No good Music Player under Mac OS X? [Archive]

ionas

Jun 17, 2004, 08:27 AM

I need a "GOOD" music player for Mac OS X.
No iTunes is no "GOOD" music player - iTunes is yet another player that can only handle a few file formats/codecs and cause of that is utterly bull.

These Formats would be welcome:
* MPEG-4 AAC
* MP3
* MP2
* Musepack
* Ogg Vorbis
* WAV
* FLAC
* Monkey's Audio
* LPAC
* WMA
* AC3

I wish the foobar2000 sdk would be platform independent. :-|
Just look at it - it is supporting dozens of formats and codecs.

http://foobar2000.org/download.html#special

anyone got suggestions which music player can offer what I need?

federalists

Jun 17, 2004, 09:06 AM

you could always add plugins to itunes.

for ogg:
http://www.illadvised.com/~jordy/

there may be others. i haven't checked.

jxyama

Jun 17, 2004, 09:14 AM

man, talk about a trollish title... :D

won't VLC play most any sound files? not sure about WMA, but that's about it, i think...

here: http://www.videolan.org/vlc/features.html

audio codecs supported: mpeg 1 and 2, mp3, ac3, dts, lpcm, aac, vorbis, wma 1/2, adpcm, dv audio, flac, qdm2/qdmc, mace, speex.

i've never heard of half of those codecs, but i'm sure this is a pretty good start for you.

dragula53

Jun 17, 2004, 09:46 AM

you could use windows media player?

or Roxio's Jam?

and I think there is a mac version of winamp called macamp, as well.

DGFan

Jun 17, 2004, 09:50 AM

LOL

What is utterly bull is someone who can't make up their mind what format they want their music in
:rolleyes:

michaelrjohnson

Jun 17, 2004, 10:20 AM

LOL

What is utterly bull is someone who can't make up their mind what format they want their music in
:rolleyes:

Well Put.

Flowbee

Jun 17, 2004, 10:39 AM

There's only one reason for wanting to play all of those formats: Geek bragging rights.

LeeTom

Jun 17, 2004, 11:16 AM

Have you tried Audion?

http://panic.com/audion/

Lee Tom

wowser

Jun 17, 2004, 11:20 AM

Yeah, i hear there is one called 'The Moon on a Stick Player' :p

7on

Jun 17, 2004, 11:39 AM

Meh, use Quicktime Player as a player and iTunes as an organizer. I don't have anything set to play in iTunes because of the "copy to library" property it has. Must be the reason it's called Quicktime PLAYER instead of just Quicktime. And all Quicktime needs are codecs put in the ~/Library/Quicktime folder. WMA won't play in anything but WMP. Which is why iTunes has a built in ability to convert wma into your default import setting.

michaelrjohnson

Jun 17, 2004, 11:42 AM

Meh, use Quicktime Player as a player and iTunes as an organizer. I don't have anything set to play in iTunes because of the "copy to library" property it has. Must be the reason it's called Quicktime PLAYER instead of just Quicktime.

I'm pretty sure you can disable that function.

"Preferences" > "Advanced" > Uncheck "Copy files to iTunes Music folder when adding to Library"

legion

Jun 17, 2004, 11:50 AM

You can turn the copy to library function off in iTunes. Also, iTunes just uses the Quicktime player as the engine... so in essence you are just recommending iTunes again. The other thing about QT is that is doesn't support that many formats (the codecs don't exist in qt format)

7on

Jun 17, 2004, 11:51 AM

I'm pretty sure you can disable that function.

"Preferences" > "Advanced" > Uncheck "Copy files to iTunes Music folder when adding to Library"

Still adds them to the library XML file.

You can turn the copy to library function off in iTunes. Also, iTunes just uses the Quicktime player as the engine... so in essence you are just recommending iTunes again. The other thing about QT is that is doesn't support that many formats (the codecs don't exist in qt format)

Ugh... no I'm not. True they're the same engine, but it's a different program. It's like saying Mail and Safari are the same because they both use the same HTML rendering. QT supports just as many codecs as any other player. You just got to find them.

