Yamp 3.51 (last update: May 12, 2019)

Yamp is an iPad application available at the Apple App Store.

Yamp plays FLAC (and other formats) audio tracks stored locally or on remote servers (via HTTP or NFS "Network File System", requires WiFi). Audio content can be downloaded to Yamp using iTunes App File Sharing or through Yamp's FTP, Web downloading or NFS capability (requires WiFi). Audio content can be organized into folders and moved/copied between folders. Playlists can also be used to organize music. Music Library content is not accessible through Yamp.

Why this app?

The FLAC audio file format is lossless and open-source. As a result, people have decided to store their music in this format and have large archives of FLAC files that they'd like to play on their computing devices. iTunes does not support FLAC so this app was written so that FLAC files can be played and organized on the iPad. Information on FLAC can be found at the FLAC website.

Track names

As part of the playlists feature in Yamp, track names can be obtained from an external server. Please see Getting track names for more information. This page contains up-to-date and more detailed information than is available on the Yamp iPad app.

What's new in 3.51

(Released September 29, 2016.) Yamp now includes a parametric equalizer (available for all files except non-FLAC, non-local files). Parametric equalizer settings can be saved to presets and can be used in playlists. The effect of a parametric equalizer on the audio wave for a track can be viewed in a graph.

Support

Yamp is free and currently does not have ads in it so support must necessarily be minimal. That being said, every effort will be made to fix bugs. A FAQ and list of known issues will be made available here. It can take some time to get software updates tested and onto the App Store so this site will have more up-to-date information than the Yamp online documentation. Currently, there are no plans to adapt Yamp for the iPhone.   Yamp NFS page

Contact

For problems, questions, etc. email contact@findclassmusic.net.

If Yamp terminates shortly after starting

(New to Version 3.2) If Yamp terminates shortly after starting, it is possible that there is a problem with certain configuration files. To have Yamp avoid these startup files, create a file "_avoidStartupFiles_ on the PC/Mac used with the iPad. Copy this file using iTunes File Sharing into the Yamp directory. NOTE: There are no reports of this problem occurring and it has only been observed when Yamp was deliberately coded to fail as a test. If this problem does occur and the _avoidStartupFiles_ allows Yamp to start, do the following, in order, until Yamp can start:
- In iTunes File Sharing, delete the file "_lastPlay.info", rename the "_avoidStartupFiles_" file and see if this allows Yamp to start.
- If NFS is being used, disable WiFi, either by going into Airplane mode or disabling your WiFi router and see if Yamp starts. If it does, the ".nfsmounts" file should be visible in the Home directory in the "Organize" mode. Rename this file with WiFi enabled, rename the "_avoidStartupFiles_" file and see if Yamp starts. If it does, the renamed .nfsmounts file should be deleted. The NFS mounts will need to be re-created.
- The "._sortOrders" file should be visible in the Home directory while in the "Organize" mode. Delete this file rename the "_avoidStartupFiles_" file and see if Yamp starts. The sort order will need to be reset.

Privacy Policy

Yamp does not collect data over and above what Apple collects.

If you choose to take advantage of the CD track recognition feature of Yamp, the request for data is submitted to findclassmusic.net. The IP address and the unique identifier of the CD that is identified (if it can be identified) is saved for analysis. The IP address is collected to determine if bots are being used for this feature. IP address which do not recur on an excessive basis are not used for any purpose.

Online instructions

App Instructions     NFS Instructions     Parametric EQ Instructions

Volume Boost

If the strength and intensity of the sound waveform is weak throughout the music track, a satisfactory volume level may not be achieved even at the maximum system volume setting. In such cases, double-tapping the volume slider will make a volume boost picker appear. The setting will remain in effect until Yamp or the iPad is shut down. This should only be used for "soft" tracks as audible distortion will occur if too high of a volume boost level is selected. The tracks which will most likely need a boost in volume are non-commercially produced tracks. While any area of the volume slider may be double-tapped, the area of the volume knob should be double-tapped to avoid having the system volume being changed.

Known Issues and Problems

Checkboxes. The checkboxes used for copy, move, download, etc. should be pressed carefully and closer to the left than the right as pressing too much to the right may select the track (the highlight will turn blue) vs. checking the checkbox.

Equalizer Preset Picker clicks. Currently, Apple does not allow the turning off of clicks on individual picker elements. Clicks for the keyboard and all pickers can be disabled by going into Settings and disabling the keyboard clicks.

Bluetooth Headphone Controls. If the a Bluetooth headphone is used with another audio application, start a track in Yamp in order to use the Bluetooth controls (Pause/Play, Next/Previous track, etc.).

Previous Release Changes

Version 3.42(Released June 18, 2016) Updated for iOS9. Improved memory usage. For folders with more than 100 sub-folders, new navigation buttons are available which allow scolling by holding the button down or going to the top or bottom of the list.

Fixes (mainly due to iOS version upgrades):
  • Placement of some popovers may have been incorrect in iOS 8 or 9, is fixed.
  • Sometimes repeating play of a download2play non-FLAC NFS file would not work.
Version 3.3 (Released February 13, 2014) Note: This is the last version available for the iPad1. Support for 24-bit FLAC files. A track-compare feature which allows one to compare (typically) files of the same recording which differ in some way - a different mastering, different encoding foramt, different sample rate, etc. The comparison can be done either sequentially so that when a swtich between tracks occurs, the audio for the playing track starts at the point where the non-playing track stopped or it can be done by repeating the sequence that the previous track just played. Switching can be done either manually or on a set time interval. PDF, DOC (not DOCX), RTF and TXT files can now be viewed in Yamp. Multi-channel files can now be played as a mixdown to two channels.

