Winamp Sucks

Also - if you want ugly skins, try giving Windows Media Player a spin.

hstencil mind meld!

I'm not really a big Windows user, but I'm on a windows system at the moment, and I found choosing an MP3 player to be a bit of a tricky job. I immediately chose iTunes, and was really impressed with it when I installed it, but then found that it doesn't really handle the media library feature as I'd like it to. I rip all my CDs to MP3 when I get them home, tag them up and put them in the right directory. Sometimes I move a directory or rename it, or download a song and stick it in an "unsorted" folder, and ideally I'd like the MP3 app to just find it when I start the program up.

I might be grossly mistaken, because it seems wrong, but it appears iTunes wants me to add my directories manually, and doesn't ever scan them for updates. This means that if I rename a track or move an album it gets lost and iTunes doesn't know where to find it. Similarly, if I delete a track, iTunes still thinks I want it in my media library. Winamp scans at a time you can specify (mine's set to every ten minutes) for changes in your "watch folders", and at startup.

I've not really got a way with words tonight, but hopefully you understand what I'm looking for in an MP3 player, so if you've got any suggestions for something better than Winamp I'd love to know, because Winamp isn't perfect.

In regards to the GUI, have you had a look at the "non-step" skin for Winamp? It's the only one I can cope with, and it's very nice indeed. Perhaps it's one of those things that suits my computer perfectly but would just get in the way for everyone else. And as for m4a support, you can get plugins to fix that. It also doesn't support FLAC from a default installation, but there are plenty of plugins to fix that.

Sknning is a bad feature anyway. It's one of those feature-creep features, the last one tacked on before the program becomes totally unusable.

i've tried foobar a gillion times but i can't seem to get the hang of it.

Technically the bloat is quicktime not iTunes, basically iTunes for windows is iTunes straight recompiled for the Mac. Quicktime implements huge chunks of the apple API to make this and quickTime work with minimal recoding on their part, it's basically a built in emulator.

It is not an emulator.

http://www.ezthemes.com/previews/d/dancingajigwa.jpg

What's the word, then? Clunky? Inefficient?

look at the upside down tabs here

wtf

x-post

Sorry about the obscene amount of screenshots, I was trying to get across an idea of how the windows are set up.

http://www.winamp.com/customize/component/2001/11/10/S/large_image/Oxygen_2.jpg

Did you just upgrade from MS-DOS 5?

I keep my mp3 files organized into windows folders and then click on the file itself when I want to hear it. Winamp starts playing it back immediately. That's all I care about!!

So why is Winamp better than the others for your purposes, Spencer? (I admit I switched to QCD because it had built-in OGG support but I think it might also have better mp3 playback plugins.)

hahaha

it's a windows thing, it really is. Remember Winamp 3, anyone? The buttons were actually invisible. They phased buttons out of the design. you were supposed to already know where the buttons were, and take some kind of perverse pride in being well-versed in this bad interface. It's a badge of geekdom or something.

http://www.winamp.com/customize/component/2004/10/10/S/large_image/AC_Milan_2.png

ihttp://www.winamp.com/skins/details.php?id=76717&download=yes&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.winamp.com%2Fcustomize%2Fcomponent%2F2001%2F8%2F18%2FS%2FRush_Hour_2_Roselyn_Sanchez_Style.wsz

(god, I hate Windows "power users".)

Actually, QCD would be just fine. I didn't find it to be any faster than winamp so I just stuck with it. I got an OGG plugin for it. The best thing about QCD is the CD playback without any skips.

Did you just upgrade from MS-DOS 5?

No. I use XP Pro with a lot of RAM and no matter what, winamp is faster to launch than iTunes. It's the one thing I really care about with mp3s, sorry if you hate me.

So sleek and sterile...

Also, Chaki, I use 2.9 too! Although someone told me that if you use v5 with the old skin that it's just as fast.

Tabs being placed at the bottom of the window and what else?

(The only thing I've ever hated is the random button).

That's because most people have no taste.