Savage Henry

Jun 17, 2004, 12:00 PM

Yeah, i hear there is one called 'The Moon on a Stick Player' :p

That took me back ... (assuming I read the 'Lee and Herring' reference correctly!)

Even if there was such an all-format encompassing player, I very much doubt the quality will be of any resonable standard.

laserbeahm

Jun 17, 2004, 12:08 PM

Just convert all your music to MP3.

MacDawg

Jun 17, 2004, 12:22 PM

Where would somebody find music in all of these obscure formats?? And are there any advantages to having them in those formats over a more standard format?

stevietheb

Jun 17, 2004, 12:59 PM

AAC, AIFF, SHN, FLAC -- what more do you need?

Of course, I'm an anal neat-freak and all of these file types are used for very specific functions. Any files I receive that are not of these types get converted to these types.

For my part, I'm an iTunes fan. Is there any reason, aside from issues with audio format, that people don't care for iTunes?

I've never really used Quicktime for anything other than watching movies one at a time. Is there some way to do an audio playlist with QT player?

ionas

Jun 17, 2004, 01:45 PM

ionas

Jun 17, 2004, 01:48 PM

There's only one reason for wanting to play all of those formats: Geek bragging rights.

yeah - i am kind a geeky
any problems with that?

since mac os x "real professionals" (=geeks) are switching as wel ;p

wowser

Jun 17, 2004, 04:04 PM

That took me back ... (assuming I read the 'Lee and Herring' reference correctly!)

Wow! I knew only a Mac user could appreciate the genius of this show! "I am the Lord of the Dance Setee!"

solvs

Jun 17, 2004, 05:02 PM

iTunes is rubbish, sorry guys :)

Well, it may not suit your needs, but I wouldn't call it rubbish. WMP as my player and iTunes as my Jukebox on my PC. QT and iTunes on the Mac. Works great for me.

Plugins are good, but I second VLC (or Mplayer).

iindigo

Jun 17, 2004, 05:04 PM

Just because iTunes handle every little obscure file format out there doesn't mean it's a bad player. :rolleyes: Expecting it to play that many formats is about kin to expecting it to play vinyl and reel-to-reels.

And I agree with everyone else - Why on earth do you need that many formats? 320k AACs or Apple Lossless should be fine, as they sound almost exactly like the CD. If you're really THAT concerned about quality and have the HD space I'd recommend you just transfer to AIFFs and get it over with...

LeeTom

Jun 17, 2004, 05:12 PM

I guess i will be using xmms, MPlayer for Mac OS X and Video Lan Client.
iTunes is rubbish, sorry guys :)
Audium is shareware - hum - well if it was superb like foobar2000 - then maybe - but it is not.

Audion may be shareware, but it is good.

iTunes is great for those of us that collect albums as opposed to songs. I've got over 400 albums from my personal collection all in there and on my ipod. pretty slick for me.

Lee Tom

DGFan

Jun 17, 2004, 05:43 PM

I guess i will be using xmms, MPlayer for Mac OS X and Video Lan Client.
iTunes is rubbish, sorry guys :)
Audium is shareware - hum - well if it was superb like foobar2000 - then maybe - but it is not.

I think it's pretty immature to declare something "rubbish" just because it lacks a feature you want. That would be like calling you a "loser" because you're not 6'2".

wowser

Jun 17, 2004, 05:54 PM

The only other file i would like iTunes to play would be .shn files. I mean, what the hell is 'Monkey's Audio'?

mainstreetmark

Jun 17, 2004, 06:44 PM

The only other file i would like iTunes to play would be .shn files. I mean, what the hell is 'Monkey's Audio'?

