MusicMatch V Winamp

[mps69_1999]

Hi

I've been using musicmatch7.5 for years, and think it's a great bit of software, the BIG downside is it a major drain on the processor. I've review many other media players over the past few weeks and came to the conclusion that winamp would suit me. One thing that I haven't seen any of the media plays can do is fetch the album art and track names, I can then use these to rename my tracks.

Can anyone convince me to change to winamp or something similar (free would better too).

Basically what are the advantages to disadvantages for changing.

Many Thanks

[rridgely]

No one uses musicmatch anymore....

 

Anyway since you want lots of features and things like album art I would suggest you take a look at mediamonkey. Found here:

http://www.mediamonkey.com/

 

 

I personally use a stipped down player called foobar.

http://www.foobar2000.org/

[Tarun]

Winamp works great; people just think it has memory issues. It takes up less than most applications.

 

XMPlay is nice too. Lightweight, portable and can handle a lot of formats too.

 

People say foobar is good, but I've seen some dirty sides to it. (Which I'm not going to disclose) XMPlay is superior to foolbar because XMPlay can use only 2,000-3,000k memory while playing a song.

[JohnDemolition]

why in the world would people think that Winamp has memory issues? i've been using Winamp Lite for quite a long time(with Dynamic library and some playback plugins) and it has not caused me one problem. not one.

[rridgely]

XMPlay is superior to foolbar because XMPlay can use only 2,000-3,000k memory while playing a song.

 

 

Yeah but its playlist/ music sorting is awefull. Hey I did use that at school today though from my jump drive. It worked great. ( but foobar is a better full time program)

 

Anyway mediamokey sounds like the best choice for what this persons wants.

[mps69_1999]

Thanks for the input guys.

I tried to used MediaMonkey about 6 months ago and found it to be the ugliest application I've ever came across.

I'll give foobar a try then have a look at winamp again.

[jc836]

The current version of Media Monkey is fully user friendly and does not have any real memory or processor usage problems. I switched to it from MusicMatch because the latter is no longer supported as it once was (Say Yahoo). I will not use WinAmp for a similar reason-AOL controls its functionality in the end. Did I mention that it does everything you are asking about

[englishmen]

I would suggest you try Foobar2000, looks brilliant(once configured), sounds brilliant and has a plugin for more or less everything you may want it to do.

[kobrakommander56]

I use itunes but im totally making a switch.

[lokoike]

I would suggest you try Foobar2000, looks brilliant(once configured), sounds brilliant and has a plugin for more or less everything you may want it to do.

 

Foobar is still a beta; does it have any major bugs or system compromising issues that you guys have noticed? I've heard a lot of positive opinions of it, but I try to avoid beta apps as often as possible.

[Tarun]

foolbar sucks. Period. It's just terribly put together. XMPlay has a nice library feature and ways to find songs you want too. Winamp is just as good as far as I'm concerned. Even though AOL bought Nullsoft, doesn't mean it's a bad application. Too many people make that very mistake, and it's so stupid. Just cause AOL owns Nullsoft Winamp, doesn't mean the program is bad at all. Winamp 3 sucked, but Winamp 5 is really good.

[lokoike]

Well, I used Winamp 5 for a very short period of time when it came out, but I didn't really like it. The fact that AOL owns it now is an even bigger turn-off, since I despise AOL and all of their products. But maybe I need to give it a second chance. I'll download it and check it out.

 

I do like the VLC Media Player, but the last version I used was 0.8.2, which was horrendously buggy! Barely even usable!

[rridgely]

terribly put together? Dude foobar plays every format and runs on less ram then any other program. It does everything and more then the other programs and can be fully customized.

 

XMPlay is terrible for someone who has lots of music. It only makes a big long list of songs while with foobar I can make playlists and even have my total collection at my fingertips very organized. But I like using it on my thumbdrive.

 

 

My foobar(mine is simple but it can be customized with colors ect.):

 

 

Foobar is still a beta; does it have any major bugs or system compromising issues that you guys have noticed? I've heard a lot of positive opinions of it, but I try to avoid beta apps as often as possible.

 

 

I havent seen one bug since I have been using it. The program is a little hard to configure but it is more or less perfect once you get it the way you want it.

 

 

Here is a great guide on how to configure it. Get columns ui for sure!

http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?ti...wbie_User_Guide

[Andavari]

Foobar is still a beta; does it have any major bugs or system compromising issues that you guys have noticed? I've heard a lot of positive opinions of it, but I try to avoid beta apps as often as possible.

 

If you are at all worried use the current stable release version which is 0.8.3, that's the very I happen to be using at the moment however I "may" give the beta a spin later on.

 

foolbar sucks. Period. It's just terribly put together.

 

Pretty harsh words for one of the best damned audio players ever created. Care to elaborate since you're publically putting it down? I'm dying to know why you think it "sucks" right here in the forum and not via a PM! Fb2k is a feature rich audio player that plays a plethora of audio formats, I tried Winamp again just a few days ago and it only lasted a few minutes on my system since it's functionality doesn't even come close to fb2k's.

Btw the developer used to make Winamp plugins some years ago!

 

terribly put together? Dude foobar plays every format and runs on less ram then any other program. It does everything and more then the other programs and can be fully customized.

 

Right on brother! Here's a high five for speakin' the truth!

