTune into Amarra's Playlist feature?

 

I can't imagine everyone is unable to drag full iTunes playlists into Amarra as there would be much talk about it on this forum.

[DancingSea]

Amarra seems to only want to add multiple tracks to its Playlists from iTunes if all the tracks come from the same album. When I selected 900 songs to be added from iTunes, Amarra just picked the first alphabetical song and ignored the rest. Is this normal?

[sockpit]

What's normal for amarra is bugs. Playlist weirdness may be the least of your future woes. Audirvana might be worth the small hit in sound quality you perceive.

[DancingSea]

Thanks, you may be right. The attraction to Amarra is the ability to use their fancy sound engine and skip iTunes altogether. Perhaps 1/3 of my listening is album only with no shuffle, etc. Amarra Playlist mode seems to have even less functionality than Fidelia, which is saying something.

 

Is there a proven, documented way to make Audirvana less bright? The highs sound a little harsh to me at times. I like the way both Fidelia and Amarra sound, they are just both irritating to use thus far. I'm not a sound techy, thus I'd need someone's Audirvana recipe to for me to follow to make it more smoothe.

[GregWormald]

I like Amarra.

This works for me with Amarra set to: Cache, Amarra, Playlist, Tracks

1 Make a playlist in iTunes

2 Select the playlist.

3 Select all the songs in the playlist.

4 Click the "ADD" button in Amarra.

5 Play.

 

or:

1 Select album in iTunes.

2 Select tracks.

3 Click "ADD" in Amarra.

4 Continue to next album and repeat.

5 Play.

 

or:

1 Select multiple albums in iTunes.

2 Select multiple tracks from those albums.

3 "ADD" in Amarra.

4 Play

 

Greg

[DancingSea]

That sounds lovely. It just not performing that way for me. Only adds one song, or one album to the Amarra Playlist. Unable to drag multiple songs from different albums. Wish I knew why as its a deal killer for me. Disappointed as I really like Amarra's sound

 

I like Amarra.

This works for me with Amarra set to: Cache, Amarra, Playlist, Tracks

1 Make a playlist in iTunes

2 Select the playlist.

3 Select all the songs in the playlist.

4 Click the "ADD" button in Amarra.

5 Play.

 

or:

1 Select album in iTunes.

2 Select tracks.

3 Click "ADD" in Amarra.

4 Continue to next album and repeat.

5 Play.

 

or:

1 Select multiple albums in iTunes.

2 Select multiple tracks from those albums.

3 "ADD" in Amarra.

4 Play

 

Greg

[GregWormald]

That sounds lovely. It just not performing that way for me. Only adds one song, or one album to the Amarra Playlist. Unable to drag multiple songs from different albums. Wish I knew why as its a deal killer for me. Disappointed as I really like Amarra's sound

 

You need to have iTunes showing Songs on the sidebar and then you can sort by albums (or at least that's what I've found).

iTunes 12.1.4.6 requires the update from the Sonic Studio website!

 

I'd also be checking with Sonic Studio that this is not a limitation of the trial version.

 

If it's not, then re-download the trial and check again.

 

Re-start the computer to make sure all is installed correctly.

 

The next step, if the above doesn't work, is check that your system software is working correctly.

 

Greg

[DancingSea]

You need to have iTunes showing Songs on the sidebar and then you can sort by albums (or at least that's what I've found).

iTunes 12.1.4.6 requires the update from the Sonic Studio website!

 

I'd also be checking with Sonic Studio that this is not a limitation of the trial version.

 

If it's not, then re-download the trial and check again.

 

Re-start the computer to make sure all is installed correctly.

 

The next step, if the above doesn't work, is check that your system software is working correctly.

 

Greg

 

Aloha Greg - your suggestion worked. I deleted Amarra 3.0 and re-downloaded the trial. Now I am able to add multiple tracks to Amarra's Playlist mode, though it gave an error message saying only 250 tracks can be in a playlist - which in typical style proved to be only 150 tracks in reality.