I use XMMS. I have no idea what the theme I use is called, but I like to think it looks pretty good:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v357/sleepycaitlin/xmms1.png
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v357/sleepycaitlin/xmms2.png

(I opened XMMS specially to take screenshots for this thread, and that was the section of the playlist that randomly came up. Clearly, it could tell what I wanted it for.)

Frankly, I can't see what's wrong with placing tabs at the bottom of a dialog.

but -- and I think this is jon's point -- most of them are quite bad, and having thousands of options does not improve this. "Freedom of Choice," you know, like Devo said. Eventually you just get tired of browsing skins and pick something that's terrible looking.

Well, the thing is, the skinning is considered a big fun feature, rather than a one-time choice. Like, I think there are people who sit around skinning thier winamp player all day, and it's just stupid, but it's one of the big features of winamp, dontcha know. The skin it somes with basically forces you to modify it, it's so damn ugly. So you go to the website and are immediately overwhelmed by thousands and thousands of choices, none of which look all that great...

I used the WinAmp Ipod plugin for a while, but I found it to be a bit sluggish and not so great for ID3 tag editing. EphPod's an improvement, seeing as how it's free and all, but if you're looking for the real deal for Windoze AnaPod is the way.

IT REFERS TO ASIAN SPORT IMPORT CARS DUMB FUCK

Also, so you're asking me if I am a car?

http://www.thebestcasescenario.com/toxic/toxic1a.jpg

shit i just erased my whole playlist

http://wizardishungry.com/lol/screenshots/desktop-26oct2004.jpg

as i'm grading assignments for [REDACTED] i come across a pile of late assignments from a boy who's never submitted anything before last week. all the assignments are perfect and commented like whoa and i note on his gradesheets 'beautiful comments!' goldstar smileyface A+

then i notice one of his class headers has another student's name and section number and is dated 2 weeks before any of the other classes are dated. and in fact, all of the late assignments this boy magically submitted now are styled identically to the class submitted with the erroneous header info.

instead of sending him a response of a couple of fat 0s and an F in the course as dictated by the [REDACTED] academic honesty policy, i decide to search thefacebook so i could have a snarl or two at the cheater and accomplice. expecting ricers or frat pledges that list 'beer, chicks' as their interests, i am surprised to find perfectly normal, adequately acceptable, friendly, intelligent looking, non-gross, indie rockers. sigh. the boy gets his 10% off, which leaves him with an 88. and i will probably tell the incredibly friendly push-over professor (who brings pizza and fresh fruit into the i.t. programming labs for her class) that she might want to check this out. maybe.

:(

there's no such thing as a perfectly normal, adequately acceptable, friendly, intelligent looking, non-gross, indie rocker.

i'm making belle and sebastian skins for my winamp.

http://deanna.ladyinterference.com/ilx/winamp01312005.jpg

If you look hard enough, you can find awesome skins, y'know.

i guess this comes next,
http://photos1.flickr.com/1208662_90173b6052_o.jpg

It's a great one, isn't it? Credit whomever went by "mookid loves Bowie" on the Winamp site for the skin. All I had to do was download it. :)

It doesn't sync with my iPod, so...

That said, iCal and Address Book kick ass!

iPhoto annoys me because it has absolutely no options to it besides "red eye reduction" (which makes people look like zombies) and cropping but whatever, yo uget what you pay for.

Yeah, I hate that too. Still, if you don't own an iPod (or even if you do) there are alterantives.

What kind of Mac is this? iMac? G4? How much memory?

i am using this skin rite now! all wmp skins are disgusting but then so's everything

Skinning is a bad feature. All the skins are ugly.
Nucleo Old School 4 life!!
p.s. iTunes since v.5 ahaha :-D and you're stuck with it...
The interface widgets are crowded.
Whatever, it saves screen space.
It doesn't support m4a.
It does now.
The Library is a joke.
it's slightly ugly, but pretty much comparable to iTunes in functionality (equally annoying/insufficient at times too!) except I can actually search by hard disk folder name unlike iTunes search.

