HydrogenAudio

Hydrogenaudio Forum => General Audio => Topic started by: Bullit on 2010-10-31 23:45:46

Title: iTunes alternative
Post by: Bullit on 2010-10-31 23:45:46
What's a good alternative to iTunes. To organize and play music from?

Right now I'm using WMP to organize and play my files. FLAC, OGG, and some mp3. It's kind of flaky though, it doesn't like to update folders when I as it to.
Title: iTunes alternative
Post by: zipr on 2010-11-01 00:20:59
Mediamonkey (www.mediamonkey.com) is a good alternative -- especially if you have a large library.

Foobar2000 is another popular alternative.
Title: iTunes alternative
Post by: Bullit on 2010-11-01 00:27:01
Mediamonkey's got some nice features like folder organization, but when I was using it, I felt cheap. The application looks like it was put together on a weekend from pieces of better ones. I don't find it very user friendly.

Foobar is nice, I've used it before. I like the customization part. Does it do file transfers now, say for example if I want to send some mp3s to an ipod, or other mp3 player?
Title: iTunes alternative
Post by: mobyduck on 2010-11-01 07:46:16
Does it do file transfers now, say for example if I want to send some mp3s to an ipod, or other mp3 player?
For iPod support see here (http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=45160). Not sure if there's a plugin supporting other devices.

HTH.

Alessandro
Title: iTunes alternative
Post by: dhromed on 2010-11-01 10:30:36
I use Foobar for everyday needs, have tried iTunes but it didn't stick, and when I occasionally visit the ol' mothership, I use the latest version of WMP which really isn't bad at all for superficial usage, although library updates appear to be flaky indeed. I've had varying results with adding music to a folder and having it show up in the library immediately.

I guess the current Winamp sits somewhere in between WMP, iTunes and foobar, but what attracted me to foobar away from winamp is it's playlist-centric design with simply a set of playlists that you can manipulate, instead of ML-centric design, which feels hard and inflexible to me. Was on a friend's Mac the other day, clicked a song in iTunes and was unable to predict what song would play next. The concept of "playing from library" is foreign to me, and I prefer foobar's way where the ML is for organizing and finding, and playlists are for playing.

That, and the customizations, of course. I have a relatively compact layout compared to the full-screen "Advanced Music Player Master Control Room" that some people prefer, and bound several keys to be analogous with most video players' standards. I am a typical mega-playlist-as-library user due to the fact that a playlist is orderable and the ML is not. I rarely use the ML anyway.


Well, that turned into a dissertation, didn't it.
Title: iTunes alternative
Post by: FunnyFish on 2010-11-01 12:45:03
Well, I am a happy MediaMonkey user. I agree that MM doesn't have "the looks", but functionality is more important, isn't it?

In my opinion, these are MM's major advantages over other players (I must admit that I don't know Foobar)  :


Of course, MM has its issues too  :

In summary: MM is a very powerful library organiser and a good player: miles beyond Media Player, for example. I have used other tagging programs in the past, but these were always either buggy or too limited. I am curious to find out what other posters think of my reply and am open to -positive- criticism.

FunnyFish
Title: iTunes alternative
Post by: Bullit on 2010-11-01 15:02:10
It may be miles ahead of media player and many others but the interface is terrible for the user. I'm not a programmer, I'm a user who wants to organize, manage and play back audio files.

Media Monkey fails in this because it is far too "complex" and cruddy looking. It's an eyesore, but I can overlook that if the interface was at least organized in a logical manner. Things are thrown all over the place like its Windows 95. I like the foobar approach. Powerful features that are accessible but with a very simple interface. It's nice that it can be customized to make it do almost anything because the default is very spartan and not very inviting.

If the Media Monkey team want their audio player to be more powerful, they better simplify the interface in a logical manner. It doesn't need the minimalist one button approach that's very apple-esque, but it doesn't need to be that chaotic for just an audio player. It would be nice if it tied into the Windows operating system a little bit. It stands out far too much and not in a good way. It would be nice if it had a more aero, windows like look. At least as a default skin or something.

