For audio and MP3s I still like WinAmp, but for some reason it doesn't love me anymore (system crashes).

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http://www.winamp.com/

I used version 2.4 for a long time with no prob.
Currently using version 5.24
Need to find old version?

http://www.oldversion.com/program.php?n=winamp

Other One that came out recently is called MusikCube

http://www.musikcube.com/

Again does mp3s fine. You could add more audio options but you will need to add additional plug-ins

http://www.musikcube.com/page/plugins

(acc, ogg, flac, wma, wav)

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As you said, you can tell ITunes to import music from one or more folders. If you set a preferences option called "Keep ITunes Library Organized", it will *copy* all the songs it finds into it's central library and structure the folders by artist, album, etc, and rename the files to reflect song title and other things. As long as your music has complete ID3 tags, you're all set. I would think in an hour or two, you could import all of your music into ITunes and then delete all of the originals, since they will by then, already be in the ITunes library (just a directory inside your user directory).

Now, all that being said, some people REALLY dislike ITunes. The primary complaints are that ITunes is totally driven by ID3 tags. There's no easy way to browse lists of file names. You actually look at the music by artist, album, song title, etc. If you are very used to using winamp or other players, this might irritate the hell out of you. Ditto if your music has no ID3 tags, or missing ID3 tags, as you won't be able to find your music.

ITunes also lacks the ability to "monitor a directory" where you put new music that you (ahem) acquire. People that download a lot of music have been asking for this feature for years. I think they are primarily people stealing music, but there may be some legit people that acquire music legally, en masse, in this manner.

Other than those things, I rarely hear other complaints about ITunes. It's free and it works really well.

Note: Be VERY aware of your preferences when importing music. VERIFY that ITunes has done what you expected by either putting it into the ITunes Library directory, or not, based on your preferences. This can get confusing if you don't keep track of what your settings are when you import music.

Dr. P

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I use either an 'iTunes'-look-alike prog on one music-'server' (not used very often), a manufacturer's 'MCE2005'-add-on, or systems consisting of either MCE2005 or Vista Ultimate MediaCenter software (adding primarily the Burwen Bobcat DHD RE/ AudioSplendor audio software suite, ExactAudioCopy audio-software with 'LAME 3.97 SBR' (RazorLame 1.1.5 front-end), Foobar2000 v.0.8.3 (with 'SRC-24/96 upsampler'-plug-in), and using an alternative Windows-ASIO to bypass Windows-KMIXER)

All kinds of codecs (if any) are used, but preferably WAV/AIFF; FLAC is OK also, or MP3 @ 320kbps or 320kbps VBR (min. 192kbps). All downloadable formats are in their infant-years, and a lot of work need to be done on them to have them offer some alternative to original files when replay-quality is concerned.

p_n

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Seen in context with eg. hardware build-Q (electrical/ mechanical & layout) and 'compression-format and -configuration' (to name but two), different media-players aren't a primary-factor when talking about 'hearing differences (if any) in replay-Q'.

When taking care of your basic file-system (being it photos, documents or music), and filing each new item with care and attention, I think nothing will get lost nor will settings deteriorate. Windows MediaPlayer as default player appears to me like a very acceptable prog for what it does.

p_n

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I have been hearing from iTunes users that they haven't updated their players (sometimes in years) to avoid something related to the updated versions. What is it?

Have you heard of prople denying the auto-updates?

Should I look at older versions of iTunes?

Also from my own library I discovered with (some version?) of iTunes that if a song had a really soft intro-outtro it would be missing from the ripped music file from my CDs. Like some of the Crucifucks songs have spoken bits at the beginning and the end and they were gone after the rip from CD. This couldn't possibly be considered a useful feature because it sucks, so it was probably my fault somehow through settings error( I would never have meant to do such a thing). Or do some versions of Itunes delete some of the space at the beginning and end of tracks or have some other clunky issues with ripping?

Edited by - conquistador on 4/16/2007 9:59:48 PM

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Dr. P

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p_n

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However, I think you're being unintentionally unfair to ITunes ripping capabilitites. True, on damaged CDs, with the default settings, ITunes will introduce pops or clicks when it fails to read a bit (or block or whatever) from the CD. However, there's an option called "Use Error Correction when importing Audio CDs", which helps combat this.

Is it as good as EAC? I doubt it and I haven't tested it. I can give you anecdotal evidence though: I have imported (ripped) around 175 of my own CDs with ITunes. I can recall somewhere between 2 and 5 SONGs out of those where I've heard an audio problem related to improper import (clicks and pops). I'd say that's a pretty darned good record. Oh, and I do NOT have the error correction setting turned on, as I've had so little trouble that I was never motivated to activate it, and it slows importing down a bit.