"winampa.exe" is the Winamp Agent for playing MP3 files

afaik winampa.exe is some launch at start-up quick-start helper & update tool. Nothing to do with playing files... I either deselect it during install or remove it in msconfig from ever starting. I don't need it.

Winamp starts playing it back immediately. That's all I care about!!

-- Spencer Chow

so does iTunes, dood.

-- Pears can just fuck right off.

Alternatively Winamp can also enqueue! iTunes is fucking unbelievable for overlooking this. You click/select something - it plays! even if something else was playing in the meantime, it instantly interrupts/overrides it. Infuriating.

Winamp is better not just because iTunes sucks a million ways, but because it's still just better/smaller/faster. For every minor Winamp bug, iTunes has the performance of a three-toed sloth, UI decisions that though pretty, are terrible to actually USE and an added sense of intrusiveness into other processes & parts of your computer.

It doesn't just even out, it actually tips the balance from "ok, it's a mp3 program" to "fuck this p.o.s.!"

Can you keep a copy of iTunes on your flash drive like I do with my personal Winamp setup?

i am an itunes guy but this is so true

except I can actually search by hard disk folder name unlike iTunes search.
Again, the point is to not care about the disk representation.

afaik winampa.exe is some launch at start-up quick-start helper & update tool. Nothing to do with playing files... I either deselect it during install or remove it in msconfig from ever starting. I don't need it.
Did you even read the thread? My point was the memory usage in the image that dude linked for "winampa.exe" was not winamp's usage since winampa is the agent.

Alternatively Winamp can also enqueue! iTunes is fucking unbelievable for overlooking this. You click/select something - it plays! even if something else was playing in the meantime, it instantly interrupts/overrides it. Infuriating.

It'd be nice to have this for the few times I need it. (You can enqueue with drag and drop of course) But again, the point is that you use the iTunes library to browse your music, rather than a file browser.

IF YOU ARE USING A FILE BROWSER TO BROWSE MUSIC, WINAMP'S LIBRARY MUST BE WORSE THAN WINDOWS EXPLORER.

an added sense of intrusiveness into other processes & parts of your computer.
Like?

Can you keep a copy of iTunes on your flash drive like I do with my personal Winamp setup?

Why would I want to put a copy of winamp on a flash drive? So I can put 10 mp3s on the flashdrive and play them on any random computer I come to? Or I could put 20 on there and skip the winamp garbage. ;)

get one doublesize or keyboard shortcut, or skin with bigger buttons/better layout for eye troubles.

except I can actually search by hard disk folder name unlike iTunes search.
Again, the point is to not care about the disk representation.

No the point is to use whichever method springs to mind quickest to locate something I want to find, like my folder for "# Mixes" which, if not tagged as such in iTunes is -fuck all- use searching for a ID3 tag. Sometimes I want to find a group of files, without using explorer.

IF YOU ARE USING A FILE BROWSER TO BROWSE MUSIC, WINAMP'S LIBRARY MUST BE WORSE THAN WINDOWS EXPLORER.

no dude, I just don't do every single thing ever via apple's relational database model ffs!

Did you even read the thread? My point was the memory usage in the image that dude linked for "winampa.exe" was not winamp's usage since winampa is the agent.

I skimmed it but fair enough, it's still not an agent "for playing" mp3 files.

It'd be nice to have this for the few times I need it. (You can enqueue with drag and drop of course) But again, the point is that you use the iTunes library to browse your music, rather than a file browser.

The FEW times? I have Winamp set to "enqueue on click" since forever you must have -no idea- how maddening the lack of this feature is.

Oh but wait I can drag & drop instead?? from my search results? into a playlist? this is all workaround BS that is so much more fuss than a feature which should just be in there.

an added sense of intrusiveness into other processes & parts of your computer.
Like?

Re-organising all your filenames/folder structure/tags if you're not wise, stupid background processes for burning (if I don't have anything to burn today?), all sorts of crap.

