Author Topic: Best jukebox that is NOT iTunes? (Read 42424 times)

moerl · « **on:** September 23, 2006, 02:31 AM »

I'm looking for the best music jukebox application for Windows. I'm currently using MediaMonkey but can't say that I'm all that impressed. iTunes' interface really is great, and I just like the way it lists artists in the top left, albums in the top middle and songs in the top right.. and then just gives you the list of everything in the biggest space on the bottom. It makes sense. It's also how the amazingly good music player musikCube's interface is organized. It makes sense because it allows for fast and effective browsing of your music library. MediaMonkey has no such view and what it offers simply is not that impressive to me. MediaMonkey has also thrown duplicate music files on my player here and there and offers no feature to rid your player OR library of duplicates. The reason I ask, clearly, for an alternative to iTunes is because I don't use an iPod. I use a Creative Zen Vision: M and am on the lookout for the best digital music manager out there.

I'm not familiar with MP3 Collector by Collectorz.com, haven't tried AlbumPlayer recently, haven't touched JetAudio in quite a while, don't much care for QMP at the moment because it's STILL in beta, and well.. that's about what I'm aware of. I'm sure there are a few more somewhere in the back of my mind that I can't recall. Be that as it may, I now turn to you to find out what you use to organize your MP3's and sync them with your NON-iPod player if you have one.

I need NO tagging features by the way.. I'm all covered by MusicBrainz' Picard tagger as well as MP3Tag for those manual tagging jobs. That doesn't mean I'm looking for solutions that LACK features related to tagging specifically.. not at all, if that's in there, hey, that's cool. It makes sense for tagging features to be included in software that's supposed to help you manage your music library. All I'm saying is that I don't need those features

Suggestions?

mrHappy · « **Reply #1 on:** September 23, 2006, 03:13 AM »

Haven't tried it myself, so I have no idea of how good it is... or if it's actually any good at all.
It's like itunes, just made in XUL
Songbird

edit by jgpaiva: fixing link

Carol Haynes · « **Reply #2 on:** September 23, 2006, 03:25 AM »

If you use a Creative Zen why not use Creative MediaSource player which comes on the Zen disc and also allows you to sync up with the Zen seamlessly.

The only reason I have iTunes on my system is because I have some protected iTunes store music and Audible audio books otherwise it would be off my system. It is a total resource hog (version 6) frequently bringing the system to a complete standstill - and from what I have read version 7 is even worse.

moerl · « **Reply #3 on:** September 23, 2006, 03:28 AM »

Haven't tried it myself, so I have no idea of how good it is... or if it's actually any good at all.
It's like itunes, just made in XUL
Songbird
-dev/null (September 23, 2006, 03:13 AM)

That's one of those that was also in the back of my mind and that I failed to mention. I'm aware of Songbird. It looks great. Problem is: it does not support synching with portable music players yet. It's got just about everything else, but not that crucial feature.

Judging by this page, MediaSource player really is nothing special: http://www.creative....s/musicdownloads.asp
Creative on the whole is not exactly known for making good software, either

Eóin · « **Reply #4 on:** September 23, 2006, 03:46 AM »

I use musikCube but not sure if it's powerful enough for what you want.

Carol Haynes · « **Reply #5 on:** September 23, 2006, 05:19 AM »

Creative on the whole is not exactly known for making good software, either smiley

I agree ... but I do think they have improved a bit in recent years. The reason I suggested MediaSource is simply that it is there, free and integrates well with Creative products such as the Zen range of MP3 players and it is easy to create and maintain playlists.

housetier · « **Reply #6 on:** September 23, 2006, 10:04 AM »

back in the days of yore... I used to use dbpoweramp

Carol Haynes · « **Reply #7 on:** September 23, 2006, 11:19 AM »

dbpoweramp is still out there but I don't like the MP3 player interface (couldn't get it to work with my Zen Micro at all)

mukestar · « **Reply #8 on:** September 23, 2006, 11:30 AM »

Dont know what to say about the jukebox software because quite frankly havent found anything has a better interface than itunes, specially with large collections. Ive` got a creative ZEN and i use itunes to listen play on my machine and red chair softwares excellent notmad to deal with all the transfering and syncing.

http://www.redchairsoftware.com/

moerl · « **Reply #9 on:** September 23, 2006, 11:53 AM »

Dont know what to say about the jukebox software because quite frankly havent found anything has a better interface than itunes, specially with large collections. Ive` got a creative ZEN and i use itunes to listen play on my machine and red chair softwares excellent notmad to deal with all the transfering and syncing.

http://www.redchairsoftware.com/
-mukestar (September 23, 2006, 11:30 AM)

Oh boy.. an interface that ties into Windows Explorer.. :/. Not sure about that. It doesn't look special, really.. at least judging by the screenshots.

