Music player advice and discussion!

Hi and hallo everyone in the eyeson. I am in need of some assistance.

I need a new music player for the computer machine (WindowsXP, if it matters). Currently I use iTunes from the old days when I had an iPod. I don't like it 100% but I cant find a better alternative because I have a few very specific needs.

One thing I do like and want to keep is the expansive library view. I am obsessed with tagging my music properly, and I like the options iTunes has to do so. So any new player I use would have to have a similar or better feature here. Hence why I dont want WinAmp.

Another; I need to play FLAC files. There is a ton of Sailormoon music just begging to be downloaded... but it's all in FLAC.

And please, nothing that hogs up too many resources. My fiancee has a Zune and the software seems bound and determined to freeze my admittedly not so cool computer.

Any suggestions? Also, talk about music players, tell us what you use, etc.

Wrong forum, you smurfing moron.

You could use Songbird. Its minimum requirements are a processor of 733 Mhz and 128 MB of RAM, and it's mostly iTunes, but free and add-on compatible, due to it being a Mozilla derivative (with an integrated web browser).

you can right click to get song info in winamp and change the tags like that

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Originally Posted by Ramza Beoulve

You could use Songbird. Its minimum requirements are a processor of 733 Mhz and 128 MB of RAM, and it's mostly iTunes, but free and add-on compatible, due to it being a Mozilla derivative (with an integrated web browser).

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Oooh I like the sound of that. Thanks! I'll download and check it out.

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Originally Posted by krissy

you can right click to get song info in winamp and change the tags like that

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I know, but it's far too tedious. I have too many songs to tag, plus the last I used winamp (which admittedly was years ago) I found their tag input to be too restrictive.

I like iTunes but once in a blue moon it decides it doesn't like some of my songs and they become completely unplayable. Luckily it's only happened twice. The first time I just downloaded the songs again (and they were free so I didn't have to feel bad about pirating twice!) and the second time it was some Coldplay and I don't like them as much as I used to xD

I know some people who swear by foobar2000.

I swear by foobar2000. It's targeted at nerds, but if you don't mind spending a little time getting it to look just right (or if you don't care how it looks) then it's the most robust player I've used.

i love my winamp
automatic net radio
OS based browsing system
scribbles lastfm for me
milkdrop2 visualization for when i wanna get high off visuals
small memory usage
playstation/snes/ps2/nes etc sound file plugins (i have the ff8 soundtrack and it is 5 megabytes big)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ramza Beoulve

You could use Songbird. Its minimum requirements are a processor of 733 Mhz and 128 MB of RAM, and it's mostly iTunes, but free and add-on compatible, due to it being a Mozilla derivative (with an integrated web browser).

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Another big fan of Songbird, here. I used to use foobar and it really is good but I tried Songbird with various plugins and really liked it.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by krissy

i love my winamp
automatic net radio
OS based browsing system
scribbles lastfm for me
milkdrop2 visualization for when i wanna get high off visuals
small memory usage
playstation/snes/ps2/nes etc sound file plugins (i have the ff8 soundtrack and it is 5 megabytes big)

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And Winamp Remote is a pretty sweet feature.

wow.. this is great, I think I'm going to try out Songbird, Does it still connect and upload songs onto an ipod like normal or would I still have to have itunes for that?

I'm sick and fed up of itunes, it's too slow and is constantly breaking or stopping or ignoring what you're trying to do. I started out much like TheAbominatrix and I do like it for it's large interface and ability to tag precisely, but the actual running power of it over the last year has caused a LOT of stress and annoyance.

Songbird here I come...

Did you try the winamp library last time you used winamp`? Idk exactly when it was added, and if it has been changed a lot since back then. Might be worth a try.

I second Songbird just because you want that library view. If you're willing to give that up, though, Billy is by far the best music player I've ever used. Supports various filetypes including FLAC afaik? That's not the point though - I love it because it's 300kb.

