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For a long time I used MusicMatch Jukebox to play MP3s and I loved it. Lovelovelove. Unfortunately Yahoo bought MusicMatch and they ruined he player completely My installation (which was pro) finally bit the dust and I haven’t yet found a suitable replacement.
The thing I liked about MMJB was the ability to filter and sort by artist, album, genre, etc. individually and in combination. It would also fix the ID3 tags automatically, which was extremely useful. I also like having my playlists and list of my whole library on screen at once.
I’ve fooled around with a couple of players recently. VLC, KM, even Songbird. Nothing really suits, so I hoped you all would have some suggestions. It would also be awesome if it could rip CDs into MP3s.
I’ve heard a lot about foobar2000, though I don’t know if it will do everything you want it to.
Supposedly the interface is customisable and it will rip and tag your music. It may be worth a try.Hmm I know this isn’t much of a suggestion but iTunes (yeah Apple fanboy etc…) also does most of that, filtering by multiple genres, artists and albums. Though it only allows sorting by one column. You can have the whole library on screen as a list. I’m not quite sure what you mean by “I also like having my playlists and list of my whole library on screen at once.”, do you want to have both your entire library and the playlist onscreen, or just a list of the playlists?
It will also rip CD’s into MP3’s though I believe the LAME plug-in is needed if you want the best quality/multi-threaded compression. And it will perform automatic tagging and album art retrieval.
I tend to use iTunes mostly on OS X though (Rhythmbox on Linux), rather than the Windows version which I’ve heard can be a bit slow and use a lot of memory.
Well am using Media Jukebox from J. River
http://www.mediajukebox.com/ which is freeware and they have a paid version J. River Media Center.Also check out Media Monkey.
http://www.mediamonkey.com/
Which is quite popular and they have a freeware and paid also.I use iTunes. I have an old PC which is only used to manage iTunes and transfer stuff to iPods. Works for me.
Another long time Music Match (paid edition) user. I agree it was very flexible and simple to use. Tried pretty much all other jukebox type programs and none compare. Tried iTunes and hated with a passion. Really never did find a suitable replacement. Songbird sounded like it would fill the bill, but it disappointed also. Good luck with your search.
I’m with the iTunes people… but i have to admit that it runs smoother on a Mac.
If you ever plan to get a iPod iTunes will become somewhat mandatory anyway.
I’m not a big fan of “media library” programs; I didn’t even use iTunes on the Mac back when I used one regularly.* Still, I use MediaMonkey for putting stuff on my MP3 player and Winamp (but not the media library) for playing music. They both have media libraries that can do most of the stuff you’ve listed.
* At the time, if you had music files on a drive that wasn’t mounted (like the server with guest access enabled where I keep all my music files) then iTunes would happily delete all the files in your media library instead of trying to mount the drive or asking you what to do. Plus it was a pig compared to whatever program I was using instead, and that machine needed all the help it could get.
Which OS? I’ve used Amarok 1.4.x for a long time and love it. Not too happy with the 2.x interface, but it’ll get better…
[quote1240268716=Xyrox]
Which OS?
[/quote1240268716]I have Win XP on all my machines currently, including the Sammy.
[quote1240268858=BoloMKXXVI]
Another long time Music Match (paid edition) user. I agree it was very flexible and simple to use. Tried pretty much all other jukebox type programs and none compare. Tried iTunes and hated with a passion. Really never did find a suitable replacement. Songbird sounded like it would fill the bill, but it disappointed also. Good luck with your search.
[/quote1240268858]Yeah, I have a burning hatred for iTunes and have heard far too many horror stories to go that route. Songbird really, really let me down That app is really not ready for prime time, is it? Every time I attempted to use it, it would crash. sad.
It sounds like I may never see the likes of MMJB again! That makes me so incredibly sad. I will give some other suggestions a try, though. Thanks everyone! And keep ’em coming.
[quote1240269037=Alfihar]
I’m not quite sure what you mean by “I also like having my playlists and list of my whole library on screen at once.”, do you want to have both your entire library and the playlist onscreen, or just a list of the playlists?
[/quote1240269037]The way MMJB was set up there were 3 parts to the screen. On top all the way across were the player controls, currently playing tracks, etc. The main screen showed the library list — all the music or music filtered however you wanted. On the left it listed all of your playlists, and you could expand tem right in that little window and choose what to play. So all the music and lists I had access to were right on the screen. A lot of programs want to hide this from me. Boo.
Sorry, this might sound confrontational, BUT it really isn’t meant to be..
What are the iTunes horror stories? Perhaps i’m not using it aggressively enough but i’ve not had any problems?
Anyone give us the heads up? KTB??check upthread 🙂 I hear thigs every now and then from friends about iTunes wiping out their library, or erasing things on their iPod, things like that. It’s a complete memory hog, which I only know because I’ve had it on work computers.
iTunes is essentially too damn involved in one’s music. It doesn’t just want to play it, it wants to control it with an iron fist. This is a product of it being tied to the store and to iPod development, but still, ew.
[quote1240357858=ktb]check upthread 🙂 I hear thigs every now and then from friends about iTunes wiping out their library, or erasing things on their iPod, things like that. It’s a complete memory hog, which I only know because I’ve had it on work computers.[/quote1240357858]
Yeah it will erase tracks off of an iPod if they have been removed from the library and it’s setup to synchronise. As for memory I’ve heard the same though I’ve not actually experienced it, my friends who use it under Windows seem pretty happy with it, and my parents never had any issues with it running on their old computer with 512MB RAM.[quote1240357858=ktb]iTunes is essentially too damn involved in one’s music. It doesn’t just want to play it, it wants to control it with an iron fist. This is a product of it being tied to the store and to iPod development, but still, ew.[/quote1240357858]
I personally see this the other way, I let iTunes organise/control my music however it wants. It means the only thing I have to do is pick what I want to listen to. It took me a while to let go of organising my music manually using folders.This isn’t to say iTunes would be a good fit for you though.
Easiest was to manage iTunes is place all your music in a folder on your desktop install iTunes then go into the options and change the settings so it manages the music folder then click file then add folder and add the folder on the desktop. It will add and organize the music into folders by artist and album.
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