I guess I'll stick to MediaMonkey for now.

mukestar · « **Reply #10 on:** September 23, 2006, 11:58 AM »

um, well it integrates with the windows shell yes. Have you actually read what it does.

urlwolf · « **Reply #11 on:** September 23, 2006, 02:52 PM »

I still like MediaMonkey the best.

moerl · « **Reply #12 on:** September 23, 2006, 06:04 PM »

um, well it integrates with the windows shell yes. Have you actually read what it does.
-mukestar (September 23, 2006, 11:58 AM)

That's the part I dislike. I'd prefer for this type of app to have its own interface without tying into Windows Explorer. What good does that do, anyway? I might try it out, actually, just to see for myself how it works..

moerl · « **Reply #13 on:** September 23, 2006, 06:05 PM »

I must add to that that Notmad is getting very good reviews: http://www.redchairs...com/notmad/raves.php
I'll try it out and see for myself.

Darwin · « **Reply #14 on:** September 23, 2006, 06:17 PM »

I'm actually quite impressed by the Creative MediaSource Player. Like Carol, I've only got iTunes hanging around because I have purchased some songs through it. If I was really keen, I'd burn them onto CD and then re-rip them in unprotected format and convert to mp3 then lose iTunes. But I'm a lazy so and so...

kimmchii · « **Reply #15 on:** September 23, 2006, 06:43 PM »

foobar.

mouser · « **Reply #16 on:** September 23, 2006, 06:48 PM »

i was turned on to musikcube by f0dder in an old post on this forum, and moved to it from foobar. it has some jukebox functionality and is very clean and elegant:

http://www.musikcube.com/

see:
https://www.donation...dex.php?topic=1809.0
https://www.donation...dex.php?topic=2684.0

moerl · « **Reply #17 on:** September 23, 2006, 07:49 PM »

I know something you don't

. musikCube 1.0 final should be done within the next 8 weeks. Nothing terribly exciting, but I'm just saying.. I found it in mC's IRC channel, where the program's author told me

mC is one amazing music player. It doesn't recognize my Zen as a device though.. and that's too bad. Otherwise I'd say mC is all I'd need! I really hope mC development picks up in the future

brett · « **Reply #18 on:** September 23, 2006, 11:10 PM »

Excellent news about mC.
I have used mcube for around 3years and was watching this thread with interest as I thought there was no more development.

I will NOT be changing now, look forward to the final release.

thanks
dB

moerl · « **Reply #19 on:** September 23, 2006, 11:34 PM »

Glad to hear

. The author's very busy and mC's development has really been a tough process.. I also learned that mC v2.0 plans have already been made. It has been looked into, discussed to some degree.. and that's all there is. There sure as hell aren't any solid plans for it AFAIK, but what's important to note is that thoughts about it have been had by people who could make it a reality. It's a nice thought! Still.. let's look forward to v1.0 and hope that development continues

KenR · « **Reply #20 on:** September 24, 2006, 12:26 AM »

Media Center is my favorite. I've used it for years and it's constantly being updated. It will even sync with my iRiver mp3 player. The only other program that will (and what iRiver says to use) is Windows Media Player.

Ken

Renegade · « **Reply #21 on:** September 24, 2006, 10:58 AM »

I have zero loyalty to software when I find something better... But at the moment, this is my list of media players & what I'll use them for, and WHY:

Player	Used For	Why
ALSong	Listening to music	The PLAYLIST makes life easy. Worlds beyond anything else out there that I've seen. I can't tell you how much I love the playlist...
Music Match Jukebox	Alarm clock	I need to get up in the morning
PowerDVD 4	DVDs	It works (but crashes when I click stop), and it was free with my DVD burner
ALShow	Videos	It's just easy to use and plays everything I need (DVD support is sketchy, hence PowerDVD)
Real Player	Some RealMedia files	Nothing else works properly
iTunes	Synching podcasts with my iPod Nano	Too lazy/busy to try an alternative.
Foobar2000	Anything that doesn't work in another player	Good file support
Windows Media Player	Verifying files	Just to check that files work in it

Most of those are all quite good at what they do (iTunes excluded). Each of them has their shortcomings, and strengths.

Just so you know, I work for the company that produces ALSong and ALShow. I use them both at home (ALShow at home mostly, and ALSong at the office.) I listen to music 9+ hours a day. I've tried to be fair in my assessment, but take it as you will.

I have not ordered those.

I have not tried MediaCube or some others. I do like nice interfaces and am willing to sacrifice some functionality for usability in consumer level software. (Professional level software is a different story.) e.g. Foobar2000 has very good functionality, but lacks some usability. So that's a 'fallback' application for me. Access is highly usable, but I prefer MS SQL Server as it's just better for everything that I need.

mouser · « **Reply #22 on:** September 27, 2006, 03:09 PM »

Nice review of MediaMonkey:
http://createdigital...d-library-organizer/

grantw7 · « **Reply #23 on:** October 28, 2006, 07:24 PM »

I just tried most out - MediaMonkey was my choice as I have files spread over 6 hard drives & the first thing it wanted to do when I launched it was find them all for me.

TomColvin · « **Reply #24 on:** July 15, 2007, 05:50 PM »

I bought a Creative ZEN and installed Creative MediaSource Player on my laptop. Immediately I experienced the worst crash I've ever experienced. Thank goodness for XP's rollback feature.

Since the crash, I've been at a loss about how to proceed with the ZEN. Any ideas?

BTW, I've reviewed relevant threads here and have downloaded mp3tagr and XMplay, which I'll install momentarily. So much for my other projects today...

Tom