Can you keep a copy of iTunes on your flash drive like I do with my personal Winamp setup?

Why would I want to put a copy of winamp on a flash drive? So I can put 10 mp3s on the flashdrive and play them on any random computer I come to? Or I could put 20 on there and skip the winamp garbage. ;)

A - portable, so that I can play whatever is on my iPod/2GB flash drive on any PC I sit at at work INCLUDING .m4a files which Windows Media Player won't do, and neither will iTunes, unless I install it. And for adding anything I've grabbed to my iPod library for the bus ride home. That's why!

I do realise absolutely anything is better than using OS X's "finder" though, like kicking yourself repeatedly in the balls for instance ;)

http://img390.imageshack.us/img390/9697/untitled1copy8oc.jpg

COLD. DEAD. HANDS. ok?

We all know doublesize is awful and all features should be easily accessable via the mouse. Time to use widget still a problem.

I want to find, like my folder for "# Mixes" which, if not tagged as such in iTunes is -fuck all- use searching for a ID3 tag.

Drag a playlist dir/m3u to the playlist list in itunes, drop. You now have a Playlist named whatever. Of course, if you use Winamp, a single file can't be in IAMAHUGEIDIOT and in IAMAMORON. Unless you use m3u files. Which you have to save.

Check out the "Pro" features (aka uncripples) and then all the EXTRA GREAT "features" (aka bundling) in Standard.

Here's what you get when you buy Pro:

Unrestricted CD Burning
Winamp Pro enables you to burn your favorite music compilations at your computer's full potential. Once registered, Winamp Pro will allow you to burn your CDs at speeds up to 48x, 9 times the speed of Winamp 5! (Actual speeds may differ, depending on your computer's specifications.)

MP3 Encoding
With Winamp Pro, you can rip all your favorite music CDs into the industry leading MP3 format. When all your songs are encoded in MP3, it provides you the freedom to play them in all MP3 capable hardware and software media players.

Unrestricted CD Ripping
Buying Winamp Pro enables you to convert all of your favorite music CDs into digital files at your computer's maximum potential. Once registered, Winamp Pro can rip your CDs at speeds up to 48x, 9 times the speed of Winamp 5! (Actual speeds may differ, depending on your computer's specifications.)

GUI knobs are annoying... so I always set mine to max and use another control (or get another skin if I cared)! It's not THAT hard.

I never said it's perfect! it's just that iTunes is *terrible*

I want to find, like my folder for "# Mixes" which, if not tagged as such in iTunes is -fuck all- use searching for a ID3 tag.

Drag a playlist dir/m3u to the playlist list in itunes, drop. You now have a Playlist named whatever. Of course, if you use Winamp, a single file can't be in IAMAHUGEIDIOT and in IAMAMORON. Unless you use m3u files. Which you have to save.

wtf?? Which playlist is this? ... the playlist of the physical files/folder from explorer/finder dropped into iTunes (does it update automatically?) or the playlist of the stuff I found in a search which didn't show up properly that I couldn't find??

None of this sounds quick to me!

actually, I don't even NEED to do this usually. I have a smart view set up in Winamp that filters everything in this /# mixes folder so I don't need to type it much, if ever. LAST time I checked iTunes didn't allow filters/searches relating to the -OH NOES!- actual hard disk directory, but this might have changed. Probably not though because it's bad because Apple thinks I am stupid for ever needing this feature or something? Ooookay.

I don't know who these people are who are constantly saving .m3u .whatever playlists outside of iTunes/Winamp Library. You're making out like this is something essential people need to do to use Winamp! Tag/name your files properly instead or something, it works just as well as -

list.m3u
1) bulshit file.m4a
2) filefromkazzaa.mp3
3) 1-brittanyspears-lucky.mp3

Don't blame Winamp for dumb users or I'll just point you to all the "where did my music go I lost it all when iTunes updated boo hoo" threads in response.

xpost

does it update automatically?

