Hello all,

Just a quick one.

I have just over 4000 albums on my computer and I have been using iTunes for a very long time. Basically once someone gave me an iPod and I installed iTunes and I got used to it. As I got more music I kept adding them and so on...

So I am wondering what other alternatives are there. I am looking for software that I can use to catalogue everything, sort by different ID3 tags, view by album cover, print as a PDF collection list, etc. I do find the iTunes browser useful but I am sure there are better options.

What is your preference? and most importantly why?

Cheers.

PS: By the way, I know this post may surprise some of you, but seriously. I have never bothered to look around and I thought of asking first.

 

I use WinAmp (Disconnected product so no future updates)

Alternative: Media Monkey.

Reason: I can catalog all my lossless cds and in iTunes i couldn't.

 

Foobar2000. Quick, light on resources and there are some really nice skins out...

 

My preference is "K.I.S.S."


SO late into the game... why change what is CURRENTLY working for you.

Dont fix what is not broken and enjoy the ride bro.

Due to your history with THAT player.... that's my FINAL answer.... no matter what media player you were using previously.

 

Are you running windows? have you tried windows media center?

 

iTunes is probably the biggest piece of crap software ever developed. I use MusicBee and I feel it's better than MediaMonkey not to mention absolutely free for all features. I fucking hate foobar, what a pain in the ass.

 

If you're using OSX then iTunes is rather good, so I guess you're not. iTunes on Windows is a bloated, sluggish, PITA piece of crap indeed. In Linux I mainly use Audacious [ http://audacious-media-player.org/ ], sometimes Rhythmbox [ https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Rhythmbox ] and VLC [ https://www.videolan.org/vlc/ ] for music and music streaming. In Windows I use Foobar2000 for about 10 years+ and it's the best of the best player on Windows [tried dozens since mid 90s... *yes* ] since you can use ASIO and VST plugins with 3rd party Foobar plugins and not to mention that you can use SoX best quality sample rate converter for listening and converting your samples with highest quality SRC [along with Voxengo r8brain] and also convert and encode songs so easily and very fast. I often use it to convert the sample rate of piles of samples [whole libraries of samples]. http://www.foobar2000.org/ The installation is painless, small, and you can make a portable install so you can carry it with your music collection on a USB key. I don't understand why you dislike it Catalyst? Not flashy enough for you? It is great especially with big music libraries like his. My philosophy is "listen to the music, don't watch it" and "features and quality over looks". FB2K kills all other players in that department IM not so HO. I can't remember having any problems with Foobar2k like EVER and tenish years is a long time. Rock solid, great for producers and musicians especially.

One more really brilliant, quick and small player for Windows that uses great BASS library [ http://www.un4seen.com/ ] for playing additional formats like FLAC is 1by1. http://mpesch3.de1.cc/1by1.html That player is really special, extra small and fast, portable installation, but no ASIO or VST and SRC sux. However, people I work with like it a lot because you can browse your music library easily with it and it's as quick as hell.

I've got a really big music library, too, comprising of mostly FLACs, MP3s and WavPaks [my choice for 96/24 archival], and huge music library can be a problem with a crappy music player that's coded badly. Foobar2000 has been around for a looong time mates... and there's no better for Windows IMO. Some people recommended me to try dbPowerAmp http://www.dbpoweramp.com/dmc.htm and I agree that it's really good, too, but I would miss some stuff like SoX converter and portability.

Cheers!

 

It's a pain to even add a skin...that's why. The whole "it's not really anything" (and it feels like it) theme is just annoying to me. It just feels too overly complicated for no good reason, this isn't object oriented programming where it's making your life easier by thinking of things in terms of objects and the things they know and can do...it's the opposite. The idea of a media player is that it is something: a program that plays media like your mp3s. FLACs and videos. I want a media player that's actually usable out of the box, I don't want to have to sit there building one. I want it to look decent without me having to do a thing. foobar at default installation is just bleh. For me MusicBee is that player. It does everything I want and practically nothing I don't. Has a nice theater mode where it will download photos of a band and display them in the background while you listen to your music. Everything is straightforward and easy to understand. Changing skins is a breeze and it comes with a bunch. It's free and handles large libraries well. Has cover art view and a good ID3 tagger. Even has some visualizations though I do like the ones in Winamp better. It just reminds me of Winamp which I used to like a lot until they shut it down (naturally). Don't get me wrong I know foobar is powerful and do a lot of stuff that I have no need for but it's just a pain in my ass. Maybe one day I will construct it in a perfect way for it to behave like I want it to but in the meantime I already program, I have 2 forums to take care of and a million other things. I just don't have the time for it.

 

+1 on foobar2000, it does look rather simple and perhaps unappealing to someone, yet its powers lies in bit-accurate, resource-saving playback and extensibility with DSP plugins. It also supports ASIO *yes*

BTW, do any of you remeber DosAmp?

 

So it's essentially just looks that bothers you with Foobar2000, Catalyst. Admit it.

