Music Player Recommendations

[Computernaut]

For a long time I have played my music with Windows Media Player, and honestly it has been really good (in my opinion). The thing is, WMP organizes songs according to its "infinite wisdom" which causes a lot of problems with my eclectic collection. I have my own folder structure and usually end up navigating through it with Windows Explorer and opening the file I want, this is okay, but not ideal. Basically I'm looking for a (free) program that allows me to make my own folder structure and organize things regardless of album, artist, or year (especially because WMP often gets these things wrong). A few other nice features would be playback speed adjustment, EQ adjustment, and some type of frequency visualization (both WMP and VLC have this, but the bars go down too slow and I've seen them behave weirdly as if they weren't actually totally legit). WMP is also getting rather dated, and this shows in what it's still really good at: Ripping CDs, I do have some CDs, but not enough that I want to use a program that only works well with them (and WMP has messed up the credentials for my CDs a few times too).

[Enderman]

Why not VLC?

[Armen]

1 hour ago, Computernaut said:

For a long time I have played my music with Windows Media Player, and honestly it has been really good (in my opinion). The thing is, WMP organizes songs according to its "infinite wisdom" which causes a lot of problems with my eclectic collection. I have my own folder structure and usually end up navigating through it with Windows Explorer and opening the file I want, this is okay, but not ideal. Basically I'm looking for a (free) program that allows me to make my own folder structure and organize things regardless of album, artist, or year (especially because WMP often gets these things wrong). A few other nice features would be playback speed adjustment, EQ adjustment, and some type of frequency visualization (both WMP and VLC have this, but the bars go down too slow and I've seen them behave weirdly as if they weren't actually totally legit). WMP is also getting rather dated, and this shows in what it's still really good at: Ripping CDs, I do have some CDs, but not enough that I want to use a program that only works well with them (and WMP has messed up the credentials for my CDs a few times too).

Get Media Player Classic, but I only use that for videos.  For music I use AIMP ,, sometimes use JetAudio as well.

[LogicalDrm]

Foobar2000. Its takes time and effort to configure both theme and all the addons you want to use. But unless you are after something visually pleasing as UI with less effort, it has... <opens foobar>... everything you want. If not by default, then with addons.

[Senpaiuser]

MusicBee is my player of choice. I use it to sync music to my phone which works great

[iBabySlapper]

Yeah, second Logical, Foobar is awesome.

[Computernaut]

13 hours ago, LogicalDrm said:

Foobar2000. Its takes time and effort to configure both theme and all the addons you want to use. But unless you are after something visually pleasing as UI with less effort, it has... <opens foobar>... everything you want. If not by default, then with addons.

 

7 minutes ago, ibabyslapper said:

Yeah, second Logical, Foobar is awesome.

So I've installed Foobar, since it seemed the most versatile of the options suggested, and while I like it, I'm finding that the library browsing block/section feels a bit dated and the text is tiny. Is there a way to fix this in the program as is, or do I need to install a custom UI? And if so, which would you recommend?

[iBabySlapper]

9 hours ago, Computernaut said:

 

So I've installed Foobar, since it seemed the most versatile of the options suggested, and while I like it, I'm finding that the library browsing block/section feels a bit dated and the text is tiny. Is there a way to fix this in the program as is, or do I need to install a custom UI? And if so, which would you recommend?

Oh yeah, it's pretty jarring at first, but you'll get used to it. I just use it as it comes pretty much, I didn't bother using any plugin UI mods. But it is much easier if you do use UI mods, there's a guide here.

Spoiler

 

Edited April 14, 2020 by LogicalDrm
Added spoiler

[Computernaut]

48 minutes ago, ibabyslapper said:

Oh yeah, it's pretty jarring at first, but you'll get used to it. I just use it as it comes pretty much, I didn't bother using any plugin UI mods. But it is much easier if you do use UI mods, there's a guide here.

-snip-

Thanks, that has actually been really helpful, I've played around and gotten a layout I like, but there are a few things though that I still can't figure out how to do: Is there and way to get some type of "Now Playing" bar somewhere? How do I make the buttons bigger? Can I display how far I am through the track (e.g. 2:13/4:08)? Also, how do I get the folder view I was talking about?

[LogicalDrm]

9 hours ago, Computernaut said:

Thanks, that has actually been really helpful, I've played around and gotten a layout I like, but there are a few things though that I still can't figure out how to do: Is there and way to get some type of "Now Playing" bar somewhere? How do I make the buttons bigger? Can I display how far I am through the track (e.g. 2:13/4:08)? Also, how do I get the folder view I was talking about?

Fonts are edited in Prefenrences -> Default User Interface (if you are using it) -> Colors and Fonts. I'll get back to you on buttons. Now playing can be added in multiple places. Both title bar and footer, and in balloon tip/notification area. Even to OSD or using text file to OBS and others like that. For big text panel for Default UI http://foosion.foobar2000.org/components/?id=textdisplay&version=1.0+RC+3 . This is new to me, and probably will help me later when I have time to design minimal layout. The folder structure style of view can be done in two ways. One is with using Album List panel, and setting it to show as folder structure. It will give you tree-style view, but as its not playlist, you need to then drag to playlist from it. The way to show your playlist with folder is to use custom grouping formatting. I found this with help of Google (Hydrogenaudio forums are somewhat official forums for Foobar2k):

$directory_path(%path%)

(or just %path%, for shorter you need to research expression language used as thats beyond me). More about expressions used by Foobar2k https://wiki.hydrogenaud.io/index.php?title=Foobar2000:Title_Formatting_Reference#.25_path_raw.25

 

One component I can recommend is Facets. It gives you kinda Spotify style search over your whole library. With bit customization (or more if you like sleak look), you can have it in filter like style. My current layout is this:

 

E: So read quick about buttons. Apparently with Default UI only way is to change actual button icons to bigger ones. They use .ico format, but you can convert to that using GIMP or Photoshop (and probably Illustrator, Inkscape and likes too). Using the alternative layout, ColumnsUI, you can adjust them with CSS and JavaScript. With few more addons added.

