Topic: What do you play your music on? (Read 22974 times)

Thrillho · « **on:** 15 Jul 2016, 12:37 »

So, I am a pain in the ass.

I have in the region of 16,000 (legally owned) mp3s on my computer and I listen to them a lot, and I want to be able to listen to them in one place.

I have been using Winamp for well over a decade but that is no longer supported and as such is quite clunky and slow and no longer really fit for purpose.

Anyone have any suggestions what I could use?

I don't use iTunes, because I hate it. Windows Media Player sucks all the dicks. I don't want anything that needs to constantly be online and I doubt anything like that has the kind of storage space I would need regardless.

Does anyone use a programme that ISN'T one of these things?

hedgie · « **Reply #1 on:** 15 Jul 2016, 12:57 »

I use Clementine, which is cross-platform and has no problem managing all 35k songs on there in various formats. It can also play streams like Spotify.

KingOfIreland · « **Reply #2 on:** 15 Jul 2016, 13:03 »

Foobar2000. I will accept no substitute.

pwhodges · « **Reply #3 on:** 15 Jul 2016, 17:22 »

Quote from: Thrillho on 15 Jul 2016, 12:37

Does anyone use a programme that ISN'T one of these things?

Nothing - that's to say, Windows Explorer. I have my music organised in folders the way I want (not always the way the metadata says), and then I can play an individual file by double-clicking on it in Explorer (usually associated with VLC); or I can open a directory in VLC and the whole directory plays. My music tree of ~220GB is also duplicated in my iRiver H340 player (yes, I've changed the disk from a 40GB to a 240GB drive), and I use Rockbox in the same way (the native firmware can't handle either the disk size or the number of files). This of course also acts as a backup!

My son would point you at Roon Labs (a development of Meridian's Sooloos) for which he was a beta tester - it's very clever and comprehensive, but costs, and I simply don't want anything it offers.

SubaruStephen · « **Reply #4 on:** 15 Jul 2016, 20:07 »

I only use iTunes to buy music and load the songs on my iPod.
The iPod is my main source of daily music. (Auxiliary jack in the car and a ihome docking station knockoff at work)

Not going to mention the record collection.

Tova · « **Reply #5 on:** 26 Jul 2016, 23:21 »

My partner uses Media Monkey.

http://www.mediamonkey.com/

She's mildly fanatical about organisation of music and metadata. If you are too, then this may suit you.

Detachable Felix · « **Reply #6 on:** 29 Jul 2016, 17:42 »

I've heard good things about mediamonkey too, Personally I just prefer to keep everything organised myself. It's arduous work, but the last time I had a music library program it nerfed a whole bunch of live/b-sides/alt-takes and messed up all my albums, so..

celticgeek · « **Reply #7 on:** 29 Jul 2016, 17:58 »

I play my music on Totem Movie Player, although I have a number of programs available.

I also organize my music myself, since no other programs seems to want to organize it the same way I do:
Genre/Artist/Album/Songs

J · « **Reply #8 on:** 02 Aug 2016, 22:16 »

musicbee on windows

gone mad on android

KingOfIreland · « **Reply #9 on:** 04 Sep 2016, 01:30 »

Quote from: pwhodges on 15 Jul 2016, 17:22

Quote from: Thrillho on 15 Jul 2016, 12:37
Does anyone use a programme that ISN'T one of these things?

Nothing - that's to say, Windows Explorer. I have my music organised in folders the way I want (not always the way the metadata says), and then I can play an individual file by double-clicking on it in Explorer (usually associated with VLC); -snip-

You are a god among men and some day I hope to achieve something approximating your glory.

LTK · « **Reply #10 on:** 06 Nov 2016, 16:05 »

I just remembered, I used to use a portable music player, a Creative Zen, which had the feature to sort and play your music from least listened to, to most listened to. I'd always be adding new music to it, which I would like to hear more often than the songs I'd listened to a million times, so I'd tell it to shuffle the 20 least listened to, or the 50 least listened to. Eventually they even out with the rest and you end up listening to everything more or less equally.

This is a great feature, but I don't know of any existing music players (for windows) that have it. Although it would be pretty futile to implement it now, with over a thousand numbers currently in my playlist, I'd quite like to know whether it's possible to do this on a computer.

hedgie · « **Reply #11 on:** 07 Nov 2016, 05:41 »

Clementine does that. In its smart playlists, it has "least played" and "never played" as options.

LTK · « **Reply #12 on:** 07 Nov 2016, 06:57 »

That's strange, I can find 'Most played' and 'Never played' as options in those smart playlists, but not 'Least played'. Are you sure it's there?

