Best music playing software

D

DarkenReaper57

2[H]4U
Joined
Oct 2, 2003
Messages
2,173
Hello everyone,

I've been using Winamp since 2002 when Winamp3 came out. I'm now about to install the most recent version of 5, but am somewhat hesitant as it looks bloated with extra crap - even on the basic version. Hopefully there is an option to not install the bloatware during the installation process.

Anyway, what software do you guys use to play your music? Is there anything not bloated yet offers cool features such as the Milkdrop visualization?
 
Probably foobar2000 is the only other music playing app with a decent following, but that app is totally for the hardcore. If you want something that is just install and run, dont even bother looking. On the other hard this is an open source app with a ton of cool features and extensions, but it is a bitch to get running to your liking and has a steep learning curve. So if that sounds like your cup of tea, check out the HydrogenAudio forums to learn more about foobar2000.
 
I use j.River Media Center. Best combo of library manager / syncer / player I've come across so far. New version has a few hiccups but it's still my favourite.
 
if you installed winamp3 when it came out you should have no problem with bloated media players.

annyway, winamp5 is a good improvement on winamp3. personally i just use wmp11.
 
sethk said:
Probably foobar2000 is the only other music playing app with a decent following, but that app is totally for the hardcore. If you want something that is just install and run, dont even bother looking. On the other hard this is an open source app with a ton of cool features and extensions, but it is a bitch to get running to your liking and has a steep learning curve. So if that sounds like your cup of tea, check out the HydrogenAudio forums to learn more about foobar2000.
Click to expand...

Foobar isn't hardcore at all if you just want to play music. Install and run, drag and drop music, press play. No setting modification needed at all. Need to copy some dll files to the components directory to support some audio formats but again very easy.

It's only hardcore if you want to mod the GUI.
 
And even for GUI, things like fooblog FOFR (google it) make it pretty easy.
 
Im tied to my zune software (cuz i own a zune) but give mediamonkey a shot as well..plugins..gui's...and no ads!

that FOFR gui for foobar looks pretty sick too...just the headaches you go through to install it but hey wheres the fun in tinkering without the problems that need solving :)
 
Somewhere in between Winamp and foobar2000 are VUPlayer and XMplay, both of which are decent music players (XMplay has the added virtue of being quite small and portable--no install required). foobar2000, though, in terms of sheer audio output quality, is probably still the best one going...
 
Dural said:
Winamp 2.81 for life
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haha i started using winamp in 99 and stuck with 2.81 till a year and a half ago when i bought an ipod. by far my favorite. now on my fifth ipod i am still using itunes :(

im thinking of going back when rockbox supports the g2 nano, i still have the install for 2.81 and all befor it. its on an old hdd i have not used in a while so i hope it is still good;)
 
I'm currently transitioning to iTunes. I'm not terribly fond of the playlist concept of foobar, as I prefer a library approach, and iTunes is unobtrusive and makes jumping between albums painless and, when using Cover Flow, fun.

There is no "best music playing software", only software that better suits your individual needs.
 
been using winamp since 2001, i dont find that winamp is to bloated...i used to run it on my win98se comp(500mhz p3, 128mb ram)and it ran just fine.
 
Winamp for me. I have been using that app for long time and know pretty much everything there is to know about it. I can get it to sound very good.
 
That's certainly an interesting thing to lose respect for another over, but alright.
 
foobar2000 gets most of my general usage, but I use MediaMonkey for managing transferring songs to my Zen VM and Sansa.
 
I have used winamp forever and yes it has become more bloated (if you remember the really old versions it has become MUCH more bloated) lately, but it is still solid for the most part.

The main reason I stick with it is because it is the least bloated player that will allow me to have my music set to a toolbar on my taskbar. I don't dig on the library player crap. I have had my music setup like this in folders for years and I don't feel like changing now. I prefer my click toolbar, click genre, click artist (or just right click and play all) etc to some library thing.
 
Moofasa~ said:
You could do better.
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As far as I'm concerned, I don't believe I could. I own two iPods, so naturally, I'm pretty familiar with iTunes, and somewhat "locked in" to it, so to speak, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. I don't have an immense library, but the search feature (very akin to Spotlight) is as powerful as I need it to be, and it works. I can hit a hotkey (Ctrl+Alt+F) to jump to search, type in a track name, hit tab and space bar, and it's playing. I can also use an array of other shortcuts to do common tasks. I can create Smart Playlists to automatically create playlists based on criteria. I can right-click a playlist and burn a disc. I can use the space bar to start and stop playback. This seems trivial, but I'm using Pro Tools constantly, where the space bar serves the same function, and I don't want to translate to foobar and have to hit C to play, then X to pause or Z to stop - that's a very bizarre way to handle transport controls if you ask me. I can use Cover Flow to navigate through albums, or sort by album with album artwork next the album. That's intuitive, and not something you can do with foobar out of the box. I can also buy music, audio books and movies if I wish, though nine times out of ten I'll just go out and pick up the CD. I can click a button and be subscribed to podcasts -- no having to download MP3s via a browser and then add them to playlists/libraries (or manage them with some other application).

