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As an avid collector of orchestrion rolls, I would love to use them elsewhere besides my inn room or housing. I think it would be great if we could listen to rolls our characters have collected via the Companion App! I listen to music all the time at work, and playing my songs there would really brighten my day.
This has been asked repeatedly and SE have responded why it cannot be done - the way music is coded by default in the game precludes it.
Basically as I understand it the client plays BGM in a specific way by using two channels, a primary music channel for zone/town themes and incidental music, and a secondary channel for battle music and special 'event' situations like completing a quest. When the secondary channel needs to be used, it mutes the primary channel without stopping it, having it cued up ready to go while the secondary channel plays, and thus there is the requirement that the client has to switch between one or the other at a moments notice.
It appears the Orchestrion uses this secondary channel to function, hence why it's restricted to housing and the Inn. Inside an innroom or a house, using the secondary channel for things like battles is naturally unnecessary, so the channel is pretty much free to use. But out in the field, where there is the chance battle will be initiated, hypothetically having the orchestrion already using this channel could cause far too many programming keffufles, and so it's just not possible to do sadly.
Don't get me wrong, I'd love to have a protable orchestrion, but unfortunately due to the rigid nature of how the game is programmed, such a function just isn't possible sadly. :(
That's only one way to do it, of course. They don't have to use the same coded music. Another way would be to have a separate mp3 library for the app to use, and when it pulls your character info from the servers, it could give you access to just those songs. I'm sure someone with even more technical skill could find even more efficient and cost-effective ways to manage it!