KingOfIreland · « **Reply #13 on:** 09 Nov 2016, 15:16 »

I need a decent vocalist to redo my attempt at the ballad of Donald Trump. It'd be longer obviously. An attempt at spreading the message in folk terms after the bombs have dropped and all we have is acoustics or lutes or some shit. [soundcloud]https://soundcloud.com/tuathal/election_night[/soundcloud]

thedevilissix · « **Reply #14 on:** 11 Nov 2016, 05:32 »

Quote from: Tova on 26 Jul 2016, 23:21

My partner uses Media Monkey.

http://www.mediamonkey.com/

She's mildly fanatical about organisation of music and metadata. If you are too, then this may suit you.

I have the same sort of aim as the OP so am trying MediaMonkey now following your suggestion - it's pretty good. I've found the websearches to find metadata to be a bit clunky (I've found it better just to search by the artist or the album title, not necessarily both), but I love all the different browsing options you get with it.
I used MusicZen recently to try and tidy up my metadata a bit, but it didn't really work for me - all it did really was duplicate the files several times!
Hence me trying to go through and delete all the duplicates and do my tidying properly now. All the different browsing options are definitely helping me to find the things I need quicker.

I might also try Clementine too - Thrilloo, I will let you know how I get on with that if so if that helps!

Thrillho · « **Reply #15 on:** 11 Nov 2016, 06:06 »

Quote from: KingOfIreland on 09 Nov 2016, 15:16

I need a decent vocalist to redo my attempt at the ballad of Donald Trump. It'd be longer obviously. An attempt at spreading the message in folk terms after the bombs have dropped and all we have is acoustics or lutes or some shit. [soundcloud]https://soundcloud.com/tuathal/election_night[/soundcloud]

I was going to offer but my mic quality is bad and quite frankly I think your vocals on this are great.

sitnspin · « **Reply #16 on:** 11 Nov 2016, 07:11 »

I play my music on guitar, piano and violin.

Tova · « **Reply #17 on:** 16 Nov 2016, 19:34 »

I can't believe it's taken so long for someone to say that. I think it (well, a variation on it) every time I see the topic, before I remember what the actual topic is.

Anyway, I would like to slightly hijack this topic for my own question:

What portable gadget do you play your music on?

I have an ipod classic, but it won't last forever. Eventually the hard drive and/or battery will fail.

There are hacks around to replace both, and those are an option, but another option is to replace the whole thing with something shinier, and I slightly favour this. Among other reasons, it would be nice to be able to play a wider range of formats, including FLAC.

It has to be able to hold at least 80GB of music. Preferably more, as my collection continues to grow.

I'd prefer a dedicated unit, not a smartphone or ipod classic-type thing that plays music, videos, surfs the web, runs apps, etc.

If it is capable of mixing left and right channels to mono output, that would be a significant bonus.

I expect that I will have to pay for good quality sound, and that is fine. Astell & Kern AK70 is perhaps a touch expensive, but I might consider stretching to that if there are no other good options.

thedevilissix · « **Reply #18 on:** 17 Nov 2016, 04:41 »

Quote from: Tova on 16 Nov 2016, 19:34

Anyway, I would like to slightly hijack this topic for my own question:

What portable gadget do you play your music on?

I have an ipod classic, but it won't last forever. Eventually the hard drive and/or battery will fail.

I can't believe Apple discontinued the iPod classic, still. It just seemed to me to be a way more user-friendly model (mostly because me and touchscreen items are fairweather friends ;P).

At the moment, it's predominantly on my iPhone, but I would love to get something with a lot more storage space (I have about 300GB of music on an external HD, and 16GB overall space for my iPhone.)

Money doesn't really permit me at the moment as it's too tight to mention, but when it does, I'm so there

pwhodges · « **Reply #19 on:** 17 Nov 2016, 13:36 »

The A&K range is to droll over.

For real life, I have a long, long discontinued iriver H340. I have replaced the 40GB disk with a 240GB disk (the largest ever made in that size with a compatible PATA interface), and because the firmware can't handle that I have replaced it with Rockbox; alternatively, some people have successfully put large CF cards in there which Rockbox can also handle. I originally got it because the stock firmware handled ogg/vorbis, which hardly anything else did - but Rockbox handles pretty much whatever you throw at it. Rockbox is a bit hair-shirt, but I've made a nice theme (for my purposes) for the while-playing screen.

I have well over 2,000 CDs stashed in the device, plus a considerable number of my own concert recordings.

Akima · « **Reply #20 on:** 18 Nov 2016, 21:54 »

Quote from: Tova on 16 Nov 2016, 19:34

What portable gadget do you play your music on?

Like you, I have an iPod Classic. I bought it in... 2008 I think, as a present for my Grandma, but she didn't like it so it came back to me. It's still working, but the battery doesn't hold its charge well any more, and at some point I'll have to replace it. I'd be sorry to lose it, because I have an equally old Bose charger/amp/speaker docking-station into which it fits, and the connection is proprietary to Apple, of course.

Quote from: pwhodges on 17 Nov 2016, 13:36

The A&K range is to droll over.

Having looked at the prices, I think that qualifies as a Freudian slip.

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