NO I AM TALKING ABOUT HOW BRAIN DEAD IDIOTS LIKE YOU CAN IMPORT THEIR STUPID FILESYSTEM STRUCTURES TO ITUNES!

LAST time I checked iTunes didn't allow filters/searches relating to the -OH NOES!- actual hard disk directory

WHY WASTE TIME ORGANIZING THAT STUFF? ITUNES META INFO BUILDS THE TREE FOR YOU = ONLY ONE PLACE TO MANAGE THAT

I don't need any of it though :/
iTunes doesn't even get the "playing" bit right enough for me, never mind trusting it with additional functions that other programs handle, like ripping (Exact Audio Copy/LAME) & tagging (plenty of windows programs, NOTHING even acceptable on Macs esp. not iTunes).

The thing that bugs me about iTunes is it has been fucking up zero second track crossfades for several versions.

-- R.I.P. Concrete Octop

Fucks sake.

Yeah I wasted so much time that one time I did it and now never have to type that search again! I thought you people liked smart searches??!

Fucks sake.

I keep files I have tagged and files I haven't apart.
I keep files which are part of a structure (album, e.p.) and files which are not (single mp3's, mixes etc) APART.

IS THAT SO HARD TO UNDERSTAND??

They don't get mixed up in one big mess, and also additionally if I want to, I can add BOTH to the database, still not mixing them up but having access to each as I wish. BEST OF BOTH WORLDS!

iTunes didn't let me do this last time I checked. so fuck iTunes and it's "there is only one way and that is the new way" bullshit.

"TURN THAT OPTION OFF THEN
WHAT IF I WANT IT ON NORMALLY?"
well if you want it BOTH ways, you can hold down apple key to temporarily over-ride that setting :-)

-- Britain's Obtusest Shepherd (AlanTrewarth...) (webmail), March 21st, 2006 12:23 PM. (Alan) (later) (link)

while dragging in the mp3 i mean obv
-- Britain's Obtusest Shepherd (AlanTrewarth...) (webmail), March 21st, 2006 12:23 PM. (Alan) (later) (link)

NEVER HAVE TO.... UNTIL YOU MOVE STUFF IN YOUR PRECIOUS FILESYTEM

WHAT IS IN YOUR "#MIXES" DIRECTORY

iTunes would be a LOT more pleasing to me (and even convince me to maybe give up using a well-organised , uncomplicated dir structure as non-program backup organisation) if the inbuilt ID3 tagging functions weren't woefully inadequate & inconsistent & requiring of constant micromanagement, compared with many dedicated Windows ID3 programs.

I never said iTunes is difficult to use. Just that it doesn't do some things Winamp does. And the things it lacks tend to unfortunately be things that make my life easier & happier.

here's one i prepared earlier
http://www.lolrider.com/lol/shoutcast.jpg

turned it off. and...
http://www.lolrider.com/lol/lol.jpg

http://www.lolrider.com/lol/visualisation.JPG

also, i've never ever had any problems running any version of winamp on any pc, even really super shitty ones.

The iPod support is simple & sturdy enough, but has a majorly annoying "feature" that if you leave the album tag* blank, when transferred across to your iPod, it guesses(?) and steals the track title info.

This is getting in the way of trying to separate albums & non-album material. Grrr.

The non-album stuff is in a playlist, it _shouldn't_ be showing up elsewhere.

iTunes really isn't flexible enough for me, but I do understand why more people use it.

Going to muddle through & maybe uninstall the iPod support & reinstall the old plugin (worked fine, but was annoying to configure) :/

*note: none of these files are in the Media Library, so it shouldn't be that that's causing problems unless there's some intermingling going on.

Either way... fixed, but Winamp's in-built iPod (and other devices) support is nowhere near good enough (fully featured) or usable (see crap like above) as the iPod (only) plug-in.