 

In El Capitan, had trouble getting Airplay to work, but figured out hitting "option" while clicking on the speaker icon in the menu bar allowed Airplay to be selected.

 

Is there anyway to get Amarra to shuffle while playing a playlist in it own Playlist mode? On certain playlists, in my way of listening, shuffle is preferred at times. I read the Amarra manual and didn't see shuffle mentioned, though it shuffles freely when integrated with iTunes.

 

Thanks again.

[Amarra_Support]

Aloha Greg - your suggestion worked. I deleted Amarra 3.0 and re-downloaded the trial. Now I am able to add multiple tracks to Amarra's Playlist mode, though it gave an error message saying only 250 tracks can be in a playlist - which in typical style proved to be only 150 tracks in reality.

 

In El Capitan, had trouble getting Airplay to work, but figured out hitting "option" while clicking on the speaker icon in the menu bar allowed Airplay to be selected.

 

Is there anyway to get Amarra to shuffle while playing a playlist in it own Playlist mode? On certain playlists, in my way of listening, shuffle is preferred at times. I read the Amarra manual and didn't see shuffle mentioned, though it shuffles freely when integrated with iTunes.

 

Thanks again.

 

Hi All,

I just wanted to step in here and clarify the issue that DancingSea was likely running into. My bet is that the Preload Album preference was set initially which is designed for loading a gapless performance on the same album. With Preload tracks set, Amarra will load tracks until it sees a track on a different album and then stop. If you have a random playlist, that will likely happen after one track. If you have a full album in a playlist, just make sure it is sorted in the correct order in Songs View of iTunes.

 

When you re-install Amarra, the Preload Tracks preference is cleared. It is also cleared by Deleting Preferences (click on Applications->Amarra 3.0->Extras->Delete Amarra Preferences.command)

 

As for shuffle mode, we do not have that feature available in Amarra playlist mode.

 

Regarding Airplay with El Capitan, this is an El Cap issue. The common resolution is to open System Preferences->Sound->Output and select your Airplay device. Once you do this, it should show up in Audio Midi Setup and also in Amarra to be selected as your output device.

 

Hope this helps

best

Ralph

[DancingSea]

Hi All,

I just wanted to step in here and clarify the issue that DancingSea was likely running into. My bet is that the Preload Album preference was set initially which is designed for loading a gapless performance on the same album. With Preload tracks set, Amarra will load tracks until it sees a track on a different album and then stop. If you have a random playlist, that will likely happen after one track. If you have a full album in a playlist, just make sure it is sorted in the correct order in Songs View of iTunes.

 

When you re-install Amarra, the Preload Tracks preference is cleared. It is also cleared by Deleting Preferences (click on Applications->Amarra 3.0->Extras->Delete Amarra Preferences.command)

 

As for shuffle mode, we do not have that feature available in Amarra playlist mode.

 

Regarding Airplay with El Capitan, this is an El Cap issue. The common resolution is to open System Preferences->Sound->Output and select your Airplay device. Once you do this, it should show up in Audio Midi Setup and also in Amarra to be selected as your output device.

 

Hope this helps

best

Ralph

 

Yes, this all did help. I can now add multiple tracks. But Amarra will not allow more than 150 tracks in a given Amarra Playlist. Is there a work around for that?

 

Without shuffle, and with only 150 tracks per playlist, I will likely pass on Amarra 3.0 and just get the less expensive Hi-Fi version, which has the same sound engine. Approximately 70% of my listening is with very large playlists on shuffle. My album listening is mostly live HD recordings, The Grateful Dead, etc. Leaning towards getting Fidelia for the live stuff native FLAC playback, and utilize Amarra HiFi's great iTunes integration for the other. If Amarra 3.0 allowed shuffle and large playlists, would just get it. Hopefully that will be in a future feature.

 

Will search for Audirvana advice to tweak its brightness, which does not work well in my particular system. Otherwise, Audirvana's UI and functionality are excellent, the best of the bunch by far.