Dr. P

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Even taking account for conquistador's remark "not using any special sound hardware", I'm of the opinion at least providing yourself with as perfect a copy/ rip as possible, as the rip-file will be stored, and we don't want to re-rip when more special/ discriminative sound equipment eventually will be used ... (the decision how to rip keeps its intrinsic consequences over time).
I've done quite some comparative auditions myself lately (most recently done around [ invalid url ]), between ripping-tools/ codecs(-executions)/ replay-tools/ overall system-layout (in a media-(music-)server context), and my decision to use the exact set-up as stated earlier was based on this. As these were my auditions, everybody is advised to execute his/ her own when feeling the need, and of course I'm very interested in learning how eg. iTunes turns out, comparatively, in different auditions.

Concerning the original questions: all music-files on the current system (no matter how "all over the place" ...) can be found using 'instant search' (MediaPlayer v.11: library> instant search> music) or manually (taken from MediaPlayer's [help]-function, in case you didn't know already ... ):

folders to add to MediaPlayer 'monitoring' library:
- click, in MediaPlayer, the arrow below the Library tab, and then click Add to Library.
- in the Add to Library dialog box, click one of the following folders
- click Advanced Options, and then click Add, and specify the location of the folder.
(to prevent files that are smaller than a certain size from being added to the library, enter the file size limits in the Audio files and Video files boxes)
- close and re-open MediaPlayer

One piece of advice *not tried by myself*, is using Advanced WMA Workshop 2.2 on the files considered not-readable now, and use its batch conversion to refresh all tags (is there a share-ware alternative, anybody?).

p_n

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No more microsoft product for me if I can help it, I would be way happier with iTunes then Media player 9+ (which I feel are crippled softwear). I am just not happy with M$ programs based on how often they want to "call home".

(M$ have even claimed that the crashes in recent versions of works are a "feature")

I use
Media Player Classic
though. Excellent program.

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Did you track down all music files by now? And able to play them again?

p_n

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I looked into the iTunes consolidation feature for my music but it turns out I don't actually have the drive space for it to do it's copying routine. Because if I'm reading this stuff right, until I delete my original music files after iTunes has copied them I will have twice as much of my drive space filled with music.

I have (at rough estimate) 50GB of music on this computer on the various drives. And only 16GB of free space on my whole system right now (I have to do some serious house-keeping to do) I have a 300 GB drive for games and video projects, a 300 GB drive for "everything else" and a "seriously old" 80GB drive that my OS is running on that is otherwise filled with the detritus of being the brains in 3 computers since 2003.

Also, if I send iTunes running around my system I am worried that I will, along with my music, have a iTunes playlist *filled* with sounds from all of the games that are on my machine. I've seen this happen, page upon page of "music" that iTunes finds actually being bits of gaming dialogs or sfx. Any way to avoid this? Aside from doing it manually.

So I probably have some work ahead of me if I ever want all this music in one place. Just about all of it is replaceable, in that I could rip/digitize it again. But there lots of old cassettes and records of mine that I digitized in a marathon session last summer. That was a boring process and I don't want to do it again.

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p_n

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1. wampserver - this gives you Apache, PHP and the MySQL database server.

2. jinzora - this creates a streaming media server on your nifty wampserver you just installed

Then I can get to the jinzora page from any machine in the house by going to http:\\mp3server

You can save the m3u files the jinzora creates as playlists. You can even get to your stuff over the Net if you punch the right holes in your firewall at home. You can stick movies (avi, mov, etc.) in there, too, not just mp3 files.

I use "Artist Name\Album Name\Track Number - Track Title.mp3" in my CDex when I rip my audio CDs and my eMusic.com download manager is set to name them the same way.

eMusic is great because they have non-DRM plain old MP3 files you can put on CDs, hard drives, portable players, no limits. Beware, some files are encoded at 128 but c'mon that's good enough for casual listening.

It's all pretty straightforward and works great! Mail me if you're interested. I haven't ever heard back from you so I guess I pissed you off or offended you somehow? Sorry about that if I did. Wasn't my intention.

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eMusic is great indeed, and I've found some other locations like them during last months (mostly pointed towards), making 'downloadable music' (the concept) somewhat easier to chew.

Do you stream files over your network and listen to your PC, or do you have it enriched with clients and output your music into some sort of sound-device (eg. media-engine, DMP)?

p_n

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(This calling out of "lazy bastards" generally has had the opposite of desired effect in the past, yet I continue to throw it out there...)

Edited by - cobalt60 on 4/19/2007 5:16:21 PM

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