Yeah, Flac and Shn would have been a great welcomed feature, versus yet-another lossless format that only Apple knows about.

bnemesis

Jun 19, 2004, 12:25 AM

if the original poster has Fink or darwin ports installed, they could just install XMMS. It has of the neccesary codecs. (at least on my debian box, it does.) I had to add a plugin for Musepak (so i could encode to aac :p )

brap

Jun 19, 2004, 07:47 AM

The only other file i would like iTunes to play would be .shn files. I mean, what the hell is 'Monkey's Audio'?
Monkey's Audio files are another lossless format, IIRC better & faster compression than both Shorten and FLAC. I used it to encode all my cds onto DVD before University. Proper fast encoding, and they don't need to be fully decompressed before use.
Can't remember how i listened to them on my Mac, though :-/
I used Whamb player (http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/16817) for quite a while, have a look. For XMMS users it should feel slightly more like home than iTunes.

mkrishnan

Jun 19, 2004, 08:18 AM

What about Toast with Jam? I just read the review that MacBytes linked and it sounds like it has some pretty cool features (track-by-track fades and transitions to burnt CD, and post-processing of the rips being high on the list). Anyone have any experience with this?

It's PC world, but oddly enough the review seems to be 90% written from experiences running Toast on an iBook. ;) EDIT: Oh, I see, the column's called Mac Skeptic. Cute.

http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/article/0,aid,116507,00.asp

FelixDerKater

Jun 19, 2004, 10:10 AM

WHAT are you doing that would require you to use all of those formats?

ingenious

Jun 20, 2004, 10:01 PM

There's only one reason for wanting to play all of those formats: Geek bragging rights.

In other words, no real reason not to use iTunes, which is a good player.

Eothred

Feb 27, 2009, 08:36 AM

I just installed songbird, seems to have some of the qualities you requested. Worth a try I think. I found itunes not to be usable for me as well, mainly for it's lack of (automatic) flac support (I have my entire library in this format)

edit: haha, didn't see the age of this thread.. oh well, hope you found something by now :P

boast

Feb 27, 2009, 11:32 AM

I think banshee is great, if only I could get hotkeys for it. So im waiting on amarok, hope it supports hotkeys.

nruth

Apr 26, 2009, 11:04 PM

xdcdx

May 14, 2009, 09:31 AM

Vox looks nice!

Macamp Lite X is still offered for free by their developers, although no development and support is being done.

- http://www.macamplite.com/

spinnerlys

May 14, 2009, 09:39 AM

Excuse me, but how do you find those old threads to post in?

Do a search first for already knowing the answer you want to give?

Is that some kind of spam?

danny_w

May 14, 2009, 09:41 AM

A perfectly valid reason for not using iTunes is that it wants to add things to the library instead of just playing files it is given. When you want to work with 200gb+ of tracks already sorted by directory on external drives this just doesn't work.

I have found library based mp3 players abhorrent since their conception and generally avoided them. It's a shame winamp isn't available for OSX, name aside it is my favourite option for windows. I don't like foobar for the same reasons I got a mac instead of using Ubuntu.

Anyway, opinions aside, check out Vox. It's a small simple work-in-progress Mac player (for many formats).

http://www.voxapp.net/
If you don't want iTunes to copy tracks to its library then simply turn off that feature. Under iTunes->Preferences->Advanced, uncheck the box that says "Copy files to iTunes Music folder when adding to library". It will still add them to the library, but leave the files in place where they are.

sushi

May 14, 2009, 09:49 AM

What is utterly bull is someone who can't make up their mind what format they want their music in :rolleyes:
Agree.

Personally, I decided that MP3 was the best for me since it was format that would play on any player without additional CODECs or what have you.

So every music file I convert to MP3 if it isn't already there. The exception are the iTMS tracks that I have downloaded which are few.

I guess some folks just want to be able to play any format.

levicsofi

Oct 27, 2009, 10:22 AM

If you don't want iTunes to copy tracks to its library then simply turn off that feature. Under iTunes->Preferences->Advanced, uncheck the box that says "Copy files to iTunes Music folder when adding to library". It will still add them to the library, but leave the files in place where they are.

It is one answer what is bad in itunes: you can check a box, which says copy files to library, but whatever you do with the checkbox it will copy your music into library. Why?

I love Mac, but itunes does not respect me as a user. I do have music on CD-s. I can put it on my car and it will play it without put anything to library, create playlist, whatever. I just put the CD in the car and it will play. However I can choose between my folders. Easy and good.

In itunes I need to create a playlist, it will put it into the library (what i do not like) and I cannot see my folders (what I need, because I actually created my playlists: I put music into folders).