Yeah, the tagging features are nice and it's only redeeming feature in my opinion.

This is what I mean by bad user interface:

(http://www.mediamonkey.com/_inc/img/screenshots/manage.jpg)

That's not even complex, it's just bad like it was designed by a 14 year old for a computer class project.
Title: iTunes alternative
Post by: Teknojnky on 2010-11-01 19:04:20
UI looks fine to me, I use MM to manage a huge library and its the only app that is actually usable with it.
Title: iTunes alternative
Post by: Bullit on 2010-11-01 19:13:40
UI looks fine to me, I use MM to manage a huge library and its the only app that is actually usable with it.


What is huge?
Title: iTunes alternative
Post by: zipr on 2010-11-01 20:07:33
This is what I mean by bad user interface:

That's not even complex, it's just bad like it was designed by a 14 year old for a computer class project.


Mine looks a lot nicer than this -- and I did very little tweaking. Most of those windows can easily be hidden or turned off.
Title: iTunes alternative
Post by: Teknojnky on 2010-11-01 22:17:46
What is huge?


~2 tb

btw, if you don't like the default or any user skins, you can run MM unskinned (windows theme) as well.
Title: iTunes alternative
Post by: A_Day_Without_Me on 2010-11-01 23:24:34
I really like foobar2000.

I have used MediaMonkey but last I checked it doesn't have a true gapless playback with LAME MP3. That was the main reason I switched to foobar2000.

I wouldn't use any other program. It works really well for me, plays the music flawlessly, looks great, scrobbles with last.fm and so on.
Title: iTunes alternative
Post by: Bullit on 2010-11-01 23:43:33
I really like foobar2000.

I have used MediaMonkey but last I checked it doesn't have a true gapless playback with LAME MP3. That was the main reason I switched to foobar2000.

I wouldn't use any other program. It works really well for me, plays the music flawlessly, looks great, scrobbles with last.fm and so on.


Been trying to get it working. So far I've installed some nice themes but none of them have a proper library support. How am I supposed to organize and browse through my files on the thing?

Most themes are just a pretty playlist window, except for foobaero2010 v2 but its still a work in progress.
Title: iTunes alternative
Post by: A_Day_Without_Me on 2010-11-01 23:48:50
I use a autoplaylist that makes a playlist of all my files in my library.

I personally prefer the Default UI look.

This is how my foobar2000 setup looks: foobar2000 screenshot - 11-1-10 (http://img401.imageshack.us/img401/2828/foobar2000screenshot111.png)
Title: iTunes alternative
Post by: Bullit on 2010-11-02 00:48:56
If I make a large playlist of my library, what about when I want a different playlist?
Title: iTunes alternative
Post by: A_Day_Without_Me on 2010-11-02 00:50:21
you make more. and you can switch between them.

if you enable the library viewer selection playlist, when you click on an item in the album list it shows up in that playlist.
Title: iTunes alternative
Post by: Bullit on 2010-11-02 00:52:56
Ughhh... maybe I'll just use WMP. At least I can play FLAC and OGG with tagging and album support.
Title: iTunes alternative
Post by: A_Day_Without_Me on 2010-11-02 00:56:08
I guess you could try Winamp, I know plenty of people who really like that. I think it is better than MediaMonkey. It supports OGG and FLAC with album art and tagging.

WMP is a piece of junk.
Title: iTunes alternative
Post by: Bullit on 2010-11-02 01:04:47
WMP is a piece of junk.


It's ok for audio. If the libray wasn't so flaky it would be a nice program. The WMP12 on windows 7 feels a bit more refined.

Not sure how well it runs under the hood though.

Video has been improved but the lack of video controls (like zoom) and filters is annoying.
Title: iTunes alternative
Post by: dhromed on 2010-11-02 12:18:32
Ughhh...


What's putting you off so much that you post this animalistic sign of frustration?

If you "installed themes" for foobar, then you're missing the point. Screw themes. Play music. Maybe make a layout when you have a spare five minutes.

