liquidWave testers wanted: Emby music + audiobooks, new Android Auto, optional Plexamp-style mixes

[kaj 351]

Hi all

I'm still looking for beta testers for liquidWave, an Android music and audiobook app for Emby. I've put a huge amount of work into it, and the latest release (beta.43) is mostly about one thing: making Android Auto look and feel properly good.

It's a complete music and audiobook app:

• Music: crossfade that skips silent intros and outros, a 10-band EQ, offline downloads, Google Cast, a home-screen widget, volume normalisation
• Audiobooks as first-class citizens: chapter-aware resume (back at the right chapter and position, even offline), variable speed, sleep timer, offline downloads
• A browser web app for non-Android devices

Android Auto, rebuilt in beta.43. It used to be plain text lists. It's now artwork tiles in four tabs:

• Home: Continue listening and Jump back in, then your Sonic Mixes
• Stations: the radios, plus every decade (60s to 20s) as its own one-tap tile
• Library: Albums, Artists and Playlists
• Audiobooks: a Continue listening row of the books you're part way through, so you can carry on in one tap

It works with no plugin at all. Point it at your Emby server and you have a fully capable music and audiobook player in about five minutes. Nothing else to install.

If you want the full "Plexamp replacement" experience, there's a one-time setup of the liquidWave Emby plugin and its small companion service (the setup guide walks you through it). It listens to your library once and learns what each track actually sounds like, not from genre tags. That adds:

• Sonic Mixes: auto-curated mixes grouped by how your music really sounds
• Track Radio and Similar: an endless queue from any track, or tracks, artists and albums that sound alike
• Sonic Adventure: pick a start and end track and it builds a journey that morphs between them
• Artist Mix Creator: pick a few artists, get sonically similar suggestions, and build a cross-artist mix

I've been running it on my own library for the last 4 to 5 months. Once it's set up you can set and forget: new music is analysed automatically as you add it. No account, no cloud, no ads, no telemetry. It all runs on your own hardware.

What I'm asking: install it from Google Play, use it on your own library for a couple of weeks, and tell me what's broken, confusing or missing. Blunt feedback is the most useful thing I can get.

Who I'd especially like to hear from:

• Android Auto users, on any head unit. Screen sizes differ, so tell me if the tiles are cut off or too small on yours.
• Audiobook listeners.
• Big libraries (50k+ tracks) running the sonic features.
• Anyone not on Android, for the web app.

You need Emby 4.8+.

To join (Google requires both steps, sorry; the group is how Play controls access):

1. Join the group: https://groups.google.com/g/liquidwave-testers
2. Then open https://play.google.com/apps/testing/guru.liquid.embysonic and tap "Become a tester"

After that it installs from Play and updates automatically.

[OPTIONAL: If you can, please join through Play rather than sideloading. Google needs 12 testers on Play for 14 continuous days before an app can go public, and only Play installs count.]

Sideloading the APK from GitHub still works if you'd rather not use Play.

It's a genuine beta: actively developed, with the odd rough edge. I read everything and fix what I can quickly.

A straight note: I build this with AI coding help (Claude), and I'm not going to pretend otherwise. It's also not a weekend project. I've used it every day for the last 4 to 5 months on my own library, in the car and on my motorbike, and it's the player I actually listen to. If it's not for you, no hard feelings. If it is, I'd love your feedback.

Thanks for reading

Setup guide and screenshots: https://playliquidwave.com