There isn’t a music lover out there that doesn’t know Grooveshark. This music-on-demand service changed the way we listen to music by providing almost any song in the world, immediately , and in our browsers. And to top it all off – it’s legal.

Being an in-browser service pops up some control issues, though. Generally, you can control Grooveshark from its interface, which is in the one tab in the specific browser you used to open it. There are many add-ons and applications out there that let you control Grooveshark from different tabs and different browsers, but what about controlling it when you’re not even in front of the computer?

Imagine the following scenario: You’ve set up your Grooveshark playlist in your browser and the music is rolling. Now you want to head over to the other room and do something else while you listen. Wouldn’t it be great to have a way to control Grooveshark no matter where you are in the house? Or if someone else could control your playlist from their own computer? This is exactly what GrooveBud for Chrome lets you do.

Installation and Setup

Using GrooveBud, you can control your Grooveshark playlist from any browser, any computer or any other device with a network connection. These devices don’t necessarily have to be connected to the same network, but GrooveBud works a bit better if they are. The great thing is you don’t actually have to install anything on these devices – the only thing you have to install is the GrooveBud Chrome add-on on the computer you’re going to use Grooveshark on.

After installing the add-on, you’ll get a glimpse of the GrooveBud logo in the address bar. This logo will appear again only when you’re in the Grooveshark tab. Now it’s time to set up a playlist in Grooveshark. You can go ahead and start playing it if you want – setting things up is infinitely more enjoyable with music.

Once you have your playlist ready, click the GrooveBud logo in the address bar. This will open a window containing a QR code and a unique URL. These will lead you to your remote control page which controls only this playlist.

Note: Sometimes clicking the logo opens an empty window, no QR code and no URL. Don’t be discouraged, close the window and try clicking again, or try waiting a few seconds. The code and URL will appear.

Remote Controlling

You can now either scan the QR code, copy and paste the URL into a different browser, send the URL to other computers in the house, or even enter the URL manually if needed (luckily it’s not that long). No matter how you choose to do it, it will open a website with a remote control for your playlist. Here it is on my Android device:

Using the remote you can play/pause a song, skip to the next or previous song and control the volume. You also get the album art that goes with the song, although it seems to be just a blown up thumbnail from Grooveshark, and the quality, therefore, is not great.

As mentioned, you can use GrooveBud to control Grooveshark from other browsers and/or other computers.

And you can even use a a tablet like an iPad, for example.

The interface looks exactly the same no matter what device you’re using, and the response time is surprisingly quick. There’s almost no lag at all.

I even tried turning off my phone’s Wi-Fi and controlling Grooveshark from outside my apartment – it worked! The lag was a bit longer, but it still worked smoothly. One bug that I did encounter is an interface glitch.

If you get this as your remote control, the weird play button, no album art and no volume control, just try refreshing or creating a new URL. That should fix the problem.

Conclusion

GrooveBud is still in alpha, which explains the few minor bugs I encountered. Having said that, I was surprised at how well it worked, even when not using the same network. The ability to control Grooveshark from anywhere in (or out) of the house and using any device whatsoever is pretty fantastic.

For some more Grooveshark fun, check out:

• 4+ Ways To Improve Your Grooveshark Music Experience
• How To Download MP3s & Control Grooveshark From Firefox
• Convert Your Spotify, iTunes & Last.fm Playlists To Grooveshark With Groovylists

What do you think of GrooveBud? Know of a similar solution we should know about? Share in the comments!

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