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