:(

Since I upgraded my version of Winamp recently, I've noticed that I am getting a glitch pretty frequently when I load web pages! This has never happened before that I can recall. Should I be using something else at this point? Has Windows Media Player gotten any better? I may try it regardless, as I am sick of what Winamp is doing.

yep, same here. i thought it was soemthing to do with my outboard soundcard and not necessarily the new winamp as when i use my internal soundcard there are no problems, but now you mention it.

windows media player is still horrific, i'm sure
i am down w/musikCube.
foobar2000 is probably the best out there but you have to set up a lot of stuff (like the layout) yourself, which can be a drag

I've been using VLC for about a year now, after a solid 10-13 years of winamp use. The kicker was that whenever I recorded something in Ableton and played it in Winamp it would make it really loud and apply nasty compression to it. VLC doesn't.

I am a Mac ricer now.

Winamp has been sturdy for me. I usually pirate a copy of pro for burning cds - I find one on soulseek. Then I download i-pod support from some 3rd party. But I can't say I've had webpage or audio problems. Winamp's organizing system/playlist making is tops and i-pod and cd-burning is easy to use.

i used to use winamp, but foobar2000 is definitely the way to go. i don't use music player library systems, though, so ymmv. i prefer to just browse my files in folders on my hard drive.

yeah same here. the cool thing about foobar2000 (and to an extent musikCube) is you can play around w/it to best suit your listening/organizational habits.

Went Mac too, but before that I was really into MediaMonkey.

does anyone use songbird? i installed it (on my mac) but found it not that big an improvement over itunes; it plays flacs though if you are into that.

Hey fellow Winamp guys, is the problem you're having that you get a popup error message that's obviously caused by Winamp but attributed to your browser?

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1932236&start=0&tstart=0

sort of, but not really.

http://lifehacker.com/5356619/itunes-finally-adds-watched-folder-to-automatically-add-new-music

works if you let iTunes manage... etc

I'm thinking my problem had less to do with Winamp than with Firefox. I went back to Windows Media player (after being confused about how to make a connection between MusikCube and my mp3s and not feeling like having to figure it out) but I am still getting frequent pauses/glitches in the sound when I load certain pages while listening to music. But I just switched to Opera and it doesn't seem to be happening now. Also, Opera seems really great in general. I like how quickly things are loading. I definitely see a difference. (I will probably re-load Winamp and see if the problem returns when I use it with Opera.)

I use Opera, but I get the popup error message I mentioned above. I should just learn my lesson and never update winamp, 4 out of 5 times it just causes problems.

technical question

I right click on a folder to play it in winamp. It contains subfolders as well as files. Let's say it has these:

Folder A containing files a1, a2
Folder B containing files b1, b2
Folder C containing files c1, c2
file d1
file d2

(with the x1's being alphabetically ordered before the x2's)

Winamp plays or enqueues them in this order:
c1, c2, b1, b2, d1, d2, a1, a2

putting the folders in reverse order, and inserting the un-foldered files before the first folder (which is played last).

I would like to play them in this order: a1, a2, b1, b2, c1, c2, d1, d2.

How do I change this?

Click the 'Misc' button at the bottom of the playlist editor, go to sort and select 'Sort by path and filename'.

I think this is what you're after.

What OS and Winamp version are you on? They get enqueued in alphabetical order for me (though with files and folders interspersed, so a file beginning with T appears between folder S and folder U) on Windows 7 and v5.572 of Winamp.

I remember having a similar problem on XP if I selected all the contents of a folder and dragged them into Winamp, but that was Windows' fault not Winamp's. Not sure if this is the same problem though, seems like it shouldn't be the same problem if you're right-clicking the containing folder instead of selecting and dragging the contents.

I'm on XP, and I can confirm that Windows will do screw-y things with filename order. I use Winamp 5.56 and enqueuing a folder by right-clicking on it always results in odd results. But when I drag the folder to the Playlist Editor window, it always stacks the files alphabetically.

