Great alternative to iTunes

I think I made a post near the beginning of this thread, proclaiming how satisfied I've been with iTunes.
Well, that's certainly changed after actually spending a bit of time with it on Vista. It's horribly slow compared to running it on my old Windows 2000 desktop PC. Just scrolling down the song list stutters like mad and boost CPU use to absurd levels.
And Cover Flow performs a bit like you would expect Crysis or Bioshock to do on a 400 MHz Pentium 2 machine.

And today I've just been plugging in my iPod for the first time on this Vista laptop. It takes several minutes for iTunes to even register it's there, and I had to give up on an iPod software update as after ten minutes it really looked like it had stalled entirely after downloading the update.

I seriously hope this gets sorted out with future iTunes releases. When almost your entire music collection is bought from the iTunes store (which I rather like, along with my iPod - until I plugged it into Vista anyway ), finding an "alternative" isn't really much of an option.

 

I expect much from iTunes 8! no info on when it'll be released yet

 

iTunes is horrible, always disliked it on XP and its much worse on Vista. Its not even the actual interface or playing music thats poor, just that in 20mins its leaking memory and running incredibly slow. Also not a fan of foobar at all, and frankly I think anyone who's singing iTunes' praises just hasn't used Mediamonkey. It does everything iTunes does better, and then some. You can even skin it and have it work exactly like iTunes. My Mediamonkey looks exactly like the first Zune software (whose design was way ahead of performance) yet works 1000x better.

 

I've heard mediamonkey is full of nag screens. Is that true or is it similar to how people complain that Antivir has alot when it only occurs when you update.

 

The problem is that I want to buy my music online as well - it's 2007, I really don't want to have to go back to CDs.
Aside from the iTunes store, I'm not actually sure what other choices we have here in Denmark.
I was able to find a couple of (seemingly much smaller) online stores, but as they use a DRM protected wma format, that would mean needing two different portable players unless I throw my iTunes collection away.

And no Zune here in Europe until some time next year apparantly. And I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if that time line might only apply to the largest EU countries.

I think I'll just hope for a better iTunes in Vista sooner rather than later. I was perfectly happy with it on Windows 2000 - but running it in Vista is a bit of a joke.

 

I have been using MediaMonkey for a while and have updated to the "Gold" version. But, I don't remember any real nag screens with it. I only thing I can think of that came close was to tell you when the MP3 ripping licence expired.

 

Don't know if anyone mentioned it, but floola isn't bad.

 

Beta-8 released! links in first post!

 

Thanks for the info, they switch beta's so fast i usually have a hard time catching up. But i suggest that you link to the official sites beta link. It'll seem a lot less shady.

 

Could be a Vista problem? iTunes runs fine for me on all my platforms.

Then again, I never really liked iTunes until I got my Mac. It's just so much more integrated on OS X.

And then again, nothing will ever replace Amarok.

 

With foobar2000 I'm waiting till 0.9.5 final is released. The betas are going along at a fast pace so no point installing until it is complete.

 

Im using Windows Media Player and am pretty happy with it. It organizes my music neatly, but still scrolling through Artists and Albums is choppy and Im looking for an alternative.
I have a large library of music.
Will foobar2000 be worth for switching from WMP?
Mind you, I dont want my tags to be touched, they're all perfect.

Give me an alternative, please.

 

Just try out foobar and see if you like it. It's pretty minimalistic but i have a "theme" and it works awesome for me. If all you need it just a music player that plays music good and can have a nice gui then foobar is for you. Otherwise, get something else...but try out foobar first.

 

is there any theme that gives me album art and lets me browse through album covers just like windows media player?

 

foobar is excellent, the best without a doubt. There is a cover flow component but it's incomplete. I'm not sure about being able to browse by album cover. I think it's possible but it would need to be setup.

 

then I'd rather stick with Windows Media Player

 

That's fine. Use whatever you like to use.

 

Beta-9 is released. Link in first post

 

Thanks, downloading it now.

 

For those interested a new version of MediaMonkey is released

Download

I personally don't use it, but this is an "alternative" thread, so thought I'd post it

 

New version of Songbird (Still beta!)

Download

 

Foobar 0.9.5 is now released! No longer beta

Link in first post

Changes since last stable version:

 

I've been using it since beta 3 and i haven't ever had any problems but nice to see it's finally been released.

 

0.9.5.1 beta-1 released

Link in first post

 

Yeah i just saw this a few hours ago but i couldn't find your thread. I might try it out.

