This post is inspired by my friend Ben’s blog describing the separation anxiety he endured after his iPod spontaneously went kaput last week. Ben explains, “Since going totally digital the only way to listen to my music is through the iPod. Hook up in the house, FM transmitter in the car, headphones at work.” This got me thinking...
about the primary channels/devices I use to musically indulge. While the iPod is most certainly up there (I own two; a shuffle for exercise and a classic for capacity), it’s a far, far distant second to Subsonic, an application I use to stream music from my collection over any network, public or private.
Subsonic self-describes as “a free, web-based media streamer, providing ubiquitous access to your music.” WARNING - This post is about to explode into a nerdom supernova (wow, Firefox accepts “nerdom” as a legit vocabulary word!!!).
I run Subsonic from my Linux server at home…and by “server,” I mean a standard machine with restricted accessibility from the public internet. Nothing crazy or fancy…just a highly configured black box sitting in my living room. My music collection (currently 176GB, but expanding daily) is replicated on two 1TB drives that are attached to the server. Through any old web browser (if you’re not using Firefox, you should start today) anywhere in the world, I can browse / search my entire collection, create/organize playlists, edit tags, download albums/songs/podcasts, upload new material to the collection, and most importantly, stream music to any network connected computer. I use Subsonic to listen at work, on the road in hotels, and to stream music to other rooms in our condo (e.g. playing dinner music from the guest bedroom speakers). Here is a screenshot of my system to help you visualize: 
It even scrobbles the tracks I play to the popular Last.fm social music service (I have almost reached 31,000 songs scrobbled). And in case you didn’t pick up on it earlier…Subsonic is entirely FREE. It’s developed and maintained by a dude in Norway named Sindre. He releases new versions a few times per year, and is highly responsive on the troubleshooting forums should you run into a snag. Setting up a Subsonic server is not for the technically challenged, but it might be more doable for those of you running that stale pile of shit named Windows.
Here’s to you, Subsonic, for keeping my collection proximate no matter where I am in the world. SHOUTOUT OUT!