^ Yes, but you have to drag the whole folder and not the contents, because if you select the contents then whichever file you select last is "highlighted" in Explorer, which will put it first in the list it sends to the target app (then the other files may appear in reverse order too)

iirc

</nerdy>

ironically, at some point during me posting to this thread, Songbird went a bit nuts and placed a Teenage Panzerkorps mp3 in the middle of a Low album in its playlist. which was slightly jarring

xp yeah, drag folder, not contents. I'm massively anal about organising my music into folders anyway.

it really whips the llama's ass

The main advantage of winamp is the ease of finding things in your library quickly, the library sorting and small text interface. The program is almost entirely designed for people who don't like to label/sort their music all the time. But I have never been in a situation where I've wanted to load an entire folder with subfolders and miscellaneous files through My Computer.

However, since my last harddrive erase (and loss of tons of music) I have just stuck with WMP even though I'm not a big fan.

Oh, I forgot to say (or think) that I never used the library in Winamp, just the playlist. So if this is a library issue, no idea.

The library sorting and finding is what I like about Songbird, so maybe it is a bit weird that I never even tried Winamp's library in many years of using Winamp.

xp and winamp 5.601, using windows explorer as a library. james mitchell's suggestion doesn't work.

winamp classic is still the best - quickest mama unlike the bloated itunes

Winamp Modern is also pretty zippy as long as you don't use the Media Library. Bento/Big Bento can both shove it though.

all I know is when I wanna hear "tears before bedtime" the app opens in seconds, I hit "j" and type in the track and voila! there it is. itunes takes so long to open

I still use winamp more than itunes.

https://jordaneldredge.com/projects/winamp2-js/

I've been using this a little bit, but mostly because I have all my media dumped into Plex: https://medium.com/plexlabs/introducing-plexamp-9493a658847a

i actually still use winamp at home

same lol

I don't have any need for it any more but Winamp >>>> iTunes.

man, I used Winamp up until very recently and it never went wrong. Don't know why I use AIMP now and it's always failing to detect what sound card I'm using (I swap all the time)

Still using WinAmp 5.61, see no reason to change. It opens quickly, can handle massive playlists, doesn't crash (or at least it's never crashed for me), and does what I need with minimal fuss.

i also still use winamp

although it still forgets to be always on top all the time

I want to go back to winamp because aimp doesn't have the mini mode, so I always have to go and find it, and it doesn't understand that if I drag some mp3s in, they should stay in the same order. But where can I get winamp now? The only website I can find doesn't have any download links.

winamp 5.6.4.318 for windows installer (inside a zip)

lol @ me

the minute I post this there will probably be some kind of world-shattering exploit revealed, but until then I feel pretty comfortable saying winamp is a perfect piece of software

winamp was great which means it still is but i haven't looked back from foobar2000.

tried several times to get foobar the way i wanted it and failed; no doubt i'll give it another shot when winamp stops working

k otm

http://www.winamp.com/ -> "follow this link to get updated news" -> http://forums.winamp.com/showthread.php?t=374929 -> second post = download links for the latest version?

ok, plex on iphone is actually.. pretty good now?

so i've switched from PC to Mac and I'm having trouble finding a media player that works properly. I just want to be able to play music. I'm not interested in creating a media library or making playlists or any of that jazz. Just want to be able to drag and drop a folder or double-click a file and get it to play.

iTunes - is just fucking awful in every way. It's as though the people who invented it had never understood people's needs. I'm sure last time I tried to use it, it tried to automatically copy all 2TBs of my music collection into low-bit m4a files on a hidden folder on my computer. Also, I never worked out how to get it to play an album all the way through without randomly shuffling to some other tune I played a few weeks ago. Terrible.

Winamp - Ah Winamp. It really kicked the llama's ass back in the day. Easy to use, not fussy about putting things into playlists etc. Just drag a folder into the window and it plays straight through. Sadly doesn't seem to enjoy life on my Mac. When I try to drag/drop a music folder into the window it says the files aren't supported. Lovely.

VLC Media player - Can't go wrong with this? Wrong. If I drag a folder into the window, it doesn't expand into tracks, it just sits there as a folder until I click to expand it. Rubbish if I want to copy a bunch of album folders into it. I've tried all the settings, including one which seems to say it affects this, but it doesn't do anything.

