Web User - UK (2019-05-29)

Tweak the Spotify equalise r to get the

bestsound for your ears

Go one louder when the volume on your

device isn’t enough

Go behind the music

with Spotify’s new

Storyline feature

The Missing Manual

COVER

FEATURE

29 May - 11 June 2019 41

your liking by going to Settings, Car,

Car View.

Car View was introduced on Android

at the beginning of th is year andit’s

now available on iOS, too.

Improve sound usingthe

equaliser

The Premium version of Spotify offers

an equaliser, which lets you tweak and

improve how songs sound. You can

boost or reduce th e bass or treble, for

example, or choose one of th e presets

designed for specific types of music –

Classical, Dance, Electronic, Pop,

Hip-Hop, Jazz, R&B, Rock, Spoken Word

and so on. If you want a more hands-on

result, you can drag the points in the

equaliser graph until it soundsjust right.

To access the equaliser on mobile, go to

Settings, Playback (in iOS) or Music

Quality (Android) and tap Equaliser.

Adjust the volume for your

location

If you’re in a noisy environment, you

may find that tu rnin g up the volume on

your device still doesn’ t provide enou gh

power for you to hear your music. To

address this, Spotify has a feat ure for

Premium users that lets you set a higher

basel ine volume for your songs. In the

desktop player, open Settings and,

UNLOCK SECRET FEATURES

under Music Quality, toggle Normalise

volume on oroff. Next to ‘Volume level’,

you’ll see thre e options – Loud (which

reduces the dynamics of your music but

cranks things upfor a noisy

environment), Normal (the default

setting) and Quiet (good for a quieter

environment – at home, for example –

and with more dynamic levels). You can

access these settings onmobile by

going into Settings in Andr oid, or

Settings, Playback in iOS.

Remove the gaps between songs

Spotify provides a couple of waysfor

you to remove the silence between

songs. Open Settings, then open the

Playback se ction. Crossfade mixes

tracks together – as on e comes to

an end, the next one starts – and you

can adjust the fade leng th by up to

12 seconds. The other option is to

enab le gapless playback which, as you

can guess from the name, removes

the gap between songs.

Discover the stories behindsongs

Spotify lets you

view the lyrics for

songs and also has

a ‘Behind the

Lyrics’ feat ure,

revealing extra info

you may not have

known about the

current track. Just

open the song’s

pagein Spotify on

mobile and drag

upward s on the

Lyrics option at the

bottom. Spotify is

also cu rrently

testing an

additional Stories-

like feat ure called

Storyline, which

you’ll find under

Behind the Lyrics

on some songs, such as Billie Ellish’s

‘Bad Guy’. This reveals thoughts and

comments on the current track by the

recording artist or band.

Import and play your own music
collection
Spotify currently has more than 40
million tracks you can listen to on
demand but if that’s not enou gh, you
can also use the service as a media
player for music files stor ed on your
hard drive. This means all those years of
building an MP3 collection need n’t have
goneto waste, although Spotify warns
that “Files or downloads from illegal
sources are not permitted”.
To import your own music into the
Spotify desktop app, open Settings,
scroll down to Local Files and toggle
Show Local Files to On. It will include
songs stored in Downloads and your
Music Library as well as iTunes , if
instal led. You can enab le or disable any
of th ose locations and adda differen t
source. Spotify suppor ts MP3, M4P and
MP4 formats.
To access locally stor ed songs on your
phone or tablet,you needto add local
files via the desktop app (as described
above), add those tracks to a playlist
and then stream that playlist onyour
mobile device.

Switch to Car Viewwhendriving
If you connect your smartphoneto yo ur
car via Bluetooth so you can listen to
your favourite tunes when driving, you’ll
be delighted with Spotify’s Car View
mode. This makes it easier to control
music from behind the wheel (not that
you should be fiddling with your phone
when driving, of co urse) by removing
album art and incr easing the size of th e
text and controls. The app switches to
the new layout as soon asSpotify
connects to yo ur car’s Bluetooth, but
you can disable this option if it ’s not to

You can

streamyour

own music

collection

through the

Spotify app