Software to easily and quickly browse a sound library (and hear previews)?

[Deozaan]

Hi all,

I've gathered a bit of a sound library which has grown so large over the years that it makes it hard to know what I have, and where. I'd like some software that can help me quickly browse and preview the sound files. Bonus points if it can help me organize (and tag?) the files as well.

When I say "sound library" I don't mean music for personal enjoyment. I mean sound effects, jingles, voice tracks, or audio tracks for video games (or just videos, I suppose).

Surely people who do video editing for a living have some software that helps manage sound libraries. Any suggestions out there for what I can use?

Compatibility with Windows is needed. Preferably free/open source, but I'm open to affordable paid options if you have experience with them and feel they're worth it. This is mostly for hobby stuff, so expensive professional software is probably not feasible for my use case.

Thanks in advance.

[Dormouse]

Reaper has a Media Explorer. It's enough for most users, though some don't like way it looks/works.

Free if you decide to carry on using it without paying after the two months trial,  which is what most users do. As it's a DAW, the media explorer is only a tiny part of its functionality.

Simple it isn't, but I doubt you'd have difficulty with the media explorer.

[4wd]

The standalone version of Daminion (Digital Asset Manager), is still free, (AFAIK), with the restriction of 15000 items per catalogue, (you can have multiple catalogues).

The latest version is available for download here.

[irkregent]

A freeware program named "1by1" might be worth a look:
https://mpesch3.de/1by1.html
I am not sure it handles tagging, but claims to make it quite easy to scroll through files and listen to them.

[anandcoral]

A freeware program named "1by1" might be worth a look:
https://mpesch3.de/1by1.html
I am not sure it handles tagging, but claims to make it quite easy to scroll through files and listen to them.

-irkregent (December 10, 2020, 09:02 AM)

I agree with irkregent and I use 1by1 for such requirement.
Small and fast.

Regards,

Anand

[Deozaan]

Thanks for the suggestions so far! Keep 'em coming!

Reaper has a Media Explorer. It's enough for most users, though some don't like way it looks/works.

-Dormouse (December 08, 2020, 07:15 PM)

The standalone version of Daminion (Digital Asset Manager), is still free, (AFAIK), with the restriction of 15000 items per catalogue, (you can have multiple catalogues).

-4wd (December 09, 2020, 04:11 AM)

These look promising, especially Daminion. I've downloaded them with the intent of checking them out later. But I've got a deadline to meet so I don't feel I have time to really look into these relatively complex potential solutions at the moment. But it's on my to-do list after the next few days. Thanks!

A freeware program named "1by1" might be worth a look:
https://mpesch3.de/1by1.html

-irkregent (December 10, 2020, 09:02 AM)

This one looked small and simple enough that I gave it a try.

It appears to just be an audio player from the website. And it does not work for my needs.

It doesn't appear to list .wav files, which a large portion of my audio collection is comprised of. Additionally, it doesn't seem to support many free/open formats (OGG, FLAC) out of the box. But it does support the proprietary MP3 format. Strange. Usually it's the other way around. Despite this, I did have some .mp3 files in my library that I attempted to test out, but the app just crashed every time I tried to play a file.

[skwire]

It appears to just be an audio player from the website. And it does not work for my needs.

-Deozaan (December 10, 2020, 10:11 AM)

Deo, it needs bass.dll for more format support.  Download this: https://www.un4seen..../download.php?bass24 and put bass.dll in the same folder as 1by1.exe.  Restart 1by1 and you should have much better luck.

[skwire]

@Deo, also, if you need support for more formats, you can grab them at the Un4Seen website: https://www.un4seen.com/   (scroll down to the AddOns section).

[superboyac]

A freeware program named "1by1" might be worth a look:
https://mpesch3.de/1by1.html
I am not sure it handles tagging, but claims to make it quite easy to scroll through files and listen to them.

-irkregent (December 10, 2020, 09:02 AM)

this looks great.  THanks for the suggestion!!

[Deozaan]

Additionally, it doesn't seem to support many free/open formats (OGG, FLAC) out of the box. But it does support the proprietary MP3 format. Strange.

-Deozaan (December 10, 2020, 10:11 AM)

I discovered yesterday that the last patent(s) for MP3 expired in 2017. So I suppose that may explain why MP3 is now supported out of the box.

Deo, it needs bass.dll for more format support.  Download this: https://www.un4seen..../download.php?bass24 and put bass.dll in the same folder as 1by1.exe.  Restart 1by1 and you should have much better luck.

-skwire (December 10, 2020, 01:06 PM)

@Deo, also, if you need support for more formats, you can grab them at the Un4Seen website: https://www.un4seen.com/   (scroll down to the AddOns section).

-skwire (December 10, 2020, 01:09 PM)

Thanks! As I said earlier, I was up against a deadline (which was yesterday) so I didn't have time to fully investigate anything. Now that I can relax a bit and fully look into things, I'll give 1by1 another shot.

[Dormouse]

I noticed that 1by1 has winamp plugin support,
which reminded me
fwiw, that the founder/main developer of Reaper was the founder/original developer of WinAmp (and Gnutella). v1 of Reaper was in 2006, and it's now on v6.

[Deozaan]

fwiw, that the founder/main developer of Reaper was the founder/original developer of WinAmp (and Gnutella). v1 of Reaper was in 2006, and it's now on v6.

-Dormouse (December 13, 2020, 05:46 PM)

I don't know if that's good or bad. The last good version (IMO) of WinAmp was v2.x IIRC.

[Dormouse]

The last good version (IMO) of WinAmp was v2.x IIRC

-Deozaan (December 14, 2020, 01:41 AM)

Winamp 2.10 was released March 1999, and AOL took the company over in June of that year; v3 not coming out until 2002 when AOL itself had merged with Time-Warner.
Gnutella was released in 2000, until AOL ordered it taken down. Thereafter, he released programs, and AOL would take them down until he finally resigned in 2004.
He's shown no sign of ever wanting to sell Reaper.

I don't know if that's good or bad.

-Deozaan (December 14, 2020, 01:41 AM)

So I'd say it should be seen as good.

[Deozaan]

Thanks for the details.

As a general update to this thread: I gave 1by1 another shot and I'm still not very impressed by it, so I've re-added checking out Reaper and Daminion to my to-do list in the hopes of finding something I like better for the task.

[4wd]

There's also VLC, just drop a folder on it and it'll play everything in the folder, jump back (p) and forward (n), and edit the metadata (Ctrl+i).

Just a note about Daminion, it is geared more towards completely managing your media, (all media), so not sure there is a quick preview for audio but there is certainly a lot of tagging you can do.