How to use BRSTM Player

Getting started

All you need is a free account and your .brstm files. There is nothing to install.

1. 1

   Create your account

   With your email and a password, or in one click with your Google account, on the sign-up page.

2. 2

   Organize your files

   Put your .brstm files in a folder, with one subfolder per game or soundtrack. See Organizing your folders.

3. 3

   Load your music

   On a computer you can pick a folder on your disk or your Google Drive; on a phone, Google Drive. See Loading your music.

4. 4

   Press play

   Open an album and tap a track, or press "Play" to start from the beginning.

Organizing your folders

The player does not ask you to tag anything: it builds your library from the way your folders are organized. The rule is simple: every subfolder is an album and every .brstm inside it is a track.

• The subfolder name is the album name, and the file name (without the extension) is the track title. Rename them before loading if you want them to look different.
• Every album shows up with its cover art: you do not need to find or add it.
• Loose .brstm files in the main folder form an album named after that folder.
• Only one level of subfolders is read: anything deeper is not included. If you have "Game / Disc 1 / track.brstm", move the tracks up one level or create one folder per disc.
• Files that are not BRSTM are ignored, and damaged .brstm files are skipped with a warning (see Troubleshooting).

Loading your music: computer folder or Google Drive

There are two music sources, and you can use both. The buttons are at the top right (on a phone, in the ☰ menu).

Computer folder. Click the folder icon and pick your main folder (the one containing the album subfolders). The browser will ask you to grant read access. For security reasons, browsers do not remember that permission between visits: when you come back, the player will ask you to pick the folder again. Your library, playlists and favorites are not lost; it just reconnects to the files.

Google Drive. Click the Drive icon, sign in with Google and pick your folder in Google's picker. The app can only access the files in that folder. When you upload new music to Drive, use "Re-sync Drive": it only adds what is new and removes what was deleted, so it is fast even with thousands of tracks. You can disconnect Drive at any time from the same menu.

Playback

The bar at the bottom (on a phone, the mini player; tap it to open the full-screen player) has the usual controls:

• Play / pause, previous and next. On a computer you can also pause and resume with the Space key.
• Progress bar: click (or drag your finger) to jump to another point of the theme.
• Shuffle: it is a switch. When it is on, "Play" starts in random order, and if you tap a specific track that one plays and the rest are shuffled.
• Volume: remembered for next time.
• Infinite (∞): keeps the current track looping with no limit. See Listening time.

Next to the title you can see the technical details of the file: codec, sample rate, channels and whether it has a loop. Some BRSTM files carry several audio layers (multi-stream), for example a normal and a more intense version of the same theme; for those a selector appears so you can choose which layers play.

Listening time and infinite mode

A looping BRSTM can play forever, so you decide how long each track lasts before moving on. When the time is up, the theme fades out over two seconds and the next one comes in. There are four levels and the most specific one always wins. Try switching levels on and off:

• Leave a box empty to fall back to the next level.
• Tracks without a loop (like a regular song) do not use the timer: they play in full and move on when they end. The ∞ button is disabled for them.
• In infinite mode the progress bar shows each pass of the loop and seeking is disabled.
• After the last track of the list, the music fades out.

Playlists

• Create: in the side menu, click + next to "Playlists" and type a name.
• Add tracks: every track has a button to add it to one or more playlists (on a phone, the track's ⋮ menu). You can mix themes from different games.
• Remove, rename or delete: from the playlist itself or its options menu.
• Playlist time: as with albums, you can set how many minutes each track plays when you play that playlist.
• Playlists show a mosaic of their albums' covers and are sorted by the one you changed last.

Favorites, history and stats

• Favorites: tap a track's heart. All your favorites are in the library's "Favorites" tab and in the side menu.
• History: the "History" tab keeps what you listened to last (up to 500 plays). Tap any entry to play it again.
• Stats: the side menu shows your most played themes.

Search

The search box at the top finds albums and playlists by their name, by the names of the tracks they contain and by the details of the assigned game. The first results appear as you type (move with the arrow keys and Enter); press Enter without choosing one to see them all.

Game info and cover art

Every album shows up with its game's cover art. On the album page, the (i) button opens a panel with the game's details: storyline, screenshot gallery, trailer and official website.

• If the recognized game is wrong, click the album cover to search for and assign another one, or to remove the assignment.

Customize: theme, color and language

In your profile (click your name at the top right, or "My Profile" in the phone menu) you can change:

• Theme: light or dark.
• Accent color: seven colors for buttons, bars and highlights.
• Language: English, Spanish, Japanese, Russian, Portuguese, German, French, Chinese, Korean or Italian.
• The global listening time.

Everything is saved in your account, so it looks the same on every device.

On your phone

BRSTM Player works on Android and iPhone with a touch-friendly interface. Because mobile browsers cannot open folders on the phone, on mobile the music is loaded from Google Drive: open the ☰ menu and connect it.

Install it as an app to have it on your home screen, full screen:

• Android (Chrome): browser ⋮ menu › "Install app" or "Add to Home screen".
• iPhone (Safari): Share button › "Add to Home Screen".

With the screen off the music keeps playing, and you can pause or skip tracks from the lock screen or your headphones, like any other player.

• Swipe sideways to switch library tabs, and use the A–Z index on the right edge to jump to a letter.
• Tap the mini player to open it full screen; swipe down or press Back to close it.
• Each track's ⋮ menu groups favorite, playlists, this track's time and go to album.

Privacy and your files

Your audio files never leave your device or your Drive. Our servers only keep your account and library data: album and track names, playlists, favorites, history and preferences. All the details are in the privacy policy, and our position on copyrighted music is in Copyright.

Troubleshooting

Frequently asked questions

Contact and support

Did not find the answer here, came across a bug or have an idea for an improvement? Write to us at support@brstmplayer.com. To help us help you sooner, tell us:

• What you were doing and what happened. If an error message appears, copy it exactly as it is.
• Which device and browser you use (for example, "Windows and Chrome" or "iPhone and Safari").
• If the problem is with a specific file, what the BRSTM inspector says about it.