So, I can set thread priority and pause fade out time in foobar, use kernel streaming (but not out of the box) and customize foobar's GUI. Great...but I don't really care for any of those things. If I had Martin Logan Summits and resampling was actually audible, I might consider switching, but I don't. I won't be like many others who panic at the mere thought of passing music through the kMixer. I'm an audio professional, but not an audiophile, and I really don't care.
 
phide said:
As far as I'm concerned, I don't believe I could. I own two iPods, so naturally, I'm pretty familiar with iTunes, and somewhat "locked in" to it, so to speak, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. I don't have an immense library, but the search feature (very akin to Spotlight) is as powerful as I need it to be, and it works. I can hit a hotkey (Ctrl+Alt+F) to jump to search, type in a track name, hit tab and space bar, and it's playing. I can also use an array of other shortcuts to do common tasks. I can create Smart Playlists to automatically create playlists based on criteria. I can right-click a playlist and burn a disc. I can use the space bar to start and stop playback. This seems trivial, but I'm using Pro Tools constantly, where the space bar serves the same function, and I don't want to translate to foobar and have to hit C to play, then X to pause or Z to stop - that's a very bizarre way to handle transport controls if you ask me. I can use Cover Flow to navigate through albums, or sort by album with album artwork next the album. That's intuitive, and not something you can do with foobar out of the box. I can also buy music, audio books and movies if I wish, though nine times out of ten I'll just go out and pick up the CD. I can click a button and be subscribed to podcasts -- no having to download MP3s via a browser and then add them to playlists/libraries (or manage them with some other application).
Click to expand...

Foobar can do all of those things (even sync your Ipod) except it obviously lacks a music store. Granted not all of those things are supported "out of the box", but it certainly doesn't take much to set those plugins up (not to mention it takes a minute at most to configure the keyboard shortcuts to your liking). While it may take a little bit more to set up Foobar, it's only a one time deal. I even believe there is a UI config out there that makes Foobar look almost exactly like iTunes (I know there is one for WMP).

I'm not trying to convert you here, but the beauty of foobar is that it can be anything you want it to be. Not to mention it has so many helpful tools (built in command-line encoder, a batch tagger, etc). iTunes feels like WMP to me, it's just too limited.
 
phide said:
As far as I'm concerned, I don't believe I could. I own two iPods, so naturally, I'm pretty familiar with iTunes, and somewhat "locked in" to it, so to speak, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. I don't have an immense library, but the search feature (very akin to Spotlight) is as powerful as I need it to be, and it works. I can hit a hotkey (Ctrl+Alt+F) to jump to search, type in a track name, hit tab and space bar, and it's playing. I can also use an array of other shortcuts to do common tasks. I can create Smart Playlists to automatically create playlists based on criteria. I can right-click a playlist and burn a disc. I can use the space bar to start and stop playback. This seems trivial, but I'm using Pro Tools constantly, where the space bar serves the same function, and I don't want to translate to foobar and have to hit C to play, then X to pause or Z to stop - that's a very bizarre way to handle transport controls if you ask me. I can use Cover Flow to navigate through albums, or sort by album with album artwork next the album. That's intuitive, and not something you can do with foobar out of the box. I can also buy music, audio books and movies if I wish, though nine times out of ten I'll just go out and pick up the CD. I can click a button and be subscribed to podcasts -- no having to download MP3s via a browser and then add them to playlists/libraries (or manage them with some other application).

So, I can set thread priority and pause fade out time in foobar, use kernel streaming (but not out of the box) and customize foobar's GUI. Great...but I don't really care for any of those things. If I had Martin Logan Summits and resampling was actually audible, I might consider switching, but I don't. I won't be like many others who panic at the mere thought of passing music through the kMixer. I'm an audio professional, but not an audiophile, and I really don't care.
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I have a feeling that people who use foobar have more joy in the experience of setting up foobar than listening to the music - classic nerdophiles. As you said, funny thing to respect others over.

Good points all, but you can do better and be only slightly inconvenienced initially as compared to iTunes. As I said earlier in the thread I use j.River Media Center and it will sync directly to iPods 'out of the box' complete with playcounts and offers superior library management functions to iTunes. More powerful, superficially the same UI so virtually no learning curve. The developers hang out in the support forums. Should you be kmixerphobic you can run stuff through ASIO. Packs a lot of power while still being fairly accessible, basically foobar for the not-painfully-nerdy. I like it (and I certainly don't have anything against iTunes). There is just one catch: $40. One month trial though, so worth checking out.
 
Ronco said:
I have a feeling that people who use foobar have more joy in the experience of setting up foobar than listening to the music - classic nerdophiles. As you said, funny thing to respect others over.