Music player preference depends on lots of different factors and priorities. My priorities have always been functionality and efficiency. When I install Foobar2000 I'm ready to use it immediately, no fiddling with it at all. The same thing why you like MusicBee which is a good player, too. However, I would miss: converting samples with SoX SRC, VST, ASIO, converting from format to format and even burning audio CDs with it, and it's all there just a right-click away. ;)

It also depends on personal habits. I usually just minimise the player and read something. I rarely need visualisations and cover-art although FB2K supports both, of course. However, if your preference is watching the player while listening to music then something else should suffice. For years I've been actually telling my clients to use Windows Media Player for that since it's got lots of visualisations and you can easily download some more.

Yeah, MusicBee looks great [ http://getmusicbee.com/ ]. It reminds me of Banshee media player that I tried in Linux, but found it too overly complicated and not powerful enough for my [technical] needs, but people would probably find Banshee [ http://banshee.fm/ ] excellent. For just playing music, downloading cover art automatically and other simple tasks it is and that's the one I can recommend for people who use Linux and like MusicBee or itunes style of player. Hell, my wife and a slew of clients use iTunes on OSX and iOS [which is good IMO].

Banshee is actually 100% multi-platform, but I only tried it in Linux. See http://banshee.fm/download/ Maybe somebody would give it a try in Windows or with OSX as an iTunes replacement? it's a great player. Maybe even you, Catalyst, would like it. It also supports watching videos.

Oh, and all these players I mentioned are free, of course.

Cheers!

 

It's the look and the complexity. I think that foobar should have a special installation which installs a great skin and the default features we would expect from a media player and then if someone wants they can change it or if they love tweaking every detail then they can download the default install. I think it would really help for people like me that just want something aesthetically pleasing as well as a baseline functionality. You can burn CDs in MusicBee and it also can be extended through the use of plugins btw and it has internet radio stations and all that. It's pretty powerful though of course foobar can do more but that's at the sacrifice of time and work. Anyway there is nothing stopping anyone from having both. If you're looking to replace iTunes then I think MusicBee would fit the bill beautifully.

 

Gosh, the more I look at MusicBee's features the more it reminds me of Banshee. And they both reminds me of iTunes. [in a good way, except that itunes is overbloated and slow in Windows]

Merry days for computer users, eh? So much great free software for ALL platforms.

 

Yeah man it's nice that there's finally some decent choices, certainly took long enough. Basically my advice would probably be that if you're a tweaker and you have a vision of exactly how you want your media player to be and you're willing to sacrifice the time then go with foobar. When tweaked it can be a VERY powerful and beautiful player. If you want something out of the box that will be fun to use, has great features, looks nice and you don't want to spend the time then try MusicBee. And as I said before: it's also extensible so it's not like you can't add features but it will never be as powerful or offer as much customization as foobar.

 

Oh, I just read this about Banshee on Windows... Good that I checked.

"This release is a alpha-quality technology preview with many known bugs and deficiencies, including some obvious, glaring ones. With that in mind, please test it and file any new bugs you find. If you are a developer, you can help us improve the Windows build."

Shame. I wouldn't install that on Windows then. Seems like Banshee is for Linux and OSX users for now. MusicBee seems to be the only mature iTunes lookalike product for Windows. Thank you Catalyst for mentioning it!

 

I've included a screenshot of a default foobar installation so you can compare to a skin called DarkOne:

Main Window:

DarkOne Skin:


MusicBee default installation (not tweaked):

Theater Mode:

Another Skin (Different Layout):

Default install includes: inbox (a temporary place to tag and deal with files before they are integrated into your libary), ID3 tagger, audiobooks, podcasts, internet radio, lyrics, artist bios, cover art, ratings, CD burning, auto DJ, scrobbling, download cover art from multiple sources, theater mode (with pics of artists), a lot of skins that can drastically change the look and much more. Also it can convert formats but not sure how extensive that feature is or what formats are supported.

 

No iTunes still sucks even on OSX i mostly use VLC don´t need to catalogue my music i dont know if VLC can do that?
I do it manually as i only have albums and only listen to albums i have some very few singles i like but it is less then 10.

Foobar is also good and of course Winamp i use a very old version of Winamp i think it is v3

 

I like to keep it simple; Foobar for me. It's the only music player that I know which can open zip/rar files. I don't even have to unzip to add an album to my playlists.

Never heard of the DarkOne Skin, great stuff!!

Does anybody know about other musicplayers that don't need uzipping/unrarring?

 

Yeah it's one of the better available skins. Here's the link: DarkOne V4 Skin Download button is in the upper right corner. Minimum resolution is 1280 *. The developer is also friendly and open to questions should they arise.

Another screen:


Not sure about other music apps that can extract rar and zips. There might be an extension or a setting in MusicBee that will allow you to link to your extracting program but don't quote me on that because it may not have this functionality.

 

+1 for aimp. it's similar to winamp, but just for music and none of the bloat