Friday 6 January 2012

Adding Music to RunDouble

A common question we get at RunDouble is "How do I add music to the app".

Use RunDouble to play music from your phone

RunDouble uses the music stored on your phone, that is available in the Android Music player. It will also use any playlists you have created in the Android Music player. Other players, such as Google Music, often store playlists in different locations, and RunDouble is not able to read these playlists, however, it can use the music, so long as it is stored on the phone or SD card.

First of all, you have to get the music onto your phone. This varies from phone to phone, so you should consult with your device manufacturer, or phone manual. There are typically two ways you can do this:
  1. Remove the SD card, and put it in a card-reader. Then copy the music onto it. 
  2. Plug the phone in to your PC, using a USB cable. Sometimes this will automatically mount a drive, or Android will give you the option to mount it as a drive (depending on version). Copy the music to the drive.
No put the SD card back in, or unplug the phone. Open your music player and make sure you can play music.

Now, go into RunDouble. Click the "Edit Playlists" button at the bottom of the screen. The tabs at the top show Albums, Artists, Songs and Playlists. Using the first three tabs, browse for the tracks you want to add to your running playlist. Now, add them to a playlist:
  1. Tap and hold a track.
  2. Select "Add to playlist"
  3. Either choose and existing playlists, or tap "New" to create a new one.
  4. If a new playlist, enter the name, and press "Save"
  5. Continue to add songs to the playlists. 
You can also add whole albums and artists to a playlist at a time.

Now return to the RunDouble main screen. You should see your new playlist listed in the drop-down. Select it.

Using an external player

If you prefer to use a player such as DoubleTwist, Last FM, or Pandora Radio, then RunDouble will work in conjunction with these music apps. Simply open up your desired music app, either before, or immediately after starting your run, and start the music playing.

RunDouble sends a signal to music apps, requesting them to pause, or dip the volume during the announcements. Most recently updated music apps will honour this request.

28 comments:

  1. Does RunDouble work with Jango as a music app? Pandora, Spotify, etc are not available in Canada.

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    1. It should work with any external music player. The important thing is the the music player honours the requests to dip the volume or pause. If Jango doesn't support this, it's best to ask the developers to add it.

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  2. Is there a way I can set the music playing through the app to dip rather than pause during the voice info? I'm using a track that is designed for c25k and the pausing puts the track timing out. It used to dip but this had changed during an update. Thanks

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  3. At the moment no. We changed it so that people listening to a podcast wouldn't miss a section, but other people have requested to have dip back so we're going to make it an option in a upcoming version.

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  4. I have a music suggestion...can you add a feature to randomly shuffle among all music available on the player, rather than needing to create a playlist containing everything?

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  5. Does not work with latest google music player - boo

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  6. Does not work with music player installed on my Droid RAZR. :(

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  7. Hi Kristi. Yes you can the "Using an external player" section applies to internet radio apps too.

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  8. I've pinned music from Google Music to my phone but that doesn't work either :-(

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    1. Google Music doesn't allow other apps to access its music, even if you have pinned them. If you want to play your pinned music you'll need to play your music using Google Music before starting RunDouble. Then set the playlist to "" in RunDouble, and start your run.

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    2. should be: "External player / No music"

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  9. how do i disable my internal playlist so that i can use my external player? also does anyone know if grooveshark works with the pause/dips?

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    Replies
    1. On the main screen of RunDouble, tap the name of the current playlist at the bottom of the screen (next to the "Edit playlists" button), then from the list choose "External player / No music", which should be at the top of the list.

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  10. Does anyone know if Tune In works with RunDouble?

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  11. Some how a voicemail message from my phone plays when I start my run. I don't know how it got there and I don't know how to delete it. Can anyone help?

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  12. I cannot add music to my play lists - I click on a song, click add to playlist, then the screen where you select which list you want it in either flick ups and then disappears very quickly, too quickly to select anything, or simply doesn't show up at all. Twice when I have fully shutdown and then reopened the app, the first song I selected did provide the right prompts and allow me to add to a selected playlist, but after that, it has stopped working. And that doesn't even happen after every restart - sometimes it just doesn't work at all. Is this a bug with the app and is there anything I can do?

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  13. Run double worked perfectly with my playlist but after updating to kitkat it says its playing but no sound!

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    1. This is a bug in Android 4.4, and we're aware of the problem, and working on a workaround in the app. It should be released in the next couple of weeks.

      The fix is currently being tested in beta. You can get it now by joining the beta program.

      First join this community: https://plus.google.com/communities/103008083347264500250

      Then enable beta testing: https://play.google.com/apps/testing/com.rundouble.companion

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  14. "Plug the phone in to your PC, using a USB cable. Sometimes this will automatically mount a drive, or Android will give you the option to mount it as a drive (depending on version). Copy the music to the drive."

    To which Drive? Where is RunDouble looking for its information?

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    Replies
    1. To clarify, as a previous comment got lost, I've downloaded new music from Google Play and Amazon, but RunDouble is not offering it as options for playlist updates. I could try to move it via internal storage, but would like to know where it should go :-)

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    2. Most apps will not use the built in playlists in Android now, including Google Play music, so the playlist function in RunDouble is becoming less useful. We now recommend you simply start your music player running before starting RunDouble. It should still cooperate properly for the announcements.

      We don't seem to be receiving updates about comments here on the blog. We recommend email us for support at help@rundouble.com, or use the "Help" icon in the app.

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    3. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  15. Did the shuffle feature mentioned above eventually get added? I'd love to use it!

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  16. How do I adjust the sound level of the music. The screen did show one time, but now I can't find it.

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