Good points all, but you can do better and be only slightly inconvenienced initially as compared to iTunes. As I said earlier in the thread I use j.River Media Center and it will sync directly to iPods 'out of the box' complete with playcounts and offers superior library management functions to iTunes. More powerful, superficially the same UI so virtually no learning curve. The developers hang out in the support forums. Should you be kmixerphobic you can run stuff through ASIO. Packs a lot of power while still being fairly accessible, basically foobar for the not-painfully-nerdy. I like it (and I certainly don't have anything against iTunes). There is just one catch: $40. One month trial though, so worth checking out.
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foobar is good i guess, it took me a while to make it look decent... but i got it looking allright... winamp is great also... with lots of skins etc... plus endless plugins...

really a matter of taste i guess... i use both... depending on my mood
 
Ronco said:
I have a feeling that people who use foobar have more joy in the experience of setting up foobar than listening to the music - classic nerdophiles. As you said, funny thing to respect others over.
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:rolleyes:

Listen people obviously I have not lost respect for phide. I still like him. ;) Audio players are just like audio equipment, one should use the program (or equipment) that give themselves the best audio experience. I was merely razzing him for using an Apple product. :cool:


There is just one catch: $40.
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That's a pretty big catch.
 
Moofasa~ said:
I was merely razzing him for using an Apple product. :cool:
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Is that any better given my statement, given that so many nerdophiles I encounter I find that they haven't even used what they're 'razzing'? It works for many people.
 
Ronco said:
Is that any better given my statement, given that so many nerdophiles I encounter I find that they haven't even used what they're 'razzing'? It works for many people.
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I have used it and it's the sole reason why I returned my Ipod.
 
Moofasa~ said:
That's a pretty big catch.
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Indeed it is. My income is not exactly what is used to be (thanks, education!), and $40 is, pathetically, about a quarter of my monthly piss-away budget.

I appreciate the recommendation, and I'll check out the trial and see what I think, but I'm fairly confident I won't be finding anything worth spending $40 for considering what iTunes gives me for free. It doubtless has its caveats: it's fairly bloated, it cannot keep track of WAV files, and there are some minor interface quibbles that I have, but it's 100% stable and all of the functions work (except for the WAV file bit).

In any case, I'm not terribly particular. If it plays music, gives me roughly what I want in terms of features, and doesn't have dozens of little things that bug me, I'm satisfied.
 
You should always use the latest version of WinAmp as they quite often fix security flaws. I use a combination of players. XMPlay because it is very light on resources and starts up fast, supports ASIO, this is my defualt player when I double click on an mp3 file. Foobar2000 for it's customization and plugin support. I've got some great dsp's installed in foobar that really improves old poor recordings. WMP11 for it's stellar library organization skills, unfortunately it doesn't support ASIO though. I used to use MediaMonkey and that supports ASIO and WinAmp plugins and it has good organizational skills too. I stopped using it when I came across a crash bug but that may be fixed in the latest version. I used to use WinAmp but only liked it for playing radio stations, I hate its UI. Never tried iTunes and don't plan to either. Overall I would rate foobar2000 the best of the players I have used.
 
Moofasa~ said:
I have used it and it's the sole reason why I returned my Ipod.
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I notice a lot of people who have this irrational rabid hatred of iPods buy them to return them during the return period just to say they've had it. Bizarre. Personally other players do the job better for me right now, but I don't get this behaviour.
 
I've been using Winamp since 1997 and for a while, Mediamonkey, but now I'm back to Winamp. I use iTunes to transfer music to/from my iPod but that's about it.

Personally, I like Winamp because of the plugins (and I'm sure there are plugins for other players). But, specifically I use Otachan's mpg123 for decoding and the ASIO out plugin for output to my Z5500d speakers via digital coax. Works equally well in XP and Vista.

Plus Winamp has the library feature (which I don't use, but some people like).
 
Mainly use winamp, it works and sounds good and is easy to setup and sync my music player with and work with the playlists.
 
DefineByte said:
Why is finding out you don't like the iPod's primary interface with the PC irrational?
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Because you've got all sorts of options? I know there are perfectly legitimate reasons why people wouldn't work well with iTunes. Classical music buffs for a start. There's also less legitimate reasons including haphazardly tagged stolen music. But you have options. The iPod also offers sync options not present in other players and that alone can be a powerful listening asset.
 
Hey, I own an iPod myself. I wouldn't diss it. I wouldn't own one if it wasn't for Rockbox though.
 
This audio player argument has been beaten into the ground way too many times. This doesn't have to be a war; just accept that some people look for different things in their audio players and might be comfortable using something that another person isn't. And what is this about losing respect for someone because they use a audio player you don't like? You must be a sad person.
 
I use Winamp 5.07 and no pop ups and no probs, just good clean sound ^_^ oldversion .com has it... and keys arn't hard to get ^_^ wink***
 
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