 

I do not own an Ipod AKA my answer really doesnt matter. I only will use one media player ever. Mediamonkey Pro. Me and my 15,000 + mp3 collection

 

the km player is the best ever .. try it and u wont regreat iy ...

 

I just use WMP 11.
I like the interface, it isn't as awkward to use as older versions, plus syncs just fine with my zen visiom m (a great alternative to ipods). I dont use the music store though.

 

Ever heard of FreeDB? When you install foobar, make sure you do the full installation - then you can right click and choose "Get Tags from FreeDB" and it should work

And for PUIs, I use foolars. There's also Fooberry (part of teh Johka MSStyle [great style,btw]), but I don't think it's much too different from foolars. Same creator for both of them, IIRC. Calvin uses fooava or something like that, which isn't too bad either.

Yeah I lurv foobar. Got a G-15 lcd component so that it displays track info on my Z-10. Now I just want to be able to manipulate tracks and my foobar setup will be absolutely complete!

 

ive heard foobar has the best audio decoders and therefore noticeably delivers the best sound quality of all players...can anyone confirm or deny this?

also, does foobar have a feature like winamp remote? (winamp remote lets you access your music collection through a web browser as long as your home computer is on and connected to the internet. it also allows you to share your music with your friends.)

 

I confirm it sounds better than WMP or VLC, or any other audio player i've tried (tried many).

 

0.9.5.1 Beta-2 released!

Link in first post

 

I'll wait until around beta 3 before i try this out.

 

Beta 3 never came around, the final came out already. Here's the links.

Download Changelog

 

Thanks man

 

Update the text in the first post. People might get confused.

 

Might check out yamipod. It works as a portable app, so I have it on my iPod and have an autorun.ini file that makes it the default action when i plug in my iPod. It lets me move between work and home computers (or any computer I happen to be on).

 

Foobar2000 0.9.5.2 beta 1 released!

Link in first post

 

I'll check it out when it reaches final.

 

Foobar2000 0.9.5.2 released

Links updated!

 

My huge HUGE collection of MP3s are all stored using the iTunes directory structure. Does any of the alternative choices in this thread use the same setup? It'll be a ***** just to relearn everything again. Oh and what about playlists? and iPod syncing? with artwork support and such?

Thanks

 

Any good media player should be able to scan for music. Let's say you have it in teh "Music" folder, get something like WinAmp and upon installation it'll ask you where to scan for music. For iPod syncing you might want something like Songbird which has MTP support.

 

Foobar seems to be very popular. I must learn how to use it. I downloaded it and just never really had the opportunity to sit and play with it.

 

Foobar2000 0.9.5.3 beta 1

Links in first post updated!

 

i cant seem to get mediamonkey to work on my laptop. i just installed it no more than about 1/2 an hour ago. it just doesn't want to respond.

 

I prefer iTunes of all media player I have played with...
Foobar2000 is just... looks so plain >_< I don't like the interface, and the lack of showing album artwork and inserting one is a pain in the arse!
I try to learn how to control Foobar2000 just because people recommend it for its light resource.. but then.. control and user intuitive is terrible here.

As far as I know, there's SongBird that are closed to iTunes but tagging is horrible here, while Winamp has its plugin for iPod certainly, native iTunes' plugin works better than those plugins...

And yeah, although iTunes a monster-resource.. that's fine cause I know I have 4 GB memory lol...

 

I use iTunes only to manage my imported CDs (mp3 files). Here's the secret - in the preferences, set iTunes to "keep organaized" I think it is, then make every album a compilation through the iTunes interface. Then the folder structure will rearrange so that each album has its own folder, and there is no longer a folder for each "artist".

 

My iTunes has always organized every single Album folder inside of the Artist folder
It's probably the most easy orginization I've ever done cause it did it for me =]
Although it is TERRIBLY slow at times like when your computer is asleep and you leave music running
It can be worth it in the long run just for simplicity of use
I've tried many programs in Linux for using my iPod but it seems NOTHING has worked at all so far
kinda pisses me off cause Wine hates iTunes and won't run it on Ubuntu, I can't do anything its so slow through Wine I want to break stuff and then I would still have time to run 500 miles before it even opens =X

 

Foobar2000 0.9.5.3 beta 2

links updated!

 

I'm currently using MediaMonkey
I think I'll try out foobar
Will it import all my play counts and ratings from my MediaMonkey library?

Plus.....how is foobar with synchronization?