However I do have many problems with the interface. I like my music in wav format, but it is too big, so I create an mp3 copy for my phone... (you will have duplicate copy in your library, create new playlist, fill the mp3 tags to be able to see your stuff organized, you need to change the grab format, you need to do unnecessary steps...)

So if anyone have good music player to Mac I am curious ...

Thanks

MWPULSE

Oct 27, 2009, 10:38 AM

peolple on here have already suggested songbird, if you want to convert something, i used to use switch to convert WMA, but then i ran out of files to convert so didnt need it no more. VLC will play FLAC, Lossless, wav, aiff, mp3. in fact it pretty much more or less plays anything under the sun. it may not be the most attractive thing in the world. but it works.

I personally like itunes alot better than anything else out there atm. its a darnsight more reliable than WMP was in vista, or XP. Although i hear winamp is supposedly good nowadays in windows :-)

PTP

levicsofi

Oct 27, 2009, 11:17 AM

winamp is ok for windows. It is not run under Mac

My first need is a good player, which can does what my car player can: put mp3 cd and listen without do anything else.

I will try songbird. Thanks

Consultant

Oct 27, 2009, 11:31 AM

WHAT are you doing that would require you to use all of those formats?

Sounds like pirating and too lazy to convert the formats.

For some reason the music i BUY are in Mp4, MP3, or loseless (CDs), supported by iTunes.

pmullins11

Oct 27, 2009, 03:31 PM

Cog (http://cogx.org/) is about as close to Foobar as you're going to get using a Mac. It supports the following: Ogg Vorbis, Mp3, Flac, Musepack, Monkeys Audio, Shorten, Wavpack, AAC, Apple Lossless, Wave/AIFF, Video Game (nsf, gbs, gym, spc, vgm, hes, and more!), and Tracker (it, s3m, xm, mod).

THX1139

Oct 27, 2009, 03:59 PM

It cracks me up that people are replying to posts that are 5 years old like they were made yesterday.

levicsofi

Oct 28, 2009, 06:45 AM

Sounds like pirating and too lazy to convert the formats.

For some reason the music i BUY are in Mp4, MP3, or loseless (CDs), supported by iTunes.

Music i BOUGHT is on CD-s (or on LP), but i do not want to take thousands of CD-s, when i cycling, skating or driving a car or do whatever, so i created my own mp3 collections, which are on mp3 cd or pendrive or sd card. I can reorganize my music again, but i don't want to. You don't need to be criminal to have trouble with itunes...

levicsofi

Oct 28, 2009, 08:25 AM

It cracks me up that people are replying to posts that are 5 years old like they were made yesterday.

itunes has the same problems now, what it had 5 years ago...

However I need to install an itunes update almost every month...

wrldwzrd89

Oct 28, 2009, 04:08 PM

I am a big fan of Vox, but it doesn't work on Snow Leopard, at least for me :(

mirkochip

Feb 3, 2010, 06:15 AM

I am a big fan of Vox, but it doesn't work on Snow Leopard, at least for me :(

Hi, I am searching for Vox, but I am not able to find it because the official web page appears broken..

Something of wrong? Any Idea?

wrldwzrd89

Feb 3, 2010, 07:14 AM

Hi, I am searching for Vox, but I am not able to find it because the official web page appears broken..

Something of wrong? Any Idea?
The site moved, here (http://www.voxapp.uni.cc/).

SaSaSushi

Feb 3, 2010, 07:16 AM

Hi, I am searching for Vox, but I am not able to find it because the official web page appears broken..

Something of wrong? Any Idea?

The website's (http://www.voxapp.uni.cc/) seems to be working fine for me. ;)

Osamede

Apr 16, 2010, 05:51 PM

Any update on this? I'm looking at buying a macbook pro but not interested if I have to spend years transcoding my FLAC files. Is there a plugin for Itunes/quicktime that will read FLAC there days?

synth3tik

Apr 16, 2010, 05:56 PM

Why not convert all files to similar types. I don't have any problems playing ogg or flc files, because I convert them to either AIFF or MP4.

Simple, and then one doesn't have to deal with a ton of different file types.

gnasher729

Apr 16, 2010, 06:39 PM