KVR Audio

memyselfandus · Post by **memyselfandus** » Fri Dec 14, 2012 4:04 pm

What Media Player do you use for playing music? anything better than Media Monkey? I tried it and it was close but..

werp · Post by **werp** » Fri Dec 14, 2012 4:06 pm

Itunes on shuffle.
I don't have to think at all.

chk071 · Post by **chk071** » Fri Dec 14, 2012 4:09 pm

Foobar2000

Takes almost no system ressources, is highly customisable in terms of GUI, and can do a lot of things including file conversion, has an equalizer and a lot of 1st and 3rd party plugins can be integrated in it too.

robogone · Post by **robogone** » Fri Dec 14, 2012 4:13 pm

VLC is pretty good if you want something with a lot of bundled codecs

Jbravo · Post by **Jbravo** » Fri Dec 14, 2012 4:29 pm

Winyl - simple no frills

memyselfandus · Post by **memyselfandus** » Fri Dec 14, 2012 4:29 pm

would be cool to have something that will shuffle by album.

cron · Post by **cron** » Fri Dec 14, 2012 4:43 pm

I'm a fan of Winamp, but I use the ultra minimal old-school 2.x style skin because I don't use the library features. I prefer to just keep my music sorted into folders and drag them in. Windows Explorer is my media library in that sense. Foobar is great too. I've had a look at it myself but I'm too set in my ways with Winamp to change over now. I occasionally use Foobar for its excellent tagging features though, and it's also a great encoder. I'd probably recommend it over Winamp to somebody looking for something new in all honesty, since it's only familiarity that's stopped me switching.

I have iTunes on my computer solely for managing my iPod. Can't stand it otherwise. So bloated, and I'm not a fan of huge GUIs that eat the entire screen.

edit: I think there's a plug-in available for Foobar which adds WASAPI support, allowing Foobar to bypass the Windows mixer and send bit-exact output directly to the DAC. Might be something to think about if you're an audiophile who's into that kind of thing.

memyselfandus · Post by **memyselfandus** » Fri Dec 14, 2012 4:49 pm

"edit: I think Foobar also supports WASAPI output modes which bypass the Windows mixer and send bit-identical output directly to the DAC. Might be something to think about if you're an audiophile who's into that kind of thing."

I am interested in this. I buy cds and convert them to wav or flac right away. I use a RME soundcard.

Looks like media monkey supports WASAPI
http://www.head-fi.org/t/531840/mediamo ... api-output

memyselfandus · Post by **memyselfandus** » Fri Dec 14, 2012 4:56 pm

anyone know how to "shuffle" by album with foobar or media monkey? meaning play a whole album at random. and by Genre?? that would be awesome!

I personally don't care for itunes. low audio quality...... bloated...

I would consider myself a Audiophile. no mp3/itunes ect

cron · Post by **cron** » Fri Dec 14, 2012 4:58 pm

Sounds like it'll be up your street then! Google WASAPI Foobar and have a look. It's an external plug-in that you'll need, but they're easy to install. I had to install a plug-in to play Shorten (an ancient lossless codec) once and it was just drag and drop into the plug-ins folder if I remember rightly. I assume at least some other players have WASAPI plug-ins available (or ASIO plug-ins, which I believe will give the same result), but Foobar is the only one I know of personally.

One last thing. If you're going to give Foobar a go, bear in mind that the GUI is hugely configurable. You can select which elements you'd like to have visible, where you want them, adjust their sizes... there's nothing else quite like it in that regard. The downside is that it can be a little tricky to get things as you want them. There are some useful presets to use as starting points though, and I'm sure there are plenty of tutorials about. I had an idle go at it once but couldn't figure out how to delete seperators.

memyselfandus · Post by **memyselfandus** » Fri Dec 14, 2012 5:01 pm

Awesome! thanks cron

the only thing I couldn't figure out in foobar, was making the "text" larger on the main screen for the audio file info. It seemed to want to hang out on the top left area. just a nitpick. and I'm sure I can customize that also.

cron · Post by **cron** » Fri Dec 14, 2012 5:02 pm

Looks like Foobar can do the album thing. From the Foobar FAQ: http://www.foobar2000.org/FAQ

"What's the purpose of Shuffle (albums) and Shuffle (directories) modes?

These modes can be used to reorder your playlist on album basis rather than track basis and play tracks in each album in sequential order. Shuffle (albums) is usable when your files are tagged properly ("%album artist% | %date% | %album%" evaluates to unique value for each of your album and doesn't vary between tracks in one album); Shuffle (directories) is meant as a fallback when your tagging scheme renders Shuffle (albums) useless but you keep each album in a separate folder. Note that the album identification pattern can be customized in 'Preferences → Advanced → Playback → Shuffle → Album grouping pattern'."

memyselfandus · Post by **memyselfandus** » Fri Dec 14, 2012 5:03 pm

cron wrote:Looks like Foobar can do the album thing. From the Foobar FAQ: http://www.foobar2000.org/FAQ

"What's the purpose of Shuffle (albums) and Shuffle (directories) modes?

These modes can be used to reorder your playlist on album basis rather than track basis and play tracks in each album in sequential order. Shuffle (albums) is usable when your files are tagged properly ("%album artist% | %date% | %album%" evaluates to unique value for each of your album and doesn't vary between tracks in one album); Shuffle (directories) is meant as a fallback when your tagging scheme renders Shuffle (albums) useless but you keep each album in a separate folder. Note that the album identification pattern can be customized in 'Preferences → Advanced → Playback → Shuffle → Album grouping pattern'."

NICE!! thanks a ton! I would just need it to shuffle by folder/album. going to try it later

aMUSEd · Post by **aMUSEd** » Fri Dec 14, 2012 5:13 pm

On my old laptop I use XBMC to make it into a media centre - you can even run it as the shell! It plays anything and can be skinned and looks great. It also plays any visualisations and has tons of plugins to access things like iPlayer and even Soundcloud from within the interface.

memyselfandus · Post by **memyselfandus** » Fri Dec 14, 2012 5:14 pm

aMUSEd wrote:On my old laptop I use XBMC to make it into a media centre - you can even run it as the shell! It plays anything and can be skinned and looks great. It also plays any visualisations and has tons of plugins to access things like iPlayer and even Soundcloud from within the interface.

very cool!

any recommendations on visual plugins?

Best Media Player for Audio?