I'm not trying to recruit you into the foobar cult; different players serve different people's needs and preferences, but uninformed dislike is unnecessary and easily fixed, so that's why I ask.
Title: iTunes alternative
Post by: The Seeker on 2010-11-02 16:47:46
I've been using MusicBee (http://getmusicbee.com/) for the last few months and am loving it. I've been a foobar2000 user since 0.8.3 but have now switched to MB. It handles my iPod Shuffle flawlessly and has other nice features such as automatic lyrics and artwork fetching. What got me to switch full time was its support of WASAPI.

Check it out
Title: iTunes alternative
Post by: doctorcilantro on 2010-11-03 14:48:39
Just use J. River, it does it all more robustly than any other.
Title: iTunes alternative
Post by: ExUser on 2010-11-03 14:53:26
What got me to switch full time was its support of WASAPI.
I find this rationale hilarious, especially considering that foobar2000 was one of the first players to ever support WASAPI.
Title: iTunes alternative
Post by: greynol on 2010-11-03 21:07:21
Just use J. River, it does it all more robustly than any other.

More robustly? Please, do tell!
Title: iTunes alternative
Post by: oohrayray on 2010-11-03 21:31:54
Another vote for Musicbee. Been using it for about a year now.
Title: iTunes alternative
Post by: greynol on 2010-11-03 21:33:48
First post after over two years?  You must really like this player.  If you had just registered today I would have a different take on the situation.

@Bullit, did you intend for this to be a thread for people to chime in on their favorite player?  If so, I think you'll find plenty of other threads that do this.
Title: iTunes alternative
Post by: parmy on 2010-11-03 21:54:25
foobar2000

Two main cons: 1) If you don't like the default UI it takes 5-10 mins to customize; 2) Not all of the really useful functions are included in the main program, you have to download plugins

However after the initial setup it can do just about everything, like

- create autoplaylists that automagically update when you add/delete files (my entire music folder is in an autoplaylist)
- playlist tabs (I have 11 playlists open right now), can drag tracks between playlists
- supports a **** ton of formats (you might have to download free plugins for certain formats like aac/alac)
- tagging (not sure how easy it is to add album art, since out of habit I use MP3tag for that. there's a plugin that's supposed to download artwork)
- can group tracks by album (or artist, or genre, or date, or whatever)
- can sort by file location instead of tags (it's silly but my file folders are already properly alphabetized, adding custom sort tags is a waste of time)
- ipod support (via foo_dop plugin) - you can send flac/ogg to your iPod, it will convert it to mp3 as it loads
- as for other devices, I have an old Cowon iAudio X5 that I load by drag/dropping tracks directly from foobar. so i imagine you can do that for any device that doesn't need special pain in the butt software to load properly, just normal file operations (like an external drive)
- delete/move/rename/copy/merge files, convert formats, burn/rip cds, etc.
- plugins are easy to install/uninstall 'cause they're usually just one file

etc.

Title: iTunes alternative
Post by: The Seeker on 2010-11-04 01:47:21
What got me to switch full time was its support of WASAPI.
I find this rationale hilarious, especially considering that foobar2000 was one of the first players to ever support WASAPI.


Why hilarious? What I meant was that I continued to use foobar2000 (using WASAPI) until MusicBee implemented support for it, at which time I could use MusicBee full time.
Title: iTunes alternative
Post by: Bullit on 2010-11-04 17:21:14
@Bullit, did you intend for this to be a thread for people to chime in on their favorite player?  If so, I think you'll find plenty of other threads that do this.


I've already explained what I'm looking for in the first post. If people want to chime in with their favorite music player then they aren't helping.
Title: iTunes alternative
Post by: ZvezdanD on 2010-11-15 09:59:01
Sorry for the late replay, I have found this thread just now and since I was indirectly mentioned, I thought I should leave few words.