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Originally Posted by VexNet

wow.. this is great, I think I'm going to try out Songbird, Does it still connect and upload songs onto an ipod like normal or would I still have to have itunes for that?

I'm sick and fed up of itunes, it's too slow and is constantly breaking or stopping or ignoring what you're trying to do. I started out much like TheAbominatrix and I do like it for it's large interface and ability to tag precisely, but the actual running power of it over the last year has caused a LOT of stress and annoyance.

Songbird here I come...

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I am fairly certain it works very well with iPods, though I can't say from personal experience since I don't actually have one. But being able to sync with just about any portable media player is a pretty big priority in Songbird.

I'll throw in another recommendation for Foobar2000. One big advantage for me is that it works with .cue sheets, which as far as I'm aware no other media player does (I've not used Songbird much). I also like that it has its own built-in music converter; that adds a lot to the convenience. Yes, it does have an iPod manager plugin, although I don't use it.

Lots of great advice, thank you very much everyone.

For now I'm gonna try out Songbird, I have it installed and ready to mess with. I'm eager to try out plug ins and see what sort of damage I can do.

If that doesn't go I'm gonna look into some of the other ones mentioned and maybe check out how Winamp is doing these days.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by VexNet

wow.. this is great, I think I'm going to try out Songbird, Does it still connect and upload songs onto an ipod like normal or would I still have to have itunes for that?

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Yes, it can connect to an iPod. It comes with the add-on required for that, or you can actually download it.

I've tried Songbird since yesterday or so and it has its good points and its peculiarities. I love love love the "Now playing" plugin that gives me pretty much exactly the functionality I've been missing in all other players. As for weird stuff, it isn't natively capable of being minimized to the tray, and when I install a plugin for it, the window appears and takes focus whenever a new track comes song. It also has a tendency to not want to add the first track of about half of my albums to the library. So many of my albums are missing their first track in Songbird. I don't understand that.

+1 for Foobar here.

The only thing foobar2000 can't do that I might want it to at some point is play .minigsf files. It's been a while since I've bothered even looking for a plugin for that, though, so I could be wrong.

Installing plugins involves downloading a .dll file to the components sub-directory, then finding the relevant page in the preferences dialog. In order to convert to formats such as MP3 or OGG, you'll need to download the relevant encoder executable, which you can stick anywhere on your PC and then tell foobar where the program is.

I think you need Nero installed to burn with foobar, but who even uses music CDs anymore?

Foobar2000's real strength is the mass-tagger. If you tag your music yourself, you have no other options. The masstagger allows you to simultaneously change the tags of every single file you have selected in foobar to a single value at once. Want to say that one song, say, features an additional artist? Don't bother getting out of the group tagging dialog! Simply double click on the tag you want to change and enter values individually!

The UI is also heavily customizable. You can import/export the settings in a simple theme file. I don't have much experience with it, though. I'll attach my layout, which uses every element available to the default UI.

yeah after I started using Sonbird, it became increasingly frustrating that I couldn't connect my songs to it at all, They would appear on screen in the playlist but could not locate of of the files unless I actually had them on my main laptop HD. which is annoying since I have all my music on my External HD, not my inbuilt one.

Then when I did delete all the mess that Songbird made with the folders (it seems of of duplicated EVERYTHING) I turned the file management off and just linked it directly to the iTunes folder with all my music in, now I've just been trying to delete all my duplicates I have now.

But unfortunately, everytime I select more than about 3 or 4 songs (using Ctrl + clicking) it freezes and brings up the "not responding" display box, giving me the option to close it or wait for it to work. I would understand if I was transferring a Terrabytes worth of information, but 15megabytes? It's a joke really.

Which is very saddening because what the actual program has is wonderful, I love the layouts and the extra addons such as the Concert listings, Lyrics gathering, Syncing with other devices (hypothetically if it worked properly).

I don't really want to change again but this waiting and waiting to get rid of a couple of songs is ridiculous.. foobar is next then I guess.. -sigh-