[BETA] Ear Wax - NOW AVAILABLE - Testers Wanted

[ginjaninja 616]

2 hours ago, MarvinB said:

@ginjaninja

Hi, I havent heard anything from you lately, so I am checking in to see how testing is going and to update you on a few changes..

1) I have finally figured out how to shuffle a playlist from the beginning consistently.

2) and random playback is even more random before.

 

Give the above changes a listen 

Above all, send me your one off/edge cases, MAYBE just MAYBE, they can be addressed

Hi @MarvinB

That (improved random functionality) feels much better to me.

For me the next most important thing is easing the ability to play tracks.

I think the skill is onto something asking the user to re speak if not heard properly, it gives me hope of something more but so far that  just keeps the skill alive (which is promising and useful in itself). I wonder if the desired results can gradually be homed in on?

The chance of getting the skillname, trackname and artist name and keywords all heard properly is ~10%.
if the skill responded to track keyword / trackname with "which artist?/which Album?" and the user could specify "Artist None" (to remove artist filter) or "Artist Elton john" or "Album Honky Château" that might greatly improve recognition.

You said Alexa has to return something to user within X seconds, Could a holding song or message be returned whilst the skill did more heuristic matching when not sure and then interupt the holding session.

"Ask Alexa play X by Artist Y"

"No confident match found, searching....." to give the skill a bit more time?

 

If the skill could prioritise tracks where the artist is a member of album artists then you are more likely to get the best default version.

 

Other than that my next priority on wishlist would be  anything that can be done to improve recognition accuracy first time success. Make us of Musicbrainz search hints for odd sounding/spelt names https://musicbrainz.org/artist/7c20f558-d664-42bd-b6f1-81acf9dbb72d/aliases.

Could popular artist names and tracknames feed into an accuracy improving engine?

probably well past Alexa's capability/architecture but you did ask...:-)

[MarvinB 4]

@ginjaninja

 

Hi,

Can you help test a new Ear Wax artist lookup solution?

Please pick an artist that is definitely in your library, but Ear Wax currently cannot find. Do not use an artist that already works.

I suggest you skip T A T U because we fixed that one.

Then test in this order:

• Ask Ear Wax to play that difficult artist.

• If Ear Wax says it cannot find the artist, stop retrying that artist for now.

• Ask Ear Wax to play another artist that you know already works.

• Let at least 3 tracks play from the working artist.

• After the 3rd track has started, ask Ear Wax again to play the original difficult artist.

Please send me:

• The difficult artist name
• What Ear Wax said the first time
• The working artist you used
• Whether 3 tracks played
• What happened when you tried the difficult artist again
• The approximate test time

Thank you

[ginjaninja 616]

"Play artist belle and sebastian"

"There was a problem with the requested skills response"

Play artist u2

3 tracks

Play artist belle and sebastian

"There was a problem with the requested skills response"

u2 track keeps playing

 

10 minutes testing

 

I am seeing evidence of proper api search that would have returned "belle sebastian" Music Artist 1st  (and has been removed to help results)

but no follow  call on to find the tracks by Belle and Sebastian (id 25553)