  • The scripting possibilities are endless, but can create problems. If you are not daunted by a little bit of programming, you probably won't get into trouble, but if so, the great amount and variety of ready-made scripts can be difficult to use, as documentation is mostly lacking. Sometimes you have to go through hundreds of forum posts to get the info you need. Examples: RegExp and MagicNodes, two of the most useful add-ons. Documentation for these is simply almost entirely absent. It must be said that this is not inherent to MM itself, but by the script developers, and if you are satisfied with the vanilla features, this is not a problem at all. But if you are somewaht of an organisational fanatic like me, you can end up with the situation that you are wondering "why doesn't the  program re-organise my tracks like I expect it to do?" Well, maybe you put one comma too many or too few in your mask or script!
  • If you are changing a lot of tags (500+, let's say), database errors are likely to occur. These are never fatal, but add a sense of instability to the program.

Thanks for stating the mentioned MediaMonkey's add-ons as two of the most useful, I am glad that you like them since I am their author. Well, I think that the rest of your post deserves some further explanations:
1. I am writing those add-ons in my free time mostly on users requests, very rarely because I need them, and I have almost none financial benefit of that.

2. English is not my mother language and it is much easier and less time consuming for me to write on your request some mask for Magic Nodes or some preset for RegExp then to write any more detailed user manuals for them.

3. There exists the user-manual in the PDF format for Magic Nodes and although it is obsolete, written for the old version of add-on, it still could be used for better understanding about this add-on. The first post of the RegExp dedicated thread on the MediaMonkey forum has also some kind of usage manual.

4. These add-ons are very flexible exactly because of their possibilities to use SQL (Magic Nodes add-on) and Regular expressions/VBScripts expressions (RegExp Find & Replace add-on). You could hardly use such things as SQL or Regex in some simple fashion. Of course, if you put some comma too many or too few in the Regex or SQL code that you would get an undesired result. If you want to use them with their full power, you need to know their syntax.

5. You could create many Magic Nodes masks without knowing SQL code at all, also you could create RegExp presets without knowing Regex/VBScript at all. In many cases it is enough to use just their graphical interface to create simple masks and presets. For example, if you want to display a tree node with artists grouped by the first letter and albums sorted by the release year, you could use GUI with its dialog box and with just few mouse clicks you could create this simple mask: Album Artist [A]-[Z], Album (by Year)\<Album Artist|Trim:1>\<Album Artist>\<Album|Sort by:Max(Year)>. You need the keyboard just to give a name for such mask. Same state for RegExp - you could use it as any Replace dialog box in any text/word editor like MS Word. For example, you could specify "_" in the Find what text box and " " (space character) in the Replace with text box and you would get replaced all underscores with blanks in the specified tag/field. I think it cannot be simpler than that.

6. There are currently included 320 predefined masks for Magic Nodes and 207 presets for RegExp, from the simple ones to the very complex. For example, you have a mask (by random choice) which displays a tree node for "Artists with 50 or more years between oldest and newest song". Or, you have a preset (again, by random choice) which could "Copy featuring artists from the end of Artist to the end of Title and put them within [ ]".

7. If you need something which is not covered with predefined masks/presets, and you don't know how to create the new ones, you always could post your request in their forum threads and I or someone else could give you an answer (as I did recently).

8. Speaking of database errors when changing a lot of tags (500+), I really cannot say that this is "likely". In fact, I cannot remember when I got such kind of error. It would be much more helpful and appreciated if you report such thing into the related thread in the MediaMonkey forum instead of speaking about that on such places as this forum without giving a knowledge about that to me or authors of the program. We cannot know about all or any bugs if you don't report them.

By the way, I don't want to discus about alternatives to some program. I think it is matter of some personal preference what software could use. I understand that someone prefers a good looking program with simple interface and just few options, but I am not that kind of user - I much more prefer the flexibility. Well, I know that MediaMonkey is not ideal - I am using foobar for conversions, CDex for CD ripping, MP3Gain for leveling, Winamp for audio reproduction, The KMplayer for video reproduction... However, as an organizer/tagger, MediaMonkey is my personal choice. Especially combined with my own add-ons