I realise I may be shooting myself in the foot, revealing this tip – if word gets out, I’m sure the Spotify team will patch it immediately – but I’ve found a way to quieten those pesky commercials.
If you’re not aware, Spotify is a free music streaming service that you browse with a super-fast, proprietary media player. It boasts millions of tracks and many thousands of albums, playing at high quality and with instant access. The price you pay is occasional adverts, which are significantly less frequent or annoying than those on commercial radio. They are still quite annoying though, nonetheless. And, cleverly, turning the volume down actually pauses the ad, so you’ve no choice but to listen to it. Until now.
So here’s what you do: when the advert starts playing, hit pause. You can then turn down the volume on the player and press play, and the advert will resume playing silently. You can watch the little timer to see when it’s done, and then just turn the volume back up. I haven’t tried pausing and then using the system volume to turn down the sound, so I’ll report on that soon.
Before I go, I’d just like to plead with Spotify to open-source the software, so people like me can start making add-ons for it, just like with Songbird. Your service has rocketed in popularity, leaving a small team to service over a million users. Right now, all we want is an equaliser. Oh and a lyrics plug-in. And not to mention…! So open-source the player and we’ll fill in the gaps. Come on, you know it makes sense.
edit: this article used to be titled “How to Mute Adverts in Spotify – July 2009″. However, as of April 2010, this technique still works just as well as it ever did – Spotify have taken no actions to close this loophole. I’ve taken the July part of the title out in order to make it obvious that the article is still relevant today.
#1 by Steve on 13 July, 2009 - 11:49 am
Clever idea George – it works a treat (but for how much longer?)
My way of avoiding ads is something they can’t ever patch – I run my laptop through an external amplifier (and speakers) and have the remote control handy next to me. When the dreaded ad comes on, I flick the amp off for the duration of the ad, then flick it back on when the next song starts… detect that, Spotify!
#2 by George Nixon on 13 July, 2009 - 12:19 pm
Steve, I do the same thing! It’s only a problem if you’re using your laptop away from your speakers, or in the case of my hi-fi downstairs, there’s no remote with which to mute it.
In my opinion, the method I describe is slightly too fiddly to do every time the ads come on, but it means you can skip the particularly frequent or aggravating ones. For me, that’s the “free – let’s talk about free” commercials with Zane Lowe. It’s not bad enough how he pathetically panders to all his musical guests on Radio 1 – treating every band like they’re utter gods to be worshipped – but the way he shills for Nokia with such gusto makes me want to punch off his face. Has he no self-respect?!
I also hope the targetting of the ads gets better over time. What do I mean? Well, listening to an album of gangsta rap from N.W.A. the other day (nothing better when you’re playing Grand Theft Auto!), I would get adverts showing off the latest soft indie bands and waify songstresses. Is it too much to ask for hip-hop ads during hip-hop music, and indie ads during indie music?? Those acts you played might be fine, but at the moment, I’m not interested, and you’re killing the mood!
#3 by mrgnome on 27 July, 2009 - 11:32 pm
Spotify doesn’t know what happens if i mute breakaway. Breakaway is an audio enhancer I’ve used for some time, free to download from claessonedwards.com.
The controls sit in the windows bar and double clicking on its volume field there mutes it, but spotify keeps playing.
My suggestion would be to make a mute program that mutes breakaway, and then you just use breakaway.
#4 by George Nixon on 28 July, 2009 - 10:33 am
Very interesting mrgnome – if Breakaway makes a good equalizer as well as letting me mute ads, I will be extremely pleased! I miss having one in Spotify, as songs just sound better on my stereo in Winamp, thanks to its equalizer. I could use one even more to boost the output on my weedy netbook speakers. Promising indeed!
#5 by Grudson on 15 October, 2009 - 3:36 pm
Or, if your keyboard has one and most do now, hit the mute button? aha..
#6 by Henk on 27 October, 2009 - 12:31 pm
@Grudson
does not work, would have been nice though! On anohter point, I belive it is a fundamental hunman right to be able to mute adverts, What if you could not change tv channel when commercial starts or lower the volume on your car radio or switch channel when commericals starts… So I am all ears to all solutions to this problem!!!
