Music Libraries, Metadata, Lyrics and Playback

Add a music library#

Create a Music library from Administrator → Libraries and select one or more folders visible to the Finetic server. A scan reads supported audio files and their embedded tags, then records visible activity just as movie and television scans do.

Use stable album folders where practical:

Music/
  Artist/
    Album (Year)/
      01 - Track title.flac
      cover.jpg

Folder names help, but embedded title, album, album-artist, track, disc and date tags remain important. Correct those source tags when many files share the same wrong identity.

Artist and album identity#

The Artists view is for primary library artists. A performer credited on one track remains an appearance instead of becoming a misleading top-level artist with an invented album.

Finetic normalises spelling and multi-artist credits without hardcoding individual musicians. Album editions use their retained release identity, so genuine editions can remain separate while duplicate scan records do not become duplicate albums.

Browse and search#

Open Music → Artists to move from an artist to their discography and tracks. Pagination keeps growing libraries responsive. Global search includes songs as well as movies, shows, episodes, people, collections, artists and albums.

Starting playback from an ordered list preserves that order in the queue. This includes an artist's popular songs when provider ranking is available for tracks that actually exist in your library.

Metadata and artwork#

Embedded tags and local artwork establish the starting identity. Optional provider enrichment can add artist images, release facts and popularity data. Enriched values are retained in Finetic's database so normal browsing does not depend on a live provider request; an administrator can refresh stale or incorrect matches deliberately.

Provider results are evidence, not permission to invent media. Finetic only offers playback for files in the configured library, even when a provider describes other releases or tracks.

Lyrics#

Tracks can show plain or time-synchronised lyrics when a supported source returns a credible match. Time-synchronised lines follow the supplied timestamps. A plain lyric remains scrollable but is not presented as precisely synchronised, and poor provider timing should be reported rather than silently adjusted as if it were exact.

Player and queue#

The persistent player provides now-playing details, play and pause, seeking, previous and next actions, queue access and an expanded listening view. Closing the expanded view returns to the application without discarding the current queue.

Separate tabs remain distinct clients. Stale sessions are ended through heartbeat and completion handling rather than remaining indefinitely active.

Administration and evidence#

Music receives the same operational visibility as video:

• library activity records discovered and updated audio files;
• active playback identifies the track, user, client, progress and delivery method;
• completed and abandoned sessions leave active playback correctly;
• playback history and analytics include audio listening;
• administrators can distinguish source delivery from conversion when conversion is required.

Use the exact session and track when reporting a playback or metadata problem. Avoid sharing private filesystem paths or unrestricted server URLs.