How to mute Spotify adverts Part 2: Let's get hardcore.

Note: this is a continuation from part one of how to mute Spotify ads on OS X, where I explained in greater detail how to mute the adverts. Please read both sections together for the complete picture.

Spotify is really starting to grind my gears. Firstly, they yank a whole lot of music from the service and post a lame apology.

Don’t they realise that the negative sentiment caused by removing a few of my favourite tracks far outweighs the positive sentiment that I feel about the service in general? Yes, it’s unfairly biased, but that’s basic psychology, bitches.

Also, I say “a few of my favourite tracks”, but let’s be honest, it’s a bit more than a few. Pitchfork Media’s playlist, The 100 Best Tracks of 2008, is down to 49 songs. Yes, 51 out of 100 tracks have been yanked since the Great Purge. And these are mostly indie artists ffs. Where is the justice?

The second thing pissing me off is that Spotify now pauses the advert if you drop the system volume below a threshold. Which rightly fucks my Spotify muter, since I rely on muting the volume until the advert is over.

I mean, what kind, china?! That’s some hardcore shit that you’ve got your poor developers writing. Imagine being the guy who gets given that task in the daily standup:

— Hey Åsbjörn, go write the work-around for that guy’s Spotify ad-muter trick.

— That seems like a lame use of my time – maybe I could work on the Spotify iPhone app instead?

— Åsbjörn, don’t make me make you, bitch.

— Okie.

• switch audio output to a dummy device during adverts,
• use a command line tool to do the switcheroo,
• and modify the script accordingly.

This is how I did it:

1. I installed Soundflower on my mac (which is a helluva handy tool in its own right) but by not connecting it to an input stream, it acts like a dummy – and mute – output device.
2. This handy tool called SwitchAudioSource is necessary to do the actual switch. Just download and copy the binary file to the same location as the spotify mute script.
3. Then it’s just a simple case of fiddling my mute script to switch output devices instead of muting the volume. Here’s the updated mute script for those who care.
4. Bob’s your auntie. W00t.

Anyway. I still like Spotify a lot. The music library is still huge, and most of my favourite bands are untouched. But Spotify, if you’re listening: don’t take away any more music, stop trying to stop me listening to the predominantly shitty, low-quality adverts, and we can all get along just fine.

Pete

p.s. I fixed the Growl issue whereby you had to turn off Growl to use this mute script. It involves recompiling Growl with an extra step to rebroadcast all notifications using NSDistributedNotification, and is definitely a topic for another post. Mail me if you’re interested.