[Tarun]

I already proved foobar takes up way more than XMPlay, even if XMPlay has plugins loaded and is playing a song with a skin fully visible.

[rridgely]

I already proved foobar takes up way more than XMPlay, even if XMPlay has plugins loaded and is playing a song with a skin fully visible.

 

 

Actually when XMPlay is playing a file it dosent use less.

 

Its was hard to play music with XM because its library functions are very poor. Foobar plays everything right out of the gate without any plug ins.

 

 

People say foobar is good, but I've seen some dirty sides to it. (Which I'm not going to disclose)

 

Please tell us the "dirty side". I honestly see no problems with foobar.

 

I dont care if I'm the only person that uses foobar but I want to know why anyone could honestly not like it...it seems pretty great to me.

[kobrakommander56]

2 men ENTER! 1 man LEAVES!

 

oooooo rolling stones, i like your taste in music rridgely.

[rridgely]

oooooo rolling stones, i like your taste in music rridgely.

 

They are only the greatest band of all time.

 

Some of my other favorites are

 

The Beatles

Bob Dylan

Guns N Roses

Aerosmith

Led Zeppelin

Red Hot Chillipeppers

Bruce Springsteen

Dave Mattews Band

The who

Queen

Stone Temple Pilots

Tom Petty

The Doors

Pink Floyd

U2

Metallica

(I'll stop now but I could go on forever. )

[englishmen]

Foobar is by far the best player currently out, it uses the least memory and cpu(on my pc), its the most configurable and the way it handles playlits is brilliant. It may also be using more memory and cpu then others because of the amount of plugins a user is using or not using.

 

I'm currently using only 10 plugins and with them it does everything i want nothing more nothing less. Here is my foobar, its a columns ui config file from someone else which i edited very slightly to sought my needs.

 

http://files.to/get.php?cid=140ea1fad8d7426d59f0545d41b8f85c

 

Edit: fixed link

[Andavari]

I'm also using a Columns UI format string that I completely customized.

[Tarun]

 

Never goes over 3,000 K for me.

 

foolbar2k plays all those formats "Out of the box" because it comes with all the plugins already. Why have plugins for stuff you'll never use?

• Balls-on accurate
  Plays the way nature intended
  
• 32/24-bit & multi-channel output
  take advantage of supporting hardware for ultimate quality
  
• Gapless output
  Gapless playback of all supported formats
  
• Interpolation & volume/pan ramping
  For output that's smoother than a baby's arse!
  
• DSP
  Automatic gain control (and Replaygain), 5 band equalizer, reverb, plugin support
  
• Net streaming
  All supported file types (including MODs and archives) can be streamed from FTP and HTTP servers (inc. Shoutcast/Icecast/Icecast2), optionally writing a copy to disk, FTP directories and HTML webpages can be scanned for playable files
  
• Track information
  Displays file/format information, messages/tags, and instrument/sample texts, open webpages from the texts
  
• Title formatting
  You decide how you want the track titles to look, title updating from 'net streams and CUE sheets
  
• Library
  A database of your tracks, for quick and easy access to the tracks you want to play
  
• Saved/preset settings
  Save settings (DSP/etc...) to be automatically used each time specific tracks are loaded, save presets for quick application at any time
  
• Disk writing
  Writes 8/16/24/32-bit WAV files, supports external encoders (MP3/OGG/etc...), optional automatic level normalization, dithering & noise shaping, individual MOD instrument writing
  
• Keyboard shortcuts
  Fully customizable shortcuts, including global hotkeys
  
• Integration
  Open files/folders from Windows Explorer, drag'n'drop files/folders/shortcuts/URLs, monitor the clipboard for playable URLs, drag'n'drop tracks from XMPlay into other programs, icon customization
  
• Archive plugins
  Archived/compressed files can be loaded just like normal files
  
• Unicode file support
  Support for Russian, Chinese, etc...
  
• Visualisation
  Compatible with Sonique plugins, also includes a MOD pattern view
  
• No installation
  UnZIP where you want and go!
  

[Eldmannen]

I use Winamp v2.81, it is an old version from 2002.

It works good, it is nice, have everything I need.

 

There are Winamp 5 nowadays, but no people from the orginal Nullsoft team who made Winamp is in the current team of developers of Winamp. Justin Frankel (leader) quit too.

[englishmen]

I'm also using a Columns UI format string that I completely customized.

 

 

I would make a config file myself but it all looks like gibberish to me , and the fact the config file i got is 98% of what i would like to make anyway.

[rridgely]

Foobar does all those things. I'm not sure about your screenshot because that was no where near what I got on my system with it.(maybe others could say what xmplay uses on theirs. Also make sure your playing a file)

 

Like I said XMPlay does not have a good library function.If you have a small amount amount of music then it should be ok but if your like me and have a lot then that just isnt good enough. I want my music sorted by artist then album with a dropdown menu.(like my foobar is)

[Tarun]

lol, it shows that it is playing just by looknig at the skin. Though I did see a lot of junk in your system list screenshot. Maybe that's why foolbar takes more. The library works really well; though there are a few features that I like that are missing. (Like pressing next with random on and it will randomly select a new song instead of going to the next track)

 

Btw, it also supports Winamp plugins; so you can probably fix the library through a winamp plugin too.