#7 by George Nixon on 27 October, 2009 - 5:36 pm
Henk, I’m not sure it’s exactly breaking your human rights, as it’s the price you pay if you choose to listen to the free music
It’s analagous to adverts at the cinema – you can’t mute those either! I do find it quite creepy that people automatically sit quietly through them and let the desire for products be beamed directly into their brains, Clockwork Orange style, but that’s their choice.
#8 by clem snide on 30 October, 2009 - 11:25 pm
just use mutify.blogspot.com which does all that you said automatically, its awesome
#9 by George Nixon on 5 November, 2009 - 12:47 pm
Mutify doesn’t appear to be working currently, but thanks for the tip and hopefully it’ll be back up at some point.
FWIW I didn’t have any luck with Breakaway either.
#10 by highe5 on 2 December, 2009 - 8:22 pm
The best way (at present) to stop adverts is never let any song play right to the end – skip to the next song just before the currently playing one ends and you will never hear an advert, nor will you have to mute and wait.
Try it…
#11 by George Nixon on 4 December, 2009 - 11:47 pm
Good suggestion highe5, though skipping every time sounds hard when you’re trying to do something else at the same time. I’m wondering if one combine that idea with a piece of software like clem snide recommended.
What if you had a piece of software that could skip to the next track, half a second before the last one ended, every time? Anyone with ideas how to accomplish that, answers on a post card!
#12 by highe5 on 13 December, 2009 - 10:43 am
Agreed, that would be the best thing – I have suggested this to Pacesyssoftware (http://www.pacesyssoftware.com), who seem to be the masters of this kind of thing. I’ll let you know if they come up with anything.
#13 by Doctorspotify on 18 May, 2010 - 8:03 am
Hey! i saw that the last comments were about autoskip song at the end. have someone created any software that can do it yet? if yes, pls answer me!:)
#14 by George Nixon on 18 May, 2010 - 9:14 am
Not that I’m aware of, Dr spot
I’ve shelled out for premium now, so it’s no longer my problem!
#15 by Chris on 19 May, 2010 - 1:59 am
Hi George, don’t mean to be cheeky but is there any chance of getting an invite code from you if you have premium upgrade now please?
#16 by George Nixon on 19 May, 2010 - 10:49 am
Hehe, don’t worry about it, the cheeky shall inherit the earth. “God, are you using this earth, or…?” “Yeah mate have it I barely use it any more to be honest.” I forgot that I get invites… I have two now, so I should probably share them among my friends first if anyone wants one, but I’ll get back to you.
Anyone else wanting one can leave a comment, but bear in mind I’ll only have a handful, so if the list is already pretty long, I wouldn’t bother! Might cancel my membership anyway because I’ve not had much luck with the mobile app – songs rarely play without stopping repeatedly to buffer or whatever’s going on under the hood.
#17 by HerrG on 21 June, 2010 - 11:14 am
if u change song before it ends, the commercial will NEVER appear. So i wonder, is there possible to write a script that automatically change song before it ends. That would be the best solution…
#18 by Master C on 22 August, 2010 - 12:10 am
Mr Nixon, got any premium class, top quality or sh*t hot invites spare?
Just in case cheeky still works for you
#19 by George Nixon on 22 August, 2010 - 10:51 am
Yep, no, problem, I’m out of invites for the month but I’ll get one to you when I get some more.
#20 by Boris on 21 September, 2010 - 11:49 am
i’ve found an software who mute spotify when it play ads (and Spotify don’t stop playing), It works great ! You can find here http://code.google.com/p/adify/
#21 by Maxx on 29 September, 2010 - 9:30 am
Thanks Boris for the tip, this is a great piece of software!!!
#22 by Tristan on 31 October, 2010 - 4:04 am
Nice find Boris!
I myself have been working on a program that does the same thing. It takes up less memory and is less intrusive and offers more features, its called Blockify and can be found on my website:
http://gube.co.uk/Applications/
It is updated fortnightly.
#23 by XrS on 20 November, 2010 - 2:07 am
Just wanted to say that your version is awesome Tristan. Now I’m just waiting for someone to make it so that it skips commercials entirely. Good work!
#24 by epidemicz on 21 July, 2011 - 6:56 pm
Hah, very nice tip, thanks for that. I came upon this after realizing that Spotify pauses the its ads when you try to turn the volume down heh.
#25 by max on 11 December, 2011 - 4:40 pm
Use blockify its amazing and seems to still be working as of today