Elmedia Player - insists on showing me the album cover instead of my tracklist. The tracklist comes as an optional floating window which you have to toggle on. Not useful.

In conclusion: Media players are awful and Macs are terrible machines invented by a terrible company who prize compactness over functionality. Somebody help me out here before I lob this over-priced piece of crap out the window and go back to my trusty 2012 Asus.

Clementine?

i'll check it! thanks!

"Clementine Quit Unexpectedly"

*Sigh*

And people told me that Macs 'just work'

foobar?

let's try it

working so far!! :-) thanks!

crikey, that was a saga

foobar is still good yep

i mean Apple sucks but it works pretty well for me on the PC

I have not touched QCD in decades but apparently it was still being updated as of last year:

https://quintessential-media-player.en.softonic.com/

not convinced that that's a real QCD update

for macs i'd ask elvis telecom what he uses

so I spoke to a Mac expert friend who suggested I really do look into iTunes again and that the functionality, particularly in relation to things like Serato which I use a lot, can outweigh some of its shortcomings.
I've never put my music into libraries, rather I've always kept it in folders which are carefully alphabetised on an external drive and which I access via Explorer (and more recently Finder).
But the idea of chucking all 2TB into a library and risk a jungle of broken/mislabelled ID3 tags does put me off. Will it mess up the already labyrinthine personal system I've cultivated over decades? Will it confuse Serato and mess up its own very finnickity Crate system?
Maybe the wrong thread for this question I guess...

lol have fun

I use Small Player (https://www.igorware.com/small-player) for playing sound files. It's a tiny program, starts instantly. It's great. Just plays stuff and nothing else. I haven't used it much for listening to music for hours on end or anything like that (I do all that in Spotify), so I can't guarantee how it performs. I use it mostly for listening through single mp3/wav files/folders of my own stuff, and it's always worked perfectly for me.

Oh shit, I got your PC-Mac switch the wrong way round. Tough luck.

Foobar2000 still rules. It can use your folder structure to organise its browser and it's also pretty flood for managing metadata tags. Not sure where the Mac version is at in terms of development.

Pretty *good.

iTunes - is just fucking awful in every way. It's as though the people who invented it had never understood people's needs.

Alternatives on the mac are limited. There's Swinsian and a fairly crappy foobar2000 version (PC version is much better).

For mass-tagging on the mac there's Yate, Musicbrainz Picard and (if you like command line) Beets.

Don't know about mac but foobar runs very well under wine in linux and Peter is actively looking for bugs to improve compatiblity

people like IINA as a kind of better VLC for mac.
https://iina.io

but just to preview a file, hitting spacebar after selection lets you play it immediately.

toaster plugin suddenly stopped working correctly and i can't figure out why

ffs

Happy 25th anniversary to @Winamp!

The first version of ⚡Winamp⚡ was released as freeware on April 21st, 1997!

⚡🦙⚡

Winamp, it really whips the llama's ass! pic.twitter.com/sLYQUa0g5P

— Daniel Albu (@danielalbu) April 21, 2022

Lol

i always expect more from DJ Mike Llama after that, but he peaked with the Llama Whippin' Intro

I still use it! Just for double-clicking files in Windows to listen to individual tracks or preview things. I don't use it to organize music or listen to albums or anything. But whenever I double-click an audio file in Windows it pops up and it's somehow comforting that it functions and looks exactly the same as it did when I started using it 20+ years ago.

it remains my main music player tbh

scrolling back and reading dog Latin's Mac woes, i think i had similar problems when i changed job and settled on Vox, which has worked fine ever since

I've been using Winamp since the late 90s, and it's still my main music player.

My one complaint, which isn't really a complaint to be honest, is that the Media Library is really overspecced for what I use it for - namely managing multiple playlists. It seems like an overly complex early 2000s file explorer, kind of at odds with the main window and Playlist Editor.

Foobar 4 life motherfuckers

!

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/software/winamp-releases-new-version-after-four-years-in-development