 

Btw, foobar for me uses about 50Mb of RAM. I changed to Foobar some 15 years ago from Winamp because it was way lighter for my then laptop.

Edited April 14, 2020 by LogicalDrm

[Lady Fitzgerald]

I favor VLC because it has the option to normalize volume and it also has dynamic range compression. I haven't found either in other players I've tried. The only downside to VLC is I haven't found any skins for it that I like.

[Computernaut]

On 4/14/2020 at 3:00 AM, LogicalDrm said:

The folder structure style of view can be done in two ways. One is with using Album List panel, and setting it to show as folder structure. It will give you tree-style view, but as its not playlist, you need to then drag to playlist from it. The way to show your playlist with folder is to use custom grouping formatting. I found this with help of Google (Hydrogenaudio forums are somewhat official forums for Foobar2k):

$directory_path(%path%)

(or just %path%, for shorter you need to research expression language used as thats beyond me). More about expressions used by Foobar2k https://wiki.hydrogenaud.io/index.php?title=Foobar2000:Title_Formatting_Reference#.25_path_raw.25

So, by album list panel, do you mean a "Filter" that is set to display the music by album, and if so, how do I set it to folder structure? There doesn't seem to be an option for that.

Using Columns UI, this is my current layout:

 

 

I would like to make the large top area a folder structure just like one would find in Windows Explorer. The section in the bottom left I want to have as a Queue, and the bottom right is fine as is.

[Computernaut]

11 hours ago, LogicalDrm said:

So read quick about buttons. Apparently with Default UI only way is to change actual button icons to bigger ones. They use .ico format, but you can convert to that using GIMP or Photoshop (and probably Illustrator, Inkscape and likes too). Using the alternative layout, ColumnsUI, you can adjust them with CSS and JavaScript. With few more addons added.

So I replaced one of the button icons with a higher resolution one, but the button stayed the same size.

[LogicalDrm]

50 minutes ago, Computernaut said:

So, by album list panel, do you mean a "Filter" that is set to display the music by album, and if so, how do I set it to folder structure? There doesn't seem to be an option for that.

Using Columns UI, this is my current layout:

 

 

 

I would like to make the large top area a folder structure just like one would find in Windows Explorer. The section in the bottom right I want to have as a Queue, and the bottom right is fine as is.

 

I haven't used ColumnsUI in much of extend in years. But I EsPlaylist is what you are looking for. With this kind of grouping setup:

 

But from here on I'm not much of help as I use only DefaultUI. But I can recommend using Google and patience. This software has been around for ages and, like with everything which is made for tweakers, it takes time to get comfortable with.

 

1 minute ago, Computernaut said:

So I replaced one of the button icons with a higher resolution one, but the button stayed the same size.

 

Worked for me using 512x512 sized PNG on ColumnsUI. Its humongos, but works. It also brought other with it to same size, but ofc bit fuzzy as they are 16x16 icons.

[Computernaut]

On 4/14/2020 at 3:16 PM, LogicalDrm said:

I haven't used ColumnsUI in much of extend in years. But I EsPlaylist is what you are looking for. With this kind of grouping setup:

 

But from here on I'm not much of help as I use only DefaultUI. But I can recommend using Google and patience. This software has been around for ages and, like with everything which is made for tweakers, it takes time to get comfortable with.

I've made a thread on the Hydrogenaudio forums about my many problems. I tried what you suggested using EsPlaylist, but it didn't work very well, it had the folders as headings above their contents in one giant long list, not really what I was looking for. I switched back to the default playlist and while it handled the the list better, it was still just that, a long list. Neither of the playlist types handled the sub-folders well.

[Computernaut]

On 4/14/2020 at 3:00 AM, LogicalDrm said:

Fonts are edited in Prefenrences -> Default User Interface (if you are using it) -> Colors and Fonts. I'll get back to you on buttons. Now playing can be added in multiple places. Both title bar and footer, and in balloon tip/notification area. Even to OSD or using text file to OBS and others like that. For big text panel for Default UI http://foosion.foobar2000.org/components/?id=textdisplay&version=1.0+RC+3 .

Is there a way I can do it with Columns UI? Should I perhaps go back to the Default UI since then you would be able to help me more effectively?

[LogicalDrm]

10 minutes ago, Computernaut said:

Is there a way I can do it with Columns UI? Should I perhaps go back to the Default UI since then you would be able to help me more effectively?

Up to you. But I'm not sure if I can help you with the folder-style of things. I have my music in folders by artist and album. If I'd need, I can move them around with Foobars File Operations addon.

[Computernaut]

2 minutes ago, LogicalDrm said:

Up to you. But I'm not sure if I can help you with the folder-style of things. I have my music in folders by artist and album. If I'd need, I can move them around with Foobars File Operations addon.

Do you think that add-on could be useful for what I want, or can it only be used to move/change files?

[LogicalDrm]

9 minutes ago, Computernaut said:

Do you think that add-on could be useful for what I want, or can it only be used to move/change files?

Only for moving files. Copy, move, rename, delete. Since I come from Winamp background, having easy to make and manage playlists is why I like this software. Plus having those nice search features over whole library.