Fixes:
  • In the NFS setup screen, the mount switch/button does reflect the correct state if a mount attempt fails.
  • Sometimes repeating play of a download2play non-FLAC NFS file would not work.
  • The track highlighting could disappear when going from Local mode to Organize mode.
  • There was a problem in obtaining the size of NFS files larger than 2.1 GB. While audio files are rarely this large, if the NFS file system contains large files, this caused alerts for every file in a directory over this size.
  • Yamp now does a better job in obtaining timing for non-FLAC NFS or web files. If file timing is not available, the time slider is disabled. Getting timing for AAC or CAF files (NFS or web) still does not work. For non-FLAC files, Yamp uses the decoders supplied by Apple.
  • The download status box does not close if the download happens very quickly.
  • Under certain circumstances, the time slider is not re-enabled after playing a file where the timing could not be determined (certain non-FLAC NFS or web files)
  • If a FLAC file does not report metadata size, an error would occur. This would most likely affect FLAC files with an image.
  • Yamp now has better performance opening FLAC files with larger images.
  • Coming out of auto-lock while playing a file may crash (this would not happen often, but would be more likely with a FLAC file). 3.3 has better protection against this, however, high-res NFS FLAC files (24-bit 96khz) may be a problem on occasion.
  • Traversing backwards in Web mode to a URL with a space character would cause a problem.
  • Replaying a 24-bit non-FLAC NFS or web file was an issue.
  • In web mode, when an attempt was made to play a non-playable file, any subsequent file in that same slot in the listing would not be playable, even if the file was playable.
  • There were issues in opening certain NFS files with non-ASCII characters in their filename. There may continue to be issues with these types of files if the NFS file server uses a non-Unicode character set.
  • If one is in Organize mode in the Home directory and then navigates to an NFS file system and then attempts to get track names, an error would occur.
  • Copying tracks from multiple playlists which contain tracks from different NFS file systems could cause some of the copied tracks to be unplayable (the playlist track would be unplayable, not the actual track).
  • For non-FLAC NFS or web files, the decoder may not report an error in parsing a non-audio file, resulting in the app crashing. This would typically happen with a binary text file (unicode-encoded 2 bytes per character). This was not observed to happen with conventional audio or video files or ASCII text files.
Version 3.21 and 3.20 (Released December 18, 2014) Support for both the iOS 7 and pre-iOS 7 user interfaces (3.1 only worked on iOS 7, 3.21 will work with iOS versions 5 and above). Sort options for folders has been added as well as the ability to uncompress .zip files. Due to the added features, version 3.1 will initially use more memory than previous versions, however incremental memory use as folders/playlists are opened and used has been reduced.

Fixes:
  • Copying files into a playlist (vs. copying a playlist track) would sometimes not work properly.
  • If doing a mode switch from a folder or playlist with playable tracks (vs. a listing of folders or playlists), web files would sometimes not play properly.
  • Non-FLAC, non-local (web or NFS) tracks would not play after being stopped.
  • In NFS folders which had both files and directories, and with directory caching enabled, tracks would sometimes be listed twice.
  • Mode switching while viewing a list of playlists would sometimes result in unnecessary scrolling.
  • Starting Yamp in Web or FTP mode (due to being in that mode when Yamp was exited previously) could have resulted in problems under certain circumstances. In 3.2, if Yamp is in Web or FTP mode when exiting, it will start in Local mode on the subsequent start.
  • Search and replace of multiple occurrences of the string in the title would not work (only the first occurrence would be replaced). This was fixed in version 3.1.
Version 3.1 (Released November 9, 2013) Updated for iOS 7.0X. This includes the ability to use music controls in the iOS 7 Control Center and on the lock screen. Addresses issue when web file is stopped during a download or when the web file is being downloaded during play.

Version 3.01 and 3.0 (Released August 2, 2013) Updated for iOS 6.1x. Files on remote NFS servers can be played or copied. Improved handling of larger web files. Minor bug fixes. Version 3.01 is the same as 3.0 (July 29, 2013) except for some additions to the NFS instructions and changes made to the descriptive data used for the AppStore.

Version 2.1 (Released January 26, 2012) Updated for iOS 5. Inter-track transitions are smoother for tracks which have continuous music at the end of the track. When doing a file transfer (http and ftp) the iPad will not auto-lock (sleep) - this was done because network behavior during auto-lock is different under iOS 5 compared to previous versions. A playlist can be created while in a Playlist folder (the new playlist will be empty). The web browsing feature has been removed - web directory listings and http download is still available. The browsing feature was removed in order to retain a 4+ app content rating.

Version 2.01 (Released May 22, 2011) Reduction in dropouts when using iOS 4.3X.

Version 2.0 (Released May 10, 2011) Added playlists and ability to get freedb.org and findclassmusic.net track names from an external server. Fixed: Pressing checkboxes would occasionally terminate the application and problems with some web directory listings.

Version 1.2 (Released Jan 31, 2011) Support for opening FLAC documents in Yamp from other apps. Volume control now controls system volume and includes the Airplay selection button when recognized wireless devices are available. Volume boost for low-volume tracks is available (see section on "Volume Boost" below).

Version 1.1 (Released Dec 16, 2010) Support for Bluetooth headphones and iOS 4.2 multi-tasking.