Plex has rolled out yet another update, this time focused on the Plexamp app. The new feature is called “Super Sonic” and it helps you build playlists of tracks and albums that are similar to the ones you are actively listening to by using an advanced neural network to compare the signature of various tracks to find those that sound sonically similar.
It takes the typical methods that normally only use metadata for matching and allows you to discover new match-ups that you might not have considered before. Not all tracks are labeled the same and the sound signature of each one can help discover artists and tracks you would have never thought to be similar.
This should allow Plex to better keep up with options like Pandora and vastly expand on your ability to create playlists with ease. For us, this is exciting since we have been patiently waiting for a user-friendly option that can be manually controlled via the apps that is at least somewhat similar to the artist “radio” features that Plex supports via Amazon Alexa. This fits that expectation quite perfectly.
Where songs are normally sorted by metadata created by humans (title, description, genre, year, album, artist, etc), Super Sonic takes it much further thanks to the AI analyzing each track, looking for various parameters that it can use to determine what is or is not sonically similar to another. It then uses this to offer the user multiple ways to build/start a playlist. Including “Related tracks”, “mixes for you”, and “Track and album radios”. It wouldn’t be surprising if this was born from the artist radio feature that Plex uses through Alexa as this sounds quite comparable (while so much better).
It does require some pretty hefty processing to chomp through your collection. The outcome is clearly worth any length of time waiting in order to make use of something like this. You also have a Plex Pass subscriber (let it be monthly, yearly, or lifetime). This is normal for most of their advanced features and the lifetime subscription is absolutely worth every penny